Dream 50 -> CB125T!

Hello!
I've been a fan of Do The Ton for a while now and spend most of my time at work reading the threads on here (shh, don't tell my boss). I figured that since I had a project of my own under way, it might be fun to bring it here for you guys to see. I'll give a little self introduction first, though.

My name's Dave and I'm actually a huge classic Japanese car aficionado. I currently own five cars (1967 Mitsubishi 360, 1971 Fairlady Z, 1973 Isuzu Bellet, 1988 300ZX SS, 1991 March Super Turbo). I tend to fall in love with the more rustier ones and slowly coerce them back to life. I'm working on swapping the Super Turbo for something older as well as getting another classic in my garage sometime early next year. If you'd like to see more about the cars, feel free to check them out here:
https://sites.google.com/site/nakazoto/home

Alright, on to my project! I've been working on this project for a little under a year now and have been updating it on JapaneseNostalgicCar.com. So these posts are copy pastes of the posts there to bring everything up to the present time!

Thank you guys for looking and here goes!

========
Apr 05, 2012

So, I've always wanted an old cafe racer bike and I also needed a learners bike to help me get my sea legs back for the proper motorcycle test. As such, I've been keeping my eye on the Dream 50 for quite some time. Unfortunately, they are indeed pricey. I was waffling between getting this or trading my March in and getting an R31 Skyline. I was leaning very heavily towards the Skyline, but all the offers on trade in value for my March were frankly insulting (I had one place offer to give me 500 bucks for a 40,000 mile, twin charged, piece of rally history!). So I said, this has got to be a sign, decided to keep the March and pulled the trigger on this bad boy! It needs some work as it was indeed the cheapest one I could find for sale. But, I picked it up in Okazaki and rode it all the way back to my place, a 40 minute ride! Biggest problem I had along the way was that my hands went numb!

Alright, enough gabbing, on with the pictures!



The pictures are a bit blurry. One of the downsides of buying a bike in the middle of winter is that it's too damn cold to get the bike out for a good photo session.



I just love that classic look!



Here's me sitting on it right before I rode it for the first, nervous as hell!





That was all a little while ago, so on the days that it was above about 5 C outside I started tooling around with it. First goal was to eliminate the air box. The problem with that was the battery. The bike itself doesn't need the battery to run, but it doesn't run very well without it. Also, the tachometer doesn't work without a battery. So, the best way to solve a lack of battery is lots of capacitance!



That would be 6 50V 4700 uF capacitors connected in parallel for a total of 28200 uF of capacitance. That's a lot of juice!



All soldered up!



I was also planning on dropping the rear fender and dropping in a piece of aluminum for a much cleaner look.



So I took a piece of cardboard and folded and cut it to the shape I wanted. Then I took some simple measurements and transcribed them a nice piece of aluminum I picked up for 15 bucks at the local hardware store.



Here's the finished product!



Not bad looking at all!



It still ran a little rough and had absolutely no power below about 8,000 rpm, which made launching very difficult. So a carb clean was in order.



The carb itself is surprisingly simple and straight forward, using a sliding tube connected to a needle for both the throttle valve and fuel jet.



Here's the throttle valve/needle.



Here's a look down where the throttle valve slides.



All apart!



A close up of the little bitty parts!



I also swapped in a new iridium plug!



This completely transformed the bike! Strong, good power from about 6,000 rpm all the way up to 13,500 rpm! Launching is still a bit difficult, but I'll blame that on the fact that the bike was designed for Japanese guys that weigh about 20 kilos less than me! Didn't get any more pictures pictures because it started to rain and hasn't stopped since! As soon as it starts finally warming up and summer rolls in there will be much more happening to this little pocket bike!

Big things on the list at the moment are to refresh the brakes, new tires an air filter and riding the hell out of it!
Cheers
David

This is a continuation of the copy pastes to bring it up to the present!

Enjoy!

=================
Jun 06, 2012

I never really followed this up with proper pictures of it in its current state! So, I'm here to remedy just that!

First up are two pictures I took right after I finished my fender delete.





These next few pictures are of when I snapped some pictures of it next to my Mitsubishi 360!













Not a bad looking bike if I do say so myself! The pictures actually make it look a lot better than it is, haha. I just rebuilt the front and rear calipers on it as well as dropped in some new pads and I must say she is a completely different animal now! She stops so much better, it was truly like night and day! The rear caliper was pretty seized and the front pads were almost non existent! Glad to get that sorted. Also, just picked up a new aftermarket C.D.I. and a new, slightly bigger carburetor! So expect some updates on those as soon as they arrive (my goal is to get her up to 15,000 rpm)!

