The old sixties Honda CB150 was shoved into my hands for free. This was the bike on which the infamous CB125 and the later CG125 were based. My aunt had unearthed the thing from the back of her garage and decided I could have it. What was left of it, anyway. Basically, an engine, frame, forks and set of rusty wheels. The rest of it had fallen apart over the decade it had been salted away.
The only good thing was that the corrosion hadn't made it into the engine, still a sniff of lubricant left on the moving parts. A testament to the design, the internals still looked shiny. I quickly put the motor back together, added fresh oil and made up a feed for the petrol (old oil tank plus fuel line) as the original tank had rusted inside to the extent that it dribbled out petrol.
After several kicks the motor blasted into life on the open downpipe! Okay, so that worked. Next in line was sorting out the chassis. I soon gave up on the front end, fitted a modern set-up from a GS125. A used petrol tank for a fiver had me smiling until I realised the tap was shot. A saddle off something unknown; ditto a couple of mudguards. Cheap tyres, used cables, home-made wiring and a few other things soon had the machine ready for the road.
What I hadn't realised at this stage was just how shot was the gearbox. Talk about more false neutrals than working gears! Having read various tales about old Hondas in the UMG (where else?) I knew that a bit of practice would help. Took me a whole month before I mastered the change, although I still manage a couple of false neutrals a day.
Performance was on the pace with the restricted learners. It was also very light, dead easy to take step-thrus when rushing through gaps. Gasped a bit on the open road, many cagers trying to nudge me out of their way. Definitely most at home in the daily commute. I did quite enjoy charging down narrow country roads even if the bike would wobble and weave a bit above 50mph. The most I ever saw on the clock was 76mph. Fuel was amazing, 100-110mpg!
The CB150's very rare, even the later CB125's are becoming hard to find, most worn down by the miles and a couple of decades of corrosion. However, they aren't considered classic motorcycles, therefore when bits do turn up the prices are usually very silly. I bought a whole CB125S chassis, which lacked any deeply embedded rust, for 25 quid!
I soon fitted the motor and electrics into this. The first time I tried to stop I nearly killed myself. Used to the GS's strong disc, the puny SLS hub from the CB125S was a total pile of crap. I had the lever back to the bars before any hint of braking developed. Just to add to the panic, slamming the throttle shut produced an almighty backfire as the header pipe wasn't seated fully in the exhaust port.
I twisted the bike through the converging cars and lived to tell the tale. First thing, then, was to fit the GS's front end on to the new chassis. That was a lot more practical, it's amazing the difference a good brake makes to a bike. You can ride both safer and faster.
Less easy to sort was the Neanderthal vibration. The frames looked identical but there was obviously some minor differences because it vibrated more than in its original home. I didn't want to use the old frame because there was a suspicious amount of rust around the shocks' mounts! The engine's actually a stressed component of the frame, so no way I could use rubber mounts. What I did do was tighten the engine bolts down using a very long lever on the wrench!
That got the vibration down to a tolerable level up to 60mph, thereafter it buzzed away ferociously. The handlebars were just plain vanilla steel items with no weights in their ends, so a sort through the local breaker's prize collection of discarded bars produced something the right diameter with weighted ends. That helped a hell of a lot. As did a couple of thick footrest rubbers off a Tiger Cub from the local Brit bike emporium. The owner cursed me when I revealed I was going to fit them to Jap iron!
The bike was still pretty useless as a speed tool but it was now capable of the odd burst of velocity without threatening to reduce me to a blubbering wreck. The wobbles were sorted with new swinging arm bearings, though they proved short-lived. As a commuter it was brilliant and very cheap to run. So much so that I've kept the bike even after buying much more interesting tackle - not just as a winter hack, through heavy traffic it can't be beaten; neither can its economy.