73 CL125s: Billiwhacker

maxDTM

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My Craigslist addiction has led to many wasted hours spent dreaming "what if." Well, a few days ago I spotted a posting that led to a phone call, which led to a drive across town, and which soon escalated into a couple of dudes hauling a pretty rough scrambler into my dad's pickup truck. So here in my driveway, in her full glory, sits Billiwhacker:

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The serial number indicates this bike was the 239th CL125 produced and I'm the second owner. My friends and I purchased it on a farm called "Billiwhack Ranch," so Billiwhacker felt like an appropriate name—but to make things cooler we also learned about a little bit of folklore associated with the ranch. That's right: on that very farm exists a horrifying ram-headed humanoid called the Billiwhack Monster. And little did we know, we brought home a few creatures of our own...

Exhibit A: Under the tank I found a fucking birds nest:

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An egg... scrambled?:

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And the air-filter was "housing" a nice big black widow family:

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Normally I am a pacifist, but in the case of the widow I had to "put my foot down." Sorry bout it.

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I've been spending the last few days getting dried mud off the frame, engine, wheels, forks... Did I mention there's mud everywhere? Seems like the damn thing fell into a pit of quicksand at some point in its life. The good news is that it's cleaning up pretty nicely and the frame looks great besides some minor pitting and surface rust. Unfortunately the badass scrambler pipe is rusted away and I'll have to source a new one (if anyone has one, please let me know!). The seatpan is also rusted through, and the tank is very rusty (I sourced a tank from a DTT member, and seatpans are luckily a dime a dozen on fleabay). Suspension will need a makeover, but the wheels seem pretty solid.

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And of course the bike will need a lot of of mechanical attention. The icing on the cake is that the motor is seized from sitting 20+ years out on a field... This will be my first complete teardown and I expect nothing less than a serious learning experience. My buddies and I have decided to make this our summer project and split the costs of the impending parts, which is good because I'm a freshly-graduated college alum with very little funds. We understand the implications of starting a project like this, but I'm confident that we can bring Billi back to life in the next few months. First order of business will be removing the engine and inspecting the head. I'm hoping for a frozen piston and not a broken cam chain. This has to wait until my buddies are available this weekend. In the meantime I'm dealing with a broken spark plug and a stuck float bowl.

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Whether or not this will evolve into a "cafe racer" is not certain, but since a full restoration is out of the question I think this will be an appropriate place to post. I'll update as soon as progress is made, and I appreciate your patience with me as I trudge through my first build. I will have no shortage of questions!

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Good looking project........................just like mine.

If you come across any extra parts in your search, can ya let me know?

I'm in need of a tank (usable), seat (or pan to upholster), headlight (complete).

You're gonna like that little thing, I just went thru a rebuild of my little engine, now that it's over, wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

Now my kicker is stripped, and have to tear into it again.

The saga never ends.
 
I was just reading through your thread yesterday. You've made some sweet progress in just half a month! Too bad about that kick starter. Where did you source your piston? I found a repro piston kit for $30 and an OEM kit for $50. I'm not ordering anything until I see what's going on in the head but I'm guessing I'll probably end up needing at least a hone & rings.

I'll keep my eye out for part sources. I'll be needing a seat and headlight bucket myself ::)
 
maxDTM said:
I was just reading through your thread yesterday. You've made some sweet progress in just half a month! Too bad about that kick starter. Where did you source your piston? I found a repro piston kit for $30 and an OEM kit for $50. I'm not ordering anything until I see what's going on in the head but I'm guessing I'll probably end up needing at least a hone & rings.

I'll keep my eye out for part sources. I'll be needing a seat and headlight bucket myself ::)

Cool, thanks man.

I got a .050mm over from ebay, I think it was like 29 bux.

Had piston, rings, and piston pin.
 
