EN 125 overhaul

[nathanwhite]

Well, I picked up an EN125 today, for the very reasonable price of $0.00. A mate wanted it off his lawn and I offered to take it off his hands.

As it's been sitting on outside for god knows how long most parts are rusted or corroded.
My plan is to pull it to pieces, fix/repair what I can and replace what is too far gone. Once its back to optimal condition, I could turn it into a bucket, or cafe or even sell it ..... Meh, dont have to decide yet.

First arriving at home


Damage on the forks




Rusty shocks


Cracked bodywork


The only key to the bike


Mirror stalks rusted out also




Ducttape repairs on the indicators

[nathanwhite]

So after snapping the pics, it was time to see what worked.
Stuck in the key and pushed the starter.....nothing.

After sticking a multimeter on the battery and getting a whopping 8.4V I pulled the battery and replaced it with the good one from my scorpio

and it started up first time!
Then died.

I started it a couple of times and it idled fine. Gave it any throttle however and it promply died. Gonna see what thats about later.

Plonked the battery on a charger and left it to do its thing


Now that I know its runs I started the teardown


My high tech fuel draining setup


Pulling out the undertray (?) I ran into problems getting the taillight and indicators out. After about half and hour of pushing poking prodding and unscrewing I eventually discovered further back a connector that popped it right out


Remembering something I read somewhere to get the left grip off, I squirted some WD40 up it, left it for a while, then a little more wd40, worked it and off it came without any problems.


When getting the wiring harness off I found this little tenant

The spider was about 4cm long and didnt take to wd40 very well

Getting the header off took about 45 minutes and was the most irritating thing to get out.
The bottom screw, torqued down rather well and also very rusted, but more then that was a pain in the @$$ to get to because it was in the small gap between the header and the frame.
Liberal use of the wd40, shock treatment and patience finally saw it out though.



So at the end of day one, everything is out except the engine, the chain, a few bits on the frame and the front brake system.



Comments/Criticisms and suggestions most welcome.
Let me know if i'm doing something wrong because the whole point point of this project is for me to learn stuff about bikes.

[nathanwhite]

Day 2

Started by pulling out the front brake system


and it has a surprisingly decent amound of pad left


Draining the brake fluid found a horrible gunky mess in place of the brake fluid


I spend an hour (judging by the amount of songs played) trying to get the calipers off, but to no avail. I think i'm going to have to drill them

Then on to the chain
Took it off and stuck it in a petrol bath


after a couple of hours and some fierce scrubbing with a toothbrush I ended up with


With rust like this am I going to have to get a new chain?


while for help with pulling the engine, I wire wheeled the mirrors



and then finally got the engine pulled.


Tomorrow I'm going to get it down to the bare frame and then start fixing it all.

[ducatilover]

Neat project dude.

As for the bike dying when you give it throttle, clean the carb and re-set the float to factory specs, you probably have poo or alien spunk in the low speed jet.

[Ender EnZed]

Comments/Criticisms and suggestions most welcome.

Looks just about mint to me.

Give the carbs a good clean and charge the battery up. If you can get it going then she's good to go. Ride it round till you find something really wrong with it!

[nathanwhite]

Alright got back into it today.

First things first, off with the rear wheel.
No problems there


Then I moved onto the front end, loosing the tops of the forks before I undid the pinch bolts
Partially undid the top nut of the fork and was greeted with this lovely sight

It was about this time I started to smell the old fork oil


Nevertheless I pushed on, suspending the bike and wiggling out the forks. There was a pointless cover on the lower triple which made getting the bolt loose interesting

After it was loose I realized that I could have gone in from underneath. There was much more space to maneuver down there

Anyway, out with the triple clamp (tree?) and as the lower came out all the balls from both bearings dropped out and scattered across the floor. I think I found them all, but I guess ill find out when i'm putting it back together



After a short break I took a wire wheel to the front brake rotor to clean it up
Sorry for the blurry pic, I didnt want to fiddle with the camera too much with greasy hands




Now do I have to get the rotor machined down a 1-2mm to get rid of the rust pitting, or is it ok?



Also wire wheeled the headlight brackets, all the way down to the metal, will either paint or seal it later


I then turned my attention to the forks, and found that under that top cap was another seal, this one requiring an allen key of a size I didnt have

So Ill leave that till I have the right size tool.



One more question though, what can be done to fix the rust damage to the fork tubes? send to a shop to strip and re-chrome? chrome overtop? just get new tubes?

[nathanwhite]

When I finally get the forks open, is there anything I should be aware about? springs under pressure etc (seeing as I have never done this before)

[ducatilover]

Springs are under pressure, make sure you put everything back in right order
Send pictures to someone who does re-chroming, but a set of pre '04 GN forks will do it (pre-Chinese ones) I think.

Measure the bearings up and go buy new ones from a bearing stockist, it'll be cheaper than 'Zuki.

I'd definitely ride that little beast around town

Download an owners manual too

[nathanwhite]

More work done today

Cleaned up the engine






Hauled the frame, swingarm and stands outside and busted out my $5 can of degreaser



Once that was done, I attacked the frame with a wire wheel and scouring pad. Some elbow (and knee) grease later, the rust was gone along with the powder coating in affected areas. Covered it with CRC zinc paint and left to dry/harden





On a side note I noticed recently that the front brake on my scorpio gets to about 3/4 of its braking power and doesnt brake any harder. I pulled the calipers off and noticed that only the smaller caliper was moving



But then if I push it in, or hold it while pulling the lever, the other one goes



I'm assuming this is not normal, but I have no idea if its the problem.
Any ideas?

[Henk]

The one pot moving when you haul on the brakes with the caliper off is quite normal. As long as they both move things are pretty fine from that point of view.
First thing I'd be looking at if the brakes haven't been bled for a while is fluid, the fact that both pots move indicates that the caliper is largely OK.

[nathanwhite]

The brakes haven't been bled for some 10,000k ie since new, so yea maybe its that. Ill bleed it tomorrow (or soon anyway) and see what happens.

Thanks

[Grant`]

Good work dude, looks like a nice little project!

[nathanwhite]

I just went out to that garage to grab stuff and saw this


Lovely patch of dead grass outside
In hindsight, it may have been agood idea to do the degreasing on the driveway

[ducatilover]

Great progress dude.

My 5C:
Powdercoat that frame, or hammerrite it. Will look great and be tough as a women with a heavy handbag.

Polish the covers on your motor, those small touches make such a difference
I painted my motor gloss black and polished all the covers by hand (don't go that far, it sucks) and it looks a million bucks.

[nathanwhite]

Ok, an update.

Done a few bits and bobs, but the main thing is I finally got my plan of attack sorted.
I'm going to clean/fix/sort out stuff as I rebuild the bike. I had a vague idea of doing it all before as a seperate stage, but I think this will be easier.

Cleaned up the wheels

After


Took a scouring pad to the shocks



Put the stands back on


Pulled apart the speed sensor, more to satisfy my curiosity then because it needed it. Degreased it and now its waiting for when I rebuild the front to get put back together



Got one of the forks partially apart







Spring out



Dust cover off



Lovely rusty crap on the inside



Now does anyone have any idea how I would get the rear shocks apart? googleing hasn't produced any helpful answers and I cant see anything to be loosened/undone/whatever to get them apart




I've also hit a snag in getting the other fork open, the top nut totally refuses to turn no matter what I do to it. I suppose the main problem is it the hex head/nut thing stripped and I dont have the next size up

I tried making a grove with a rather large screwdriver, but haven't had any luck there
bah, Ill keep trying tomorrow.