1972 Honda SL125 - First bike

S

Steaksauce

New Member
Hello everyone, so far I've always been a car guy and the older I get the old the cars have gotten but lately I've had the desire to play with a bike, with older cars I've grown to love simplicity and old bikes just hit it dead on for me. I picked up this 72 SL125 with no key and not running for 200 bucks with big plans even though it had been like 6 years since I had even been on a bike and it was a big heavy HD Softail.

This is a definite budget build as my 72 BMW 2002 gets most of my free money but really just building a bike to have fun with around town.

Here is how it looked when the PO bought it:





And then when I got it home (close ups just to show where I started):








Some parts were robbed off it or stuff had been removed. Didn't really care since I'll be changing almost everything, motor has good compression and spins freely and thats all I was worried about.

Plans are to strip it down to the frame and just go with the flow, no set plan except to get it an old school feel.. Already know it will be getting a different tank as this one has rust in it.

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Well jacked with it for a couple hours tonight, wanted it all the way apart but after not having a big enough socket for the triple tree and a bolt breaking on the rear shock I decided to say screw it. Got to this point though. More tear down happening this weekend after I get all the crap I need.



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More tear down tonight, couldn't help myself haha, all thats left is the triple tree



Then decided to polish up the chain cover a bit, needs more work and probably ditch the dealer sticker.

Before:


After:


Close up on the motor, it will get rebuilt, cleaned up and repainted:



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Well got the triple tree off and also the broken bolt out of the frame but didn't make much more progress on the frame, cut a few things off but have to borrow a grinder will I'm ready to do some paint. The motor has also been a battle as every phillips screw has been tightened way too tight, got two broke loose but have 3 to go...been doing it when I'm in the mood so I don't jack anything up lol.

So since I've been stuck I decided to do some painting, not too exciting but atleast its some progress.

Before:


After:


Also painted two of the motor mounts and also the headlight bucket:




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More little stuff done today since my son was sick and he was napping through out the day:

Top of the triple tree:


Handle bar mounts:


Skid plate:


Another cover off the motor

Before:


After: Need to touch up the black


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Did some more painting tonight:




Before and After on the horn, decided to add a little color because I was sick of painting gloss black lol





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Couple days ago cleaned up another cover:

Before:


After:


Also finally got my frame where I wanted, cut off some tabs for side covers and also a helmet lock that was welded to the frame. Then got it all painted up, getting me a lot closer to starting to put the bike back together.



Tonight I plan on starting to order stuff like a full gasket kit, allen bolt kit and some other odds and ends to get the motor done so I can get it mounted back up so I can start putting on all the brackets I have painted.

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Well decided to loosely bolt on some stuff, couldn't help myself, made the bolts look terrible but I might just run it all till I decided to jack with it again.



Close up of the triple tree



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Got rear trailing arm on tonight, kickstand and skidplate. Pretty unhappy with how the paint turned out on the rear arm but oh well, maybe it will be something only I notice lol.






Thanks for reading, that was all I've done in the past couple weeks since buying the bike. More parts are on the way. What will probably happen and I'll get the bike back together and redo the whole thing in the fall with new hardware and maybe spend a little more money on the motor and suspension. Really this bike is one to learn, one to learn how to work on bikes plus one to get my license on since I just had my permit before. Any pointers or tips at all I'm open ears and hopefully it can keep up with all the great builds on the site.
 
Looking good! The 70s Honda 125s are great little bikes! I recommend upgrading to 12V electronics.
 
nrcb125 said:
Looking good! The 70s Honda 125s are great little bikes! I recommend upgrading to 12V electronics.
Click to expand...

Yeah I've actually been thinking about going that route, what all is needed to swap over from 12v to 6v?
 
Steaksauce said:
Yeah I've actually been thinking about going that route, what all is needed to swap over from 12v to 6v?
Click to expand...

It's pretty simple. Here's what to do:
[list type=decimal]
[*]Rewind the stator (optional, but highly recommended)
[*]Connect the lighting coil and ignition coil outputs
[*]Install a 12V reg/rectifier in place of the old selenium 6V one
[*]Put a resistor of 2 ohms impedance 20 watts power dissipation before the ignition coil
[*]Replace all light bulbs with 12V equivalents
[*]Replace battery with 12V equivalent
[/list]

Rewinding the stator is optional, but highly recommended. If you don't you'll have to be very careful to not overload the electrical system and burn up the stator.

Connecting the ignition and lighting coil has the same effect as if you'd flipped the light switch on the 6V system. Study the wiring diagram and make the connection at the same points. It's as easy as connecting two wires from the plug which leaves the stator (I forget which ones, sorry). It makes more power available to the reg/rect so you can run lights.