Cheers
David

Still rolling!

Enjoy!

============
Jun 11, 2012

So I bought some supplies for the garage, got back home, stepped in and in the dark, I noticed something moving. I looked down and this bad boy slithered past my feet and under one of the Bellet seats!



I can’t stand snakes! After I turned into a little girl, and hid on top of my Bellet for a little while, we finally corralled him into a box and set him free in the field across the street. Spiders, cockroaches, rats, anything but snakes and I’m completely blasé, snakes though…

With that out of the way, it was time to get down to work! I didn’t particularly like my old fender eliminator plate. I cut some cutouts for the brackets and stuff, but if the plate didn’t have a curve to it then the cutouts weren’t needed. Here you can see the cutouts and the curve of the old plate.



This was also the first time I have had the tank off, so I figured I would take a picture of what life under that tank was like. Appears to be the CDI, a bit of wiring and that’s about it, haha.



After much cutting, hammering, bending and sanding this was the plate before I cleaned it up for installation on the bike.



And here it is cleaned up and installed on the bike! I think it looks much, much better!





From the side the new plate is almost completely invisible.



I also figured it was time to pull my capacitor pack out, ditch the circuit board it was on and wrap it in tape so it was more compact and battery like. I wanted to make sure that it was held together strongly with solder and wires first though. So after much soldering, this was the end result. Nice and strong!



Completely wrapped up in tape with a piece of rubber covering the terminals of the capacitors and mounted in the back of the seat.



Clearance is tight, but it fits without hitting or rubbing. I think I’ll put a piece of foam on top of the red tab though just to make sure everything is held in place properly.



I did all the above work because I was waiting on some new parts. Chief among which were these new pipes! A genuine set of Moriwaki performance pipes!



I also had a PC20 carb on order as well. The extra 5mm of carb size should make a noticeable difference!



I got excited and went for the carb first. I didn’t get a snap, but the outlet of the new carb versus the old carb is completely different. I thought I would have to port the intake manifold (hard to call it a manifold as it’s just a short pipe with two flanges) but it turns out that it’s designed for a 20 mm carb from the go. The old carb was just choked down and two small for the intake manifold! A simple bolt-on affair from there!



I then busted out my grinder with wire wheel and stripped all the old paint off the new pipes. Then, after a bit of a sand down, I hung them up and sprayed htem with some 600 C high temp black paint.



And here they are installed! They look bloody fantastic if you ask me!



I fired the engine up with the new carb and pipes on and it sound like a completely different animal! It sounds like a 150 cc single! It should be an utter blast to ride!



That’s all for now. More to come soon though as I got a new CDI, new turn signals and a new tail light on order that should be showing up any day!

Thanks again guys!
Cheers
David

The pictures never end!

Enjoy!

===========
Jun 25, 2012

Alrighty, it’s about time for another update!

The CDI and tail light I ordered showed up as well as a few other things, but my turn signals still haven’t made it (this would be the first item I’ve gotten on Yahoo Auctions that hasn’t been dealt with extremely well). They’ll get here eventually, so in the meantime, I figured I’d get to work!

Here’s the new CDI.



And my new tail light.



The reason I was going for a new tail light is that I was still using the old square-ish factory tail light, which was designed to mount o the fender. It looked a little out of place, so I figured it was time to get a proper, small, round one going. This of course required creating a new mount for it. So I bought some stock aluminum and cut and bent three pieces into shape. These all bolt together and then the license plate frame bolts to this, holding the tail light right in position!



Turned out pretty good looking if you ask me!





Here’s a shot of the bracket without the seat on.



I was worried about a light so small being bright enough to see, but as you can see in this picture, it puts out tons of light! I think it’s actually brighter than the original light even.



So, I had my new tail light mounted and ready to rock, had my new carburetor on and I was pretty much all ready for a test ride. Then I remembered that I forgot to put the carb insulator on. So I took the carb back off, honed out the insulator, slapped it all back together, fired the bike up and rolled it outside to warm up while I put my jacket, helmet and gloves on. I head back outside, hop on, give it some throttle and then the whole thing dies before I make it 5 feet. I kick it and it fires up again and then almost immediately dies again. I keep kicking to get it to start, but the damn thing won’t run. So, dejected, I wheel it back inside and start to diagnose.

