After much anticipation, well, there will be a little bit more – but according to Amazon, the “Honda CBF125 Service and Repair Manual: 2009 to 2011″ will be published on the 14th of February 2012. Only five months to go then! Still, at least we all know there will be one. I’ll wake the Prime Minister, can you please alert the media?
I haven’t deleted half of the site, just been having a little tidy-up or ‘reconsolidation’ if you’re of the managerial ilk! The blog has been getting overcrowded with my long posts so I’ve been doing a little ‘snippy snippy’ here and there. Notice the ‘Continue Reading’ links under each post… there you’ll find the meaty stuff. Also look at the menu above – where you can quickly access posts that are relevant to the category you want. Just hover over the ‘My CBF125′ menu to see what I’m going on about…
Due to the fact that the CBF125 has no form of visible filtering for petrol, either in the tank (the only part you can take out of the tank is the fuel level float/sensor) or rest of the system (fuel pump is a sealed, replaceable unit and cannot be disassembled), I, and many others have felt it best to add an in-line filter to the fuel hose running from the tank to the fuel pump. Continue reading
Well Saturday came and went, and by the end of last week the bike had reached its second service interval (if you go by the book!). Unfortunately no pictures or detailed how-to’s this time as the work involved was quite basic, and more importantly, my Wife had ‘borrowed’ the camera! Continue reading
Had the fuel pump replaced under warranty yesterday morning, due to the infamous ‘kangarooing’ issue that has been plaguing these bikes. Although it only happened to me once, I though it’d be better to be safe than sorry. Continue reading
Here’s what I did…
Forget tapping off the headlight, auxiliary or tail light – they’re all powered directly from the alternator itself. You need a stable 12 volt feed from the battery, preferably switched by the ignition. Ideally you also don’t want to be butchering the wiring loom and you want to find somewhere that’s relatively well shielded from the elements, AND which leaves you with the option of easily removing your connections and restoring the electrical system back to an unmodified original state with next-to no effort as all.Ladies and gentlemen, I believe I have found this holy grail! Continue reading
Fork gaiters are fantastic. I absolutely love them. Why? Because in 40’000 miles and 3 winters I never had to touch the fork seals or stanchions on the YBR as I had fitted a pair of these! They provide protection against the elements and more importantly, stone chippings flicked up from other vehicles, which will chip the chrome away, letting rust set in, forming pits which will tear fork seals apart. This will result in leaking fork oil, which, if left unchecked, could lead to damaging the fork’s internal components, poor suspension performance (a safety issue as the bike’s handling will suffer!) and an MOT failure. Replacing the seals alone is not enough because the pitted stanchions will just damage the new ones quickly again. You can get the stanchions re-chromed or buy new ones (or even clean out the pits and fill with an epoxy like Araldite, but that’s time consuming and requires skill). But, why spend your time, and possibly a lot of money depending on what you choose to do, on that when you can easily prevent these issues in the first place? Continue reading
The long awaited Official Honda CBF125M Workshop Manual! It is written for the M9 variant, but apart from the tachometer, there seems to be no difference in the M9/MA/MB versions of the CBF. Thankyou Mr Fedex. Knowledge is power and all that! Continue reading
On an engine, valves are situated in the cylinder head (‘top end’) and their job is to let fuel-air mixture in to the cylinder for combustion and to let burnt exhaust gasses out. The CBF125 uses the traditional ‘tappet and lock nut’ method for setting valve clearances, which is very common, if not universal, on simple, small displacement engines. The term ‘valve clearance’ refers to the gap between the tappet and top of a valve stem. The tappet is a small part that is part of an assembly called a rocker arm and it is the part that pushes on the stem of the poppet valve to open it. That gap is there for a very good reason – as the engine heats up, these components will expand and the gap will be filled. If there is no valve clearance (gap too small), you could bend the valve or it will be forced open a little, causing poor idling, excessive fuel consumption and/or poor running (depending on which valve is the culprit). If the valve clearance is too great, with a large gap between the tappet and valve stem, then the valve stem and tappet will wear more quickly as they’d be colliding against each-other with more force. The valves may also not open fully, which will cause poorer engine performance/idling. Continue reading
…and that’s it really. My first oil change on this bike, somewhat of a milestone perhaps, or not. I thought that I may as well keep an eye on things that little bit more, leading up to the first major service interval at 2’500 miles, as things are still bedding in and there will still be a little of the original oil from the run-in period left in the engine (you can never get it all out). I opted to stick with Honda’s specified Castrol Power 1 10w30 (previously called GPS). It’s reddish in colour and quite runny compared to the 10w40 stuff I’m used to. You’ll never go wrong by changing the oil more frequently than the service schedule recommends, but it gets more expensive (although we’re only talking 900ml or so of oil each time). Continue reading