On these little Hondas, a 12V reg/rect from a GY6 scooter is more than enough, and they're only ~$15 on eBay.

You'll need to put a resistance in front of the ignition coil to keep it from being overloaded. The ignition system is ~2 ohms impedance so putting 2 ohms in front will create a simple (but very inefficient) voltage divider, keeping the current in that branch down. Power = Current2 x Resistance, so without the resistors it'll be pumping twice the current, and effectively four times the power. That will burn up the coil very quickly.

Replacing the light bulbs follows the same logic as putting the resistors before the ignition coil (double current = four times the power -> burning up). For the headlight, I recommend grabbing a Kawasaki Eliminator 125 (EL125) headlight assembly from eBay. To install it one my CB125, I had to remove the inner tabs from the headlight trim ring and then use silicone caulk to glue the EL125 assembly into the ring. But it does fit well and I found it was the cheapest, simplest option. The 12V tail light bulb is an 1157. 12V instrument light bulbs can be found at a local Radioshack. Turn signal relays probably need replaced as well (if you run them, I don't).

Make sure to replace the battery as well.

A guy on the CB125S Yahoo group wrote up a really detailed guide on how to convert from 6V to 12V. I followed it for my bike and everything went smoothly. My wiring skills aren't the cleanest looking but if you need some pictures of how I converted my CB125S let me know.
 
Thank you so much for all the info, the taillight will be aftermarket so that was the original reason why I was thinking 12v, still unsure about running signals haha. I thank you so much again!
 
Steaksauce said:
Thank you so much for all the info, the taillight will be aftermarket so that was the original reason why I was thinking 12v, still unsure about running signals haha. I thank you so much again!
Click to expand...

No problem! The 6V -> 12V guide I talked about is posted in my build thread if you need it.
 
I'm not absolutely sure, but it looks like you may have painted the bearing seating surfaces on the triple tree.

Looks like you're making some pretty good progress! Your engine is going to look awesome
 
plagrone said:
I'm not absolutely sure, but it looks like you may have painted the bearing seating surfaces on the triple tree.

Looks like you're making some pretty good progress! Your engine is going to look awesome
Click to expand...

I did but cleaned them off and regreased everything, they were all gunked up anyways so they had to be cleaned up anyways.


Yesterday my bolt kit, gasket kit and headlight bracket showed up and today my bars, grips and throttle came. Couldn't help myself so I put the bars on and also put my back wheel on for a temporary set up as its in pretty bad shape.




Then I polished up the front wheel, could be nicer but it will get the job done for now.

 
Took the decals off tonight to get ready to strip it down, noob question but how does the peacock come off? I'm not seeing any bolts on the outside of the tank to remove it?

 
Steaksauce said:
Took the decals off tonight to get ready to strip it down, noob question but how does the peacock come off? I'm not seeing any bolts on the outside of the tank to remove it?
Click to expand...

If it's anything like the CB125S petcock you'll have to remove the bowl at the bottom of the petcock and there will be a bolt inside that. Here's a diagram which shows it. Part #21 is what you need to remove to take off the petcock.
 

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Ah I was right there, just didn't remove the black circle, thanks, I was searching for that breakdown but couldn't find it
 
So I've been letting this bike collect dust since I've been working nonstop on the 02 but with it where I'm happy with it I've decided to get back on this finally. I was never happy with the paint job so I disassembled the bike yet again and I'm starting over again. I'm going to go with a semi-gloss black this time around instead of gloss. Also plan on doing a lot more detail work on this bike instead of just throwing it together I was on course to do last time.

So now on to where I'm at right now!

Back down to the frame

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Also started painting some parts which I plan to go much slower on this time around, learned my lesson last time lol.

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Also took this arm for the rear brake and decided instead of painting it to polish it up a bit. Started as a dull silver with a mix of surface rust. Still need to polish on it a little more.

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Looking good!

I am busy with a restore of a Honda xl175, looks similar to your 125

How did you get those engine parts so nicely shined up?
 
BryanOC6 said:
Looking good!

I am busy with a restore of a Honda xl175, looks similar to your 125

How did you get those engine parts so nicely shined up?
Click to expand...

First clean them up, then wet sand with 1000 then wetsand with 2000 then polish them with a metal polish, I do it by hand but some use power tools
 
Been slowly getting the frame down to bare metal and also smoothing out some of the welds, hoping for paint to start this weekend. Also going to a swap meet this Sunday to see what goodies I can find (hopefully exhaust and the collar since mine didn't come with one)

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