Pulled the carb off, everything was hooked up fine and looked okay, so I put it back on and tried to get it to start again and sometimes it would run and sometimes it wouldn’t. The whole thing was sounding worse and worse. So, I’m thinking it’s the new CDI I put on, so I pull that out but nothing changes. I’m racking my brain and going crazy until finally I decide to put the original carb back on and see if that solves the problem. Miraculously, it does! So, now that I know it’s a problem with the new carb I pick it up to look at it and hear a clinking sound coming from the inside. So I crack the carb open for the first time and the main jet and emulsion tube have fallen out. That’s right, fallen out. So, I put them back in, tighten them down and try to put the carb back on and the threads on the carb for installation strip out, both sides. I almost threw the Taiwanese piece of junk across the room.

I went upstairs and ordered a proper, Honda original, PC20 carburetor off of Yahoo Auctions. Genuine Honda/Keihin stuff.



The build quality is completely different. This carburetor moves smoother, sounds better and is generally just of great quality. Lesson learned, when buying carbs, go with genuine stuff. Here she is installed on the bike!



Since I was putting the bike back together, I decided to re-install my CDI. Interestingly, the CDI isn’t a replacement CDI, it’s just a piggy back unit. It’s supposed to change ignition maps, increase the strength of the spark and eliminate the rev limiter. Don’t know how effectively it does all that, but it most definitely lets me rev to 14k now instead of having the whole thing stop the fun at 13,500. Here you can see the CDI unit ziptied to the frame (zipties are the preferred method of installation since the CDI unit comes supplied with two for installation!).



So, I pulled the bike out for her first test ride since I went crazy with all this stuff.







The bike ran terrible, haha. Then I thought about it and of course it did, the carb is meant for a 125 probably, so the main jet size is probably mega rich for a 50. So, out came the carb and the tuning process began! The main jet installed at factory on the new carb was a #95 and the original carb had a #75. I worked my way down to a #78 and it ran just a little lean, so I jumped back up to a #80 and the bike seems to be running pretty awesome! I still need to do some fine tuning with the needle clip, but I rode the bike for about an hour yesterday without a hitch!





Not bad looking for a fifty!





Unfortunately, rainy season reared its ugly head this morning, so I won’t get a chance to ride it again for a while.





I still got a few more things to knock out and then I’ll be pretty happy with it! Most notably, the big ungainly turn signals are going to get replaced with much slimmer ones, if the slimmer ones ever get here (2 weeks for shipping is a little ridiculous…). Also, I picked up some front springs that slide over the front forks to stiffen up the front a bit (Honda original part). I also grabbed some Honda original rear shocks and springs from a CB250RS for cheap. I’m going to disassemble them and double check the spring rate before they go on though.

Thanks everyone for the comments!
Cheers
David

We're still getting to the really good bit!

Enjoy!

===============
Sep 01, 2012

Alright, I suppose I should update this!
This post is going to cover like 3 months of tooling around with this thing, but here goes!

First things first, I received these in the mail... from Taiwan. They're pretty cheap plastic pieces, but they were just the right size.



Here's the front's on.



You can see they tuck up really close to the headlight, exactly what I wanted!



Here's the rears on.



Then I got my hands on an HRC lightweight flywheel and slapped that on, which made a decent difference! Unfortunately I didn't snap an after shot, but I did get a before shot of the rusty piece that got replaced.



Then, for a little stronger spark I got a Kitaco coil and NGK plug boot (this also got rid of that ugly yellow piece that was the original piece).



Here's the coil installed.



I just made a short little L bracket to hold it in place bolted to the factory mounting tab.



Then my girlfriend took a seat on a Honda Solo. I still retain that this is one of the coolest looking bikes out there. Unfortunately, it make the rider look completely ridiculous. Although she looks pretty good on it, maybe I should convince her to get one, haha.



Shortly after, my friend from work picked up a Dream 50 as well. These pictures are from the day we got back to my place!











And naturally anything that gets left in my garage gets worked on, so here's how it sits now!



This is my next project, but that's still under progress, so more on this later.



Just last week it was my birthday and so my girlfriend made this cake for me. She actually hand drew the Dream in chocolate! She did an absolutely amazing job! Notice the Moriwaki pipes, no rear fender and my custom rear tail light. She did awesome!



