New CL100 Owner

Thanks for the tips! The closest dealer to the cabin is a bit of a hike, and since I may have the opportunity to use a 100cc Honda flywheel puller again (wink wink nudge nudge), yesterday I ordered one from Dan at Re-MX. It'll arrive tomorrow. I might not get back to this project right away, though, as I have some non-motorcycle travel to visit family coming up.

One more question on the rotor- are the threads on the bolt that holds it to end of the shaft left-handed?

There are also a couple longer signal stems coming in the mail so I can de-rotate my license plate. The vertical orientation has grown on me, but it's illegal in Pennsylvania, and probably doubly so on a bike registered as antique. Who knows, in Pennsylvania the zip ties holding it in place may even be illegal (like, wrong color). Now that the panniers have been mounted for a few hundred miles and several bottoming-outs without any sign of trouble, it seems safe to put finishing touches on them. I still haven't decided on tie-down points, but the other day I took the bike on a meandering trek to my mom and dad's house and used my dad's belt sander to clean up the crude radii on the stays I'd made with a sawzall and angle grinder, and also installed the locking hw with the help of his drill press. Here are a few photos from the trip.

Nice pics of the areas to ride The threads on the rotor are right hand.

Thanks for the beta on the threads.

There are a couple spots where it gets tricky, but in general, the roads around here are great for the scrambler. It looks kind of ugly on the bike, but combined with online maps, the GPS is extremely useful for discovering and exploring new roads.

grcamna5, I just saw you're out by Pittsburgh. Do you ever ride down around Ohiopyle? I've only been there once, and in a car, but it seemed like a nice place to ride.

iatethepeach said:

Thanks for the beta on the threads.

There are a couple spots where it gets tricky, but in general, the roads around here are great for the scrambler. It looks kind of ugly on the bike, but combined with online maps, the GPS is extremely useful for discovering and exploring new roads.

grcamna5, I just saw you're out by Pittsburgh. Do you ever ride down around Ohiopyle? I've only been there once, and in a car, but it seemed like a nice place to ride.

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I haven't been there yet.
I think that I finally have most everything i need to assemble my bike.. :

What else do you have to do, besides modify your rack to carry the hard bags?

iatethepeach said:

What else do you have to do, besides modify your rack to carry the hard bags?

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I'm going to move to CA. in a few months and didn't know how stringent their regs are for accurate/stock equipment on a bike when inspecting it initially and if they'd check the engine size.I had a set of damaged 82' XL125S crankcases welded(it took forever this past Winter and done wrong )at a Voc-Tech high school in Indiana,PA. and so after recovering from that I had a choice between using my XL185S cases but instead I just found a complete lower end from a 1982 XL125S on Ebay for $50 w/ Free shipping from CA. no less .The dude is a new seller and made a mistake on the price but did make a deal w/ me for $75 including shipping ! I just recd. it today Fedex and have it stripped down to the cases and carefully cleaning them up and getting it ready to assemble in a day.
I've have had a complete Nightmare of a time w/ sub-contracters ever since i owned this bike and have wasted close to $1000 so far having the same tasks done over and over again by different 'unknown' workers. I feel like it's been 'murphy's Law' or some such junk.I really like the little bike though and look forward to building this engine from a 125(cases) into a high performance XR185 for the street.I'll have it as a small 'go anywhere on any road' w/ good fuel mileage bike.I can also get exersize owning this small bike.When I need a walk I just hop off and walk as far as i like either on the sidewalk,road or through the woods,etc. Small bikes are cool I hope you don't mind long posts to your thread. :
I would have had lots of depressing stories to tell if I had made a thread on it. : I'll wait until I get it up and running(Finally !)this Spring(last time i rode it was the end of Oct. 15') Soon and start a thread on my final 'Victory over the scumbags who held me back' type of thing.. no..,I'll just start a thread on my 'Long-Term project bike' You know?!

Are the mounting points for the CB125 and XL175 motors the same? You're putting this into your CB frame, correct? Good luck with assembling the 125. It's a bummer you had so much trouble over the winter, but in the end you'll have a great bike. It would've been even worse if you'd decided to tackle the project just before the start of riding season. That'd be my luck.

Speaking of hopping off small bikes and walking, yesterday I came upon a construction detour that would have taken me an absurd distance out of my way and onto a highway. Since the CL is so easy to push, I just shut it off and walked it about 150' along the edge of an unoccupied park bordering the closed intersection. Unbeknown to me, there was a cop sitting where I came back onto the road. When I kick-started the bike he gave me a look from his cruiser, but quickly went back to whatever he was doing before I arrived. Try that on your extended-swingarm Hayabusa. Ha!

Where are you moving in CA? The weather will probably be a huge improvement, though in places the roads are less amenable, most having been laid out in the era of the automobile.

iatethepeach said:

Are the mounting points for the CB125 and XL175 motors the same? You're putting this into your CB frame, correct? Good luck with assembling the 125. It's a bummer you had so much trouble over the winter, but in the end you'll have a great bike. It would've been even worse if you'd decided to tackle the project just before the start of riding season. That'd be my luck.

