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CBF 125 Head Bearings
Blog Date - 04 November 2013
Blooming cold last night, first frost of the year on the cars outside my house this morning. But it's dry and as I type it's pleasant and warm, sort of. I'm not booked out on any jobs, there's nothing too serious pending and I am free to ride. So why am I not out on the bike making the most of this rare clement weather?
I've made the most of the good weather. If I were house proud I'd be out there scraping the old paint of the stone sills and replacing it with fresh new masonry paint. I'd be cleaning windows and sorting the weeds out between the flags. Something more important needed to be done though, and now it is done, and I feel good.
My little CBF 125 is a great little bike but I suspect it's had a hard life. I also suspect that being made in India rather than Japan it suffers from a slight lack of build quality. The headstock bearing had acquired a notch right in the straight ahead position. It could not have been that bad as it recently passed an MOT carried out by a tester who actually checks the bike thoroughly. Yet it was enough to bother me. I don't know why but ever since being a kid and fixing my own pushbikes I've had a thing about bearings and them being spot on.
So I removed the front wheel, the forks, the bars and finally the triple clamps. Considering how fussy I am with bearings the correct procedure is to remove the old bearings and replace them anew. I can afford this, they're not too costly. But when I was younger and poor to the point of stoney broke I did not replace them, I used to rub them with emery cloth to remove the notches and rebuild them, always to a successful and satisfactory conclusion. That's what I've done today, because I know it can be done and know how to do it. You cannot purchase experience.
The bike is now back together. I've checked, double checked and thrice checked every nut and bolt is correctly tightened. I've adjusted the bearings to the same level of perfection that I learned as a mere child. There are no notches and the movement is smooth. Now it's time to ride. Why then, given my experience and triple checking do I fear that I might have got it all wrong?
Experience tells me no matter how clever, smart, experienced and thorough you like to think are, you're still human and humans make mistakes...
Reader's Comments
john de ville said :-
im the same ren, dont matter how many times you do something you always have doubts.
well done on the rebuild re the bearings
01/01/2000 00:00:00 UTC
Ren - The Ed said :-
Doubts can sometimes be a good thing. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread and all that.
01/01/2000 00:00:00 UTC
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