My other present was a proper Dream 50 model kit! Not a bad birthday at all!



That's it for now!

Cheers
David

Let's keep the ball rollin!

Enjoy!

===============
Sep 17, 2012

Alrighty, I can't leave well enough alone so I had to get out there and get some more work done on this thing. I started with the awesome CBR250RR tachometer. I wired it up, adjusted it into spec, built a new pod for it and mounted it to the bike.





I wasn't too happy with my mount though as it was a little too shiny, not very well bent, and didn't have a neutral or turn signal light. So, I went through and redid it all to get this:







Now that I had an awesome tachometer, I figured it was time to do something with the suspension that has been chilling in a box in my place for a long time. So here she is with CB250RS rear shocks on the back.



And here she is with external springs on the front. This combination really stiffened up the suspension making the bike much livelier in the turns, it handles a bit like a light weight dirt bike!



Now, I've been having trouble with carburetors on this thing. Mostly because I know very little about tuning small singles, but I'm learning. I was about sick and tired of messing with the PC20 carb though, so I got my hands on the flat-slide Mikuni. Now at 24 mm, it is far too big for the engine, but even so, it still runs better than the PC20 carb ever did. I'm still trying to get the tune just right. As soon as I get the main jet about where I like it, the pilot jet is out, so I change the pilot jet and then the main jet is out. Not sure how much the pilot jet affects the top end, but apparently it affects it enough to make my life difficult. Still, it runs pretty decent and sounds wicked!



I had to make an adapter plate to mount it to the factory intake manifold, which was also honed out for the bigger diameter.





I also painted the Mickey Mouse side cover. It turned out really well I think!



Tuning!



I then swapped front gears for more acceleration. Went from a 12 tooth to an 11 tooth. This unfortunately made my chain a bit too loose (it was already stretched to oblivion) and so now I need to get a chain because a bad gear change tends to pop the chain off, stranding me.



Here she is out in the sun!





That's all for now! My next plan is to get this running well enough to be a good practice rider and then build up a CB50 with a CB125T engine in it! 80kg and 20 hp should be plenty fun!

Thanks again guys!
Cheers
David

As the title suggests, this is where things get really fun!

Enjoy!

=========
Oct 13, 2012

My biggest problem with this bike is that knowing that someday I will move back home, I can't take this bike with me. Being a 1997 it is far too new and will be a huge nightmare to get stateside. I absolutely love the looks and size of the bike though, despite the fact that I'm so tall. It is a riot to ride and I wanted to keep that. So I started doing research and came across this type of bike, which I subsequently bought.



This is a 1979 Honda CB125T. There are several reason why I went for the CB125T. First and foremost, it is the smallest displacement 4 stroke twin that was commercially available (as far as I know). It makes a bit more than double the power output of the Dream yet retains an almost identical wheelbase. The weight is close as well with the Dream weighing in at 80 kg and this at 125 kg. I reckon with some work I can get that number below 100 kg though. The rake and trail of the front end are surprisingly close as well.



So in comparison to the Dream it is actually really close in size. It is a bit longer overall, but that is due to the huge tail light sticking out the back. It is also a bit wider and some of that can be attributed to the engine, but also the handlebars are quite wide as well. The seating position is much more upright so the bike feels larger than it really is. It looks much larger than the Dream in these shots.





However, if you roll both the bikes up to the curb to line their front wheels up, you can see that the they are almost identical in length.



So, since this thing was a rusty hunk, my first goal was to strip it right down. Which went surprisingly fast! As you can see here I got quite far on the first day (and this was starting at 15:00).





Then I wanted to get the engine out so I did the "lay it on its side trick". That's where you lay the whole bike down, undo all the bolts holding the engine on, then lift the bike off the engine. It works surprisingly well!



And, engine removed!



Here's the now nearly empty frame.



And a rather cool looking tag on the frame.



My ultimate goal for this bike is to take the Dream front forks, brake, and wheel and graft it onto the CB125T. Then for the rear I want to take the Dream rear wheel and brake and run it in the CB125T rear swing arm. Then to complete the look, I'll use the Dream 50 seat and tank on the CB125T as well. I should end up with a bike that looks just like the Dream, but has a proper twin in it with double the power.

It should be fun!
Cheers,
David

The CB125T isn't a bad looking bike, but let's see if we can't make it look excellent!

