CR125 Top End and Re-Assembly

I finally have all the parts assembled to put the top end back together and make this bike look like it belongs in one piece again.


I sent the cylinder out to a company in Texas called Rat Racing and thanks to Tom it came back looking beautiful and ready to go back together.  Tom helped me get the right size piston and I wanted to keep it to as close to std bore as possible so he took all the measurements and decided that we could go .5mm over and clean up the cylinder perfectly with that size.

New Base Gasket.

 

Cylinder on, Piston arrow forward...Ready.

These two strokes go back together pretty easy, especially after you have done a couple four stroke bikes, the only tricky part can be getting the power valve put in correctly and the one on this bike is an easy one so it didn't take long to put it together.

 

All bolts Torqued down with new gaskets installed, valve linkage installed ready to put the covers back on.

 

Valve covers on, ATAC chamber installed .

 

 

Hoses installed, top motor mounts torqued, ready for exhaust.

Stock Exhaust with a couple little wrinkles, I'm on the lookout for a nice Pro Circuit system for it.  Worst part of that is I had one in my dads barn a couple years back I ran across it, now it has gone missing.

 

 

Plastics back on, looking good. 

Chain and Sprockets ordered today.  Have to wait a bit for money to order tires, also need to find the proper prolink decal for the swing arm and a good intake manifold because mine has a crack all the way through and the one that I ordered and got in ups yesterday is not the correct model.

 

 

After sitting on that work table for just over a year, the CR has moved to a proper bike stand and is ready for tires.

 

 

 

CR125 Seat Refinished

I had posted a photo of the new seat cover I ordered a week ago or so and finally got to put it on this weekend.  The cover fit great but I struggled with getting the staples to go into the seat pan.  When I did the seat on the KX I didn't run into this problem, the staples went right into the pan no problem.  I think the plastic on the CR pan is much harder than the KX.  I got it to work but it is not as clean on the bottom as the first one that I did.  If anyone knows of a heavy duty stapler that can set a staple into hard surfaces maybe you could shoot me a message and let me know.  Right now I am just using a ET50 Stanley electric stapler.

This photo really shows the only reason for replacing the seat cover, its a pretty bad rip. There is one other very small hole as well but it would have been cool to be able to use the original cover.

The cover came off clean except where the PO super glued the rip to the foam.  Its not bad tho only took a small layer off the top of the foam.

Even the bottom of the cover where it wraps under the pan was in great shape, no tears under the edges.

The New cover.  It looks nice!

CR125 Pipe Dents

The Pipe Off this 87 CR125 Is really in pretty good shape given that it is 26 years old.  Not too many bikes make it that long let alone most of the parts like a pipe that often would get smashed in a tip over crash.  I actually want to put an aftermarket unit on it. Back in 87 I had Pro Circuit pipes on my Hondas and would like to go that route.  Until I can find a suitable unit I will be using the stock one but needed to take this dent out best I could. 

The Dents came out very nicely. You can still see some wrinkle in the pipe up close but once I get a new coat of Satin Black on there it will look pretty darn nice.

I used the Pressurization technique, had to build some plugs of different sizes with schrader valves in them to ad air,  then used my torch to heat the areas I wanted to bring dents out of and it worked great. 

Progress Resumes

Finally I have gotten back to working on this project.  It has taken some time to complete the KX125 Project (still waiting on finish decals) but it is time to get this thing done.  I sent the cylinder out to be bored and a new +.5mm piston fit to it.  Ill have photo report on that when it comes back in a week or so.  Here I have a photo of the new seat cover that I ordered almost a month back. It is custom made so it takes a little while to get it once ordered but I did the same for the KX and it turned out great.

The cover came from an ebay seller in Gresham, Or. jrocksqueen2006/ebay.com on ebay if you need a cover look it up.

I hope to have time to put this on in the next couple days and I will post up those photos as well.
I have ordered a couple other smaller parts to get things moving along, air filter cage and a filter, no need for photos there though.

Fuel Tank Refinishing.

It is time to start working on the CR again, I started today with the fuel tank refinishing. I had done the fenders last winter and a few weeks ago I did the shrouds and side panels.  Today I ordered the new piston kit and a new bearing for the top end, I have to save up a bit of cash to get the cylinder work done.  With any luck and some good ebay sales it wont take too long. 

The first photo is the untouched tank, you can see some of the scratches, they give off a glare in the photo.


In the second photo you can just make out the start of the finish process.
 I started with a 320 paper on this tank because the scratches were not very deep. 
Then used 400 and 600 if you decide to do this, don't make circles with the sand paper, they are harder to get out and show up easier.  Use long motions in straight lines, cross your patterns every once in a while with each grit of paper.

The third photo is also before starting at another angle to see the scratches.

This is after the 600 grit followed by two coats of clear,

 Same in this photo, after a good long cure (at least 24hrs) I will go back over the tank with 2000 grit (all sanding is done wet) then a final coat of clear.

Below are the shrouds that I refinished last week. Today I put the graphics on. Really happy with how they turned out.