Speaking of hopping off small bikes and walking, yesterday I came upon a construction detour that would have taken me an absurd distance out of my way and onto a highway. Since the CL is so easy to push, I just shut it off and walked it about 150' along the edge of an unoccupied park bordering the closed intersection. Unbeknown to me, there was a cop sitting where I came back onto the road. When I kick-started the bike he gave me a look from his cruiser, but quickly went back to whatever he was doing before I arrived. Try that on your extended-swingarm Hayabusa. Ha!

Where are you moving in CA? The weather will probably be a huge improvement, though in places the roads are less amenable, most having been laid out in the era of the automobile.

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I'll be installing the 82' XL125S crankcases w/ the XR185 crank,topend,etc. into my 81' CB125S and it'll fit You could even do that on your CL because the mounting points are the same,even an XR200 engine will bolt right in and you still 'seem' to have a small bike ! I'll be moving to an area/small town just North of Vacaville.

The other nice thing about a small bike is it doesn't upset too many folks when you show up on it,especially when it has a stock muffler;I've had people ask me "is that a large moped"? I can park it in a 'bike rack',take it apart and put it on a bus or plane,etc. if i so desired.. I'll be running a stock oem right muffler from a vintage CB450 twin that will flow plenty more for my high performance porting and XR200 camshaft.

grcamna5 said:

! I'll be moving to an area/small town just North of Vacaville.

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Great roads and perfect weather. You can ride year-round and eat at In-n-Out every day.

grcamna5 said:

The other nice thing about a small bike is it doesn't upset too many folks when you show up on it

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All kinds of people (women, kids, motorcyclists, non-motorcyclists) get excited about the scrambler and approach me to talk about it. Pretty much the opposite is true with every big bike I've had. Sometimes bicyclists in colorful attire even wave at me, as if we share a common goal or enemy. The stock pipe on the scrambler is a little loud (I think mice hauled off the fiberglass or whatever's supposed to be in there), but maybe the red paint and the chrome help it compensate.

grcamna5 said:

I'll be installing the 82' XL125S crankcases w/ the XR185 crank,topend,etc. into my 81' CB125S and it'll fit You could even do that on your CL because the mounting points are the same,even an XR200 engine will bolt right in

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This is good to know. My plan is to keep the original motor so long as it works. Down the road, if I score a donor bike or cheap motor on eBay, it'd be fun to mix things up. More power is always nice, but I feel the bike suffers most from its gearing.

While the panniers rule, they do seem to get banged up a bit in normal use. Mine already have scrapes on them from going through the woods, and a couple boot marks, too. I'm not sure why I think it's cool that the lids detach so easily- maybe for trips to the nursery, or carrying the impromptu several magnums of bubbly? (The latter certainly doesn't happen often enough.) But until you get used to them, they occasionally want to pop off on their own when you open them with the bike on its side-stand, at least on the alternator side with the way I have mine mounted. And then they tend to fall top-first onto sharp rocks and soon you're headed back to the hardware store for another can of Rustoleum. I'd have been crap in the infantry.

This is the latest iteration of the paint scheme:



The black might help hide the bruises? Stripes would be a lot easier for someone like myself to paint, but I thought I'd try this, too:



My gf vetoed it right away and I guess you could call it disingenuous, but I feel like it projects hope.

Both paint schemes have merit but I like the silver best.

Wow; I could imagine riding there. It looks great.

iatethepeach said:

Since I don't have a real garage and all of a sudden it's scrambler weather here, I'm going to mark the chain with a sharpie tomorrow and count the links in situ. That way we can thoroughly explore the minutiae of these motors while I get some riding in. Thanks for taking the time to explain and get me pointed in the right direction.

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That made me laugh out loud. I'm the same - no big jobs that might threaten riding time

I'm in the process of assembling my rebuilt high performance XR185 engine(w/ 100 link chain)and installing into my CB125S so I can Get my bike back on the road after 6 months,I Miss riding and don't want to have to park this bike again !

Hey grcamna5 and the rest of you guys, do you know the correct size puller for the CL100 flywheel? I ordered a 27mm x 1.0 and it turns out to be too big.

I've got a drawer full of pullers and special tools,I would have to measure your thread diameter.

I need one of those drawers.

The center shaft of the puller looks to be 14mm x 1.5mm. I have a new tool on the way that will hopefully do the trick.

iatethepeach said:

I need one of those drawers.

The center shaft of the puller looks to be 14mm x 1.5mm. I have a new tool on the way that will hopefully do the trick.

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That'll be nice when you replace your cam/timing chain,a very important part.

Here's another question- do I lubricate the pivots on the spark advancer?

Check out the front screw on the points base. Ha ha. Somebody was in here before.

I would use some very thick lube on those points advancer flyweight pivots,you can just put a tiny 'dab' of Honda Molykote 60(if you have any)on the inside of each pivot shaft where both the weights pivot.I would replace both cover screws if it was me,you could possibly match-up all the screws on the sidecovers,etc. w/ stainless steel allen head screws including these 2 to give it a very nice look and make sure to use silver(only!)anti-seize(not copper colored) when you install the new stainless steel screws.That will make removing and installing them a snap for now and forever.