Enjoy!

=========
Oct 21, 2012

Alright, so a lot of work has gone into the bike recently! First things first was to get an idea of how the seat and tank were going to sit, so I set them both on there and snapped a pic!





There were some immediate problems with a bracket on the bottom of the tank hitting the bike frame. So, I removed that bracket and the tank got closer to fitting but I was having a serious issue with the fuel petcock. It needed to be in the same place as part of the frame.



So, I sliced the frame a bit!



This allowed me to set the tank on the frame properly and gave me a much closer mockup.





The fuel petcock wasn't the only problem, the seat was banging into some brackets/braces on the frame as well. So, I sliced those up too.





The front tank mounts, being designed for a completely different tank, were too far forward, too wide and a little too high. So, I had to cut those out and weld in new front tank mounts. Here's my super technical marking method: green tape.



I used an M10 bolt and welded that in for the new rubber pieces to mount onto.



Works pretty well!



The tank is getting much closer to mounted. It looks like the front of the tank is sitting too low giving the tank a funky angle, but I measured the tank angle countless times and cross referenced it against the tank angle on the Dream 50 and they're within a half degree of each other.



Next up was the rear tank mount. I had some thick 1 mm steel, but it wasn't very wide, and I needed a wide piece of steel. I solved this problem by welding together two pieces of 0.8 mm steel!



It's plenty thick for what I need it to do.



Here's the new mount welded into the bike.



I welded a nut to the bottom as well so that the tank can be bolted down with ease.



Rear of tank bolted down.



Next was to get the seat mounted. This was a bit easier since the front of the seat just hooks under the tank mount. The rear of the seat required a bit of work, but these plates got the job done really well!





The frame itself was causing problems though, as it was too long, not allowing the seat to sit flat. So, that was fixed by lopping the ends of the frame off!



Everything bolted down!



While I had the welder out, I decided to fix the frame where I had cut it earlier to make room for the petcock. I did this by taking the piece I cut out, bending it and running it at an angle to weld to the backbone.



You can also see the plate I welded in over the bracket behind the tank mount.



I test fit everything again and rolled it outside for some better pictures of the tank and seat alignment.



I think it looks spot on!



I gave it a test sit!



Which inspired my girlfriend to sit on it too! The bike goes from looking like a tiny scooter bike under me to a full size bike under her, haha.



Here's two more pictures of us sitting on it!





And that's as far as I have come at the moment! It's been a blast working on this thing and it's moving along very nicely! A lot more fabrication work was required than I had initially thought, but it's turning out to be a lot of fun.

Thanks for looking guys!

Cheers
David

We're almost there!

Enjoy!

==========
Nov 02, 2012

Alrighty, the rear frame connection point to the back bone was a bit of a worry. I wanted to make absolutely sure that this was plenty strong, so I did some additional welding in this area!



You can see here that there is now an additional piece connecting the bent frame back to it's original weld spot on the backbone.



Very thick steel was used for this and it definitely helped strengthen up the area a bit. You can also see in both of these pictures that I've taken a piece of steel and wrapped it around the inside of the bend on the frame and then welded it in place. This will hopefully help strengthen it up a bit more. I then did the same thing for the front bends as well, hopefully triangulating the whole area and making it plenty strong.



The should be plenty strong!





Then, while i had the welder out, I filled in the holes that were created by cutting out the original front tank mounts.



I also plugged up the back of the frame.



And then ran a rear bar with a mounting plate for mounting the battery/electronics.



Next up was trying to get the Dream 50 front forks mated to the CB125T front triples.



You can see here that there are a few problems right off the bat. The easiest to notice is that the forks tubes are shorter. This doesn't bother me too much as the front forks will be very stiff and a lower front end means a lower frontal area. The big problem is that the Dream 50 fork tubes are skinnier.



What the poor Dream looks like after removing the front suspension.



While I was thinking about the front forks, I noticed that turning the triples resulted in a very notchy, disgusting feel. The bearings in here were definitely shot. So I took the triple apart.



Now, this being the first bike I've worked on in earnest, I don't understand a lot of things. I could be mistaken, but I'm pretty certain that when you take the triple apart, the balls from the ball bearings (both upper and lower) shouldn't explode all over the floor. Then again, maybe that's how these are designed, it just seems like a bad idea though.



After picking all the little balls up off the floor I decided to call it a night!



Until next time!
Thanks for looking guys!