Cool, yeah I'll probably get the $30 kit instead of the $50 if it doesn't make a difference, but I'm not ordering anything until I actually see what's going on in there. I pulled the engine last night and man it's dirty. I haven't opened it up yet but I can tell that things are pretty crusty in there. Can't wait to pull it apart but I gotta wait for my friend to get back from a weekend trip before I do, since it is a group project and all. Anyway, here's how she sits now:

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^^^^^^^^^^...been there, done that.....^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Getting ready to do it again, cause of the kicker shaft stripping.
 
Woohoo, made some progress today. Got the head and cylinder off and only took like 3 hours ::)

Our main issue was that the workshop manual stated to disassemble the head at TDC and with the inlet and exhaust cams aligned to a cutout on the head, but that wasn't an option because of the stuck piston.

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We couldn't figure out how to get the camshaft out of its cylinder, so I just slipped the cam chain over the shaft and we popped the head off. Here's the mess we found on top of the piston:

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And the valves:

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Holy shit, what a mess. I think most of the crumbs are a result of the exhaust pipe rusting completely away. Next step was to pull the cylinder, but that proved way harder than anticipated. Now bear in mind that I have never done this before, but it took my buddies and I about an hour of hammering the piston to get it out. The damn thing just would not break loose.

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And here is the culprit to Billi's seized engine:

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So that's where I'm at right now. The crankcase turns freely now, cam chain looks pretty good. We'll be opening up the bottom in the next few days—mostly to check it out, see how everything works, make sure everything looks good, change the gaskets, etc... And also because my friend dropped a pin into the crankcase when we were working on getting the head off.

I think I'll go ahead and order a new piston kit. I'm guessing it makes sense to bore 1st over (.25mm). Is there any reason to go bigger? The cylinder doesn't look too bad. Bud, did you mean that you went .50mm over?

Anyway thanks for reading. Looking forward to updating more soon!
 
Man that's exactly like mine.

I went .050 cause of the gouge in my cylinder. I just figured that would be safest.
 
So I ordered a new piston kit, gaskets, oil seals, a few more goodies here and there. Cleaning the grime off the cylinder has been somewhat of a slow process so far, but it's slowly starting to shine. Compared to my CB I've definitely got a lot of work to do. I might see about investing in a soda blaster setup.

The head is still all jammed up and I'm not exactly sure how to get it unstuck. Pretty sure the valves are gunked up like the piston was. Hopefully not as bad, though :-\ Any suggestions on how to remedy this and "clear the sinuses?"
 
Take the adjuster screws and nuts out of the rocker arms, see if that helps.
 
Thought I'd give the thread a little update since it's been a while. Not a whole lotta progress in the last week... went to Comic Con, been teaching a summer camp all week... etc. But I did get some overnight parts from Japan in the mail!

The good news is that my buddy and I managed to get that dropped pin out of the bottom end! Imagine trying to shake a guitar pick out of an acoustic guitar, only with crankcase. It was kinda like that. So it looks like we won't need to split the cases after all since everything seems to move well in there. ;D

The next real order of business is to take the cylinder to a shop for the bore/hone, and then reassemble the engine. Then to move on to everything else! But we're not quite there yet. 8)

Also, I found a CL100 pipe on ebay and pulled the trigger. Apparently the CL100 pipe fits but has a different tip. I got a pretty good price on it anyway so I'm just glad to have secured one.

I mentioned earlier that I sourced a gas tank from a forum member here. Well, he stopped responding to my texts and calls so I guess that means it's not "reserved" for me anymore... So I guess I'm gonna see what I can do about the current tank. It's a mess, so I'll see if I can salvage it. Otherwise, I'm on the hunt for another tank.
 
maxDTM said:
Thought I'd give the thread a little update since it's been a while. Not a whole lotta progress in the last week... went to Comic Con, been teaching a summer camp all week... etc. But I did get some overnight parts from Japan in the mail!

The good news is that my buddy and I managed to get that dropped pin out of the bottom end! Imagine trying to shake a guitar pick out of an acoustic guitar, only with crankcase. It was kinda like that. So it looks like we won't need to split the cases after all since everything seems to move well in there. ;D

The next real order of business is to take the cylinder to a shop for the bore/hone, and then reassemble the engine. Then to move on to everything else! But we're not quite there yet. 8)

Also, I found a CL100 pipe on ebay and pulled the trigger. Apparently the CL100 pipe fits but has a different tip. I got a pretty good price on it anyway so I'm just glad to have secured one.