Cheers
David

Just a little bit more!

Enjoy!

============
Nov 08, 2012

Alrighty, not much of an update because I was slammed busy all weekend. I did get a little bit of work done in the few hours I had available though!

Most importantly, I sorted out my front fork issue. The main reason I was going to use the Dream50 front forks was so that I could easily and painlessly use the Dream wheel and brake. However, they were too short and too skinny to use in a safe enough manner for me, so out of curiosity I tried mounting the Dream wheel in the CB125T forks and to my surprise, it fits perfectly. The bolt is the exact same diameter and the distance between the forks is identical as well. So, I ordered a set of newer CB125T forks which have a proper mount for a caliper and those should be arriving soon. Then, I just need to sort out my front triple bearing issue and I'm golden!

Next up was the rear. Here's the rear wheel and disc of the Dream temporarily mounted in the CB swing arm.



I'm just using a spacer at the moment because I didn't want to remove the brake caliper (which double as the appropriate spacer) from the Dream. The biggest problem I'm running into is that the CB forks are a little too wide (to accommodate for the style of chain adjusters it uses). Since the chain adjusters are essentially a big "U" and sit on both sides of the swing arm mount, the bolt for the Dream is about two thick washers too short.



I'm still mulling over potential solutions to this problem in my head. Ideally, a new bolt would solve the problem, but finding the perfect diameter bolt in the perfect length aint gonna be easy.

Next up was dismantling the rest of the frame, starting with the swing arm.



And then the center stand, brake lever and rear sets came out as well!



I feel much better knowing that I've got the majority of heavy hitting issues sorted out now. It's getting to the point where I need to do just a little more frame clean up (and adding a brace or two here and there), order some new parts to make everything move like butter and then start on the engine.

She's moving right along!
Cheers
David

Alright! With this post, this brings everything up to date! I hope you guys enjoyed the story so far. I'll keep this updated as I get more work done.

Cheers and thanks for checking it out guys!

===========
Nov 12, 2012

So, I got this package in the mail the other day. I wonder what it could be?



Forks!



They are late model CB125T Showa forks to be exact. These things are in excellent condition. There are a few reasons I went for these. First, they're Showa. Second, they fit my upper triples. Third, they have a caliper mount. Two big downsides though; the caliper mount is on the wrong side and the bolt hole for the wheel bolt is too large.



Since the bolt hole is directly in the center of the fork, I'm solving the caliper mount problem by mounting the forks flipped. This puts the caliper mount in exactly the right place and should make no difference to the operation of the forks. The too large hole was handled with this tool right here.



Seems odd to be making the hole even larger when it is already too big. Here's my logic. The hole is currently 14 mm, I need it to be 12 mm and this bit is 16 mm. On the old rear shocks, I have four spare spacers (the bit that goes between the mount on the frame and the rubber of the shock). These measure in at an internal diameter of 12 mm and an external diameter of 16 mm. Drilled and fit (it's protruding out here so it is easier to see what I did).



All pushed in and ready to go!



That allowed me to get the front tire mounted correctly.



I tossed on the rear tire, swing arm and center stand so I could mount the front up correctly. Then, I rolled it outside for some shots of how the final look is going to be.



Not bad at all!



I then threw on the brake and clutch levers as well as the caliper to see how close I was to fitting.



As you can see, the caliper is going to need a bracket, but that is incredibly easy to handle in comparison to everything I've dealt with up to now.



I then rolled Sideglide's Dream out for some comparison shots. I was curious just how different in size they were.



Turns out, they're still nearly identical in size!





Then it was back in for some more welding work. I put the engine back in so I could mount the side stand. The main reason behind using the side stand was so that I could remove the center stand as it would interfere with where my rear sets were going to be.



You can see here where I've started work on the rear sets.





Here's the mount for the peg. The thick steel is actually a left over piece from the frame and the centering pieces welded to it are steel nails.



Tacked in place with the peg checking for location. The top arm is welded to a giant spacer that sits around the swing arm bolt. The giant spacer is actually the old rear wheel spacer from the CB125T cut in half.





Here it is mostly welded in place. I have some more welding to due on the inside that's going to have to wait until I dismantle the rear end again. I'm also thinking of adding an additional brace connecting the giant spacer to something else, just haven't decided what. You can also see my future placement of the rear master cylinder here too.



The location is perfect for my legs. It is very comfortable, yet still high enough to give me plenty of ground clearance. It's actually considerably more comfortable and spacious than the Dream originally was. Now I just gotta make the other side. After both rear sets are made, I'm going to properly mount the rear master cylinder and the front caliper. Then, I gotta sort the chain and finally dismantle and weld some more!

Thanks for looking guys!
Cheers
David

what the hell is that first bike? is that a DOHC single 125? I can't find much info online about it.

foundation982 said:

what the hell is that first bike? is that a DOHC single 125? I can't find much info online about it.

Click to expand...

It's a 1997 Honda Dream 50. Technically, it's a scooter, haha. It's a DOHC 50cc Single that makes around 5 to 6 hp fed through a 5 speed close ratio transmission. It actually was decently quick for a scooter and would top out at about 90 km/h with the new pipes and carb on it. The street version was a Japan only bike and they only made a couple thousand of them as a homage to the old Honda CR110 50cc race bike of the 1960s. In 2004 a few HRC racing versions of the Dream50 were exported, but they're pretty rare indeed.

Here's the Honda Fact Book about it (it's all in Japanese unfortunately):
http://www.honda.co.jp/factbook/motor/DREAM50/199701/

Here's the spec sheet (again in Japanese, but numbers are pretty easy to figure out - the Dream 50 is the middle column and the old CR110 is the far right column):
http://www.honda.co.jp/factbook/motor/DREAM50/199701/dr97-013.html

Thanks for checking out my post!

Holy cow! What an entrance!

It's a shame they never offered the Dream 50 for sale in North America (or really anywhere outside Japan so far as I know). You could pick one up as a race-only bike, never able to put it on the road.

Welcome to DTT, and to the crazy world of vintage bikes. Looks like you're digging right into the 125! Would love to see more info on that Honda Solo too - oddball looking thing that is. Oh the fun we could have with a mono-shock tiny bike.

A friend of ours in MI had one. I have no idea if he ever rode it, but it looked awesome in his dining room.

lovely, I read your 360 build quite a wile back and I have faith that you will turn this bike into a wonderful alternative.

Nakazoto - I love the look of these bikes!

I couldn't get a Dream but I did get one of these:



Crazy

Tim said:

Holy cow! What an entrance!

It's a shame they never offered the Dream 50 for sale in North America (or really anywhere outside Japan so far as I know). You could pick one up as a race-only bike, never able to put it on the road.

Welcome to DTT, and to the crazy world of vintage bikes. Looks like you're digging right into the 125! Would love to see more info on that Honda Solo too - oddball looking thing that is. Oh the fun we could have with a mono-shock tiny bike.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the welcome and thanks for checking out my build! The Dream 50 would be an excellent around town bike. In downtown you never break 80 km/h anyways, so the Dream would be right in its element.

The Honda Solo is one of my favorite looking 50s ever made! It's a relatively new bike, going on sale in 2003. It has a 50 cc four stroke that produces 3.5 hp at 7,500 and a 3-speed semi-automatic transmission (not sure how this works, but you shift with your foot like normal except there is no clutch). One of my favorite things about the bike, aside from the monoshock rear, are the full size 18 inch wheels. Just cause its a scooter doesn't mean it has to have tiny wheels. I would absolutely love to buy one of these and drop my spare Dream engine into it. You can pick them up second hand for anywhere from 100,000 yen to 300,000 yen. Unfortunately, with the seat so close to the handlebars, you end up sitting bolt upright and looking a little goofy. Still, once you park it and step off, it looks great!



Here's a link to the Honda sales data (all in Japanese unfortunately):
http://www.honda.co.jp/news/2003/2030305-solo.html

teazer said:

A friend of ours in MI had one. I have no idea if he ever rode it, but it looked awesome in his dining room.

Click to expand...

Thanks for checking out my build! Did your friend have an HRC version or a standard Dream50? The HRC version was, as Tim said, a racing only version that lacked a headlight, turn signals, air cleaner, battery, etc. It had a special CDI in it that increased the rev limit from 13,000 to 14,500. The engine also had a lot of work as well such as a light flywheel, high compression piston, aggressive cams, bigger valves, bigger carb, long velocity stack, etc. Aside form the lack of headlight and blinkers, the biggest giveaway is the frame and tank color. All Dream 50s came with a red frame and silver tank. The Dream 50 Special Editions had a black frame with a red tank. The HRC versions had the black frame of the special edition and the silver tank from the regular version. By far the best color combo.