I mentioned earlier that I sourced a gas tank from a forum member here. Well, he stopped responding to my texts and calls so I guess that means it's not "reserved" for me anymore... So I guess I'm gonna see what I can do about the current tank. It's a mess, so I'll see if I can salvage it. Otherwise, I'm on the hunt for another tank.

Yea, I meant .50mm on the over bore.

Seems you and I are in the same boat with the tank.

Lets see some pics of yours? Mine got pin holes from using the vinegar treatment.

I'm gonna try to see if a radiator shop or some kind of shop can fix it for me. Seems it's only that one spot that is affected.

I'm n ot pleased with the treatment, still looks like it needs more. So, gonna try the stuff from HD that Deviant (eric) suggested on my thread.
 
Not pretty:

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I haven't tried to treat it yet, obviously. I'll be surprised if the rust doesn't go all the way through. I've had luck with vinegar before, but never with this much rust, so that will be interesting. Have you tried electrolysis for your tank?
 
Yep, that tank does look rough.

Have not tried the electrolysis, due to having holes in the bottom of the tank as a result of the vinegar treatment.

I'm still debating whether it is worth it to pursue fixing this tank.

But stuff I see for sale looks worse than mine and they want to get rich quick with the prices they're asking.
 

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Yeah, that doesn't look very good at all haha. Mine will probably have a few holes like that when I get around to trying to cleaning it. I remembered that the guy who sold me the bike said he has a spare tank so I might inquire about that if mine is unsalvagable.

Anyway I got the cylinder job done! Took a lot of phone calls to find the right man for the job but I found a local gent who did it for $65. We're just about ready to button this mothafucka back up! Just need to clean up those valves (need a valve puller).

We also bought an air compressor and rigged up the DIY soda blaster setup that I've read so much about online. Definitely helps with some of the engine grime–not 100%, but close enough. We've only had this baby for a month and it feels like the engine is almost mechanically sorted. Feels good man.

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maxDTM said:
Yeah, that doesn't look very good at all haha. Mine will probably have a few holes like that when I get around to trying to cleaning it. I remembered that the guy who sold me the bike said he has a spare tank so I might inquire about that if mine is unsalvagable.

Anyway I got the cylinder job done! Took a lot of phone calls to find the right man for the job but I found a local gent who did it for $65. We're just about ready to button this mothafucka back up! Just need to clean up those valves (need a valve puller).

We also bought an air compressor and rigged up the DIY soda blaster setup that I've read so much about online. Definitely helps with some of the engine grime–not 100%, but close enough. We've only had this baby for a month and it feels like the engine is almost mechanically sorted. Feels good man.


Yeah man, know that feeling. Had it when mine came together and actually ran.

But, out it comes again to split the cases to replace the kicker shaft.
 
Ahhh yeah, that's a huge bummer.

After the engine is done, I do have pretty much everything else on the bike to take care of still.

How can I know if I need to replace the springs? The front end is very stiff, as I'm guessing the forks are gunked up pretty bad. The rear springs don't look awful besides a little bit of surface rust. Suspension is still a bit of a mystery for me so I'm not positive on how to proceed with all these bouncy parts :eek:
 
I am just finishing a 72 CL100. I dont know that the two bikes are exactly the same. I got new front springs from Honda. Unsprung length is 7.25". Once you get yours pulled apart for cleaning & new seals. Make sure they arent cracked and measure them to make sure they are the same. Then just add the oil viscosity that best suits the bike and you.

The rear shocks arent rebuildable. Probably best to be replaced. I got a pair of Hagons custom built for the 100 from Dave Quinn. he accounts for bike weight, rider weight & riding style. He installed 16kg springs in mine and they are perfect. Hes been building Hagons for 30yrs give or take. And just a good guy to work with.

http://www.davequinnmotorcycles.com/
 
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