Letze said:

lovely, I read your 360 build quite a wile back and I have faith that you will turn this bike into a wonderful alternative.

Click to expand...

Awesome! I can't believe that I would run into someone on DTT that's read my Mitsubishi thread! That car was a blast to build, but it's difficult to drive regularly. Plus, I enjoy building them more than I enjoy driving them, haha. Thank you for the kind words and I hope I can turn this CB Dream into something special! Most of my time now is split between working on this bike and working on an Isuzu Bellett. I'm in the weird crappy bodywork slump on the Bellett, but hopefully, after Christmas, it'll have paint on it and I can really start getting to the fun work!

stroker crazy said:

Nakazoto - I love the look of these bikes!

I couldn't get a Dream but I did get one of these:

Crazy

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If I'm not mistaken, that's the Sky Team Ace 125, right? I've often wondered how interchangeable some of the parts would be between the two bikes. It would be awesome to take one of those and use things like the Dream disc brake rear, outer race springs on the front fork, etc. Still, it's a faithful recreation and all the reviews about them seem to say they're well built motorcycles. That frame with a CB125T engine might be a lot of fun to build too!

Thanks again everyone for reading my build! After I get the heaters pulled out and set up in my garage (winter is finally setting in here in Nagoya) I'll get back out there and get some more work done!

Regards,
David

David - you're right, it is an 'Ace'. The build quality is quite reasonable and the geometry is spot on; steers really well with no bad behaviour. If the motor doesn't last I will probably replace it with a two-stroke single. I have an early-style fairing on the way which might add little to the top-end speed (or not!).

Crazy

stroker crazy said:

David - you're right, it is an 'Ace'. The build quality is quite reasonable and the geometry is spot on; steers really well with no bad behaviour. If the motor doesn't last I will probably replace it with a two-stroke single. I have an early-style fairing on the way which might add little to the top-end speed (or not!).

Crazy

Click to expand...

That Ace is definitely a good looking bike and it's good to hear that they got the geometry spot on. It's just begging for a better engine though, haha. I think whenever I get done building this one, I might drop a fairing on it as well. My goal is to actually do the ton with a 125. Not sure if it's possible, but with a good fairing, I might have a decent shot at it!

Alright, I finally found the PC cable and battery charger to my old Sony Cybershot, so no more cell pics from the shop. Naturally, I had to take a test shot to see how it'd do.



Not super pretty, but much better than my poor cell could handle. So, next, I got to work on the left side peg. After some welding, cutting and re-welding, I got it lined up just about even with the right side peg.



And me mocking up where the shifter is going to sit about.



Now that i had two pegs I couldn't resist but sitting on it and seeing how it felt as a package. This is about how it will sit in finished form, the only thing that will change will be the handlebars as I have some clip-ons on the way. This thing fits me like a glove. The pegs are almost at the perfect height and are plenty comfortable. The whole thing feels great!



I need to shave... With the left side peg mounted, I got to work mounting the rear brake master cylinder. I created a little L-Bracket, tacked it on and then bolted the brake master to it to get a feel for positioning.



The problem with having it in this position is that it is a bit too far away from the pedal, so it needs to have an extension. It's also slightly further outboard than the pedal, so the extension needs a kink in it.



A trip to the hardware store found me with a turnbuckle (or whatever the proper name is) and some stainless steel all thread. A little heat and a lot of muscle and I ended up with this:



This is looking down from the top and you can see the kink I put in the stainless.



This works fantastically and pushes on the master rather well. It sits a little low, but I don't think I'll ever lean the bike over that far, and if I do it's probably because I've fallen off. Here's a shot from a little further away.



With that handled, I started on the shift linkage. I took the original linkage off of the Dream and bolted it up. I ran into two problems. The first was that the wider engine sits further outboard than dream, meaning the linkage needs a kink in it. The second was that the linkage was a bit too short. So, another turnbuckle and stainless steel all thread were ordered up to do the trick.



Here you can see the kink in the original shift linkage.



This shifts amazingly well. It just pops up and down through the gears like it was meant to be like this.



The only problem with it is that the side stand gets in the way when it's up. This is because the side stand sits further outboard than the Dream 50s side stand. I'll have to find a way to tackle that problem sometime in the future. For now, though, this is as far as I've gotten.

Thanks for reading guys!
Cheers
David