rancevas
Derestricted Danger
Joined: 15 Apr 2019
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Teflon-Mike
tl;dr
Joined: 01 Jun 2010
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 Posted: 08:41 - 15 Apr 2019  Post subject: |
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The 125 Verry-Oh-Dear-Oh, was a great bike... twenty years ago; unfortunately, the greatest thing about it was a) how expensive it was! It was at one time the most expensive 125 in any of the majors catalogues, that wasn't a dedicated GP race bike! As I recall, at more than a few points in its history, it sat in the show rooms with a higher price tag than bigger bikes, like the CB500 sat along side it.... ie it weren't a cheap bike! A-N-D bits dont care whether they are for a brand-new show-room example, or one ragged to feck and siezed to cuck over twenty years... they still cost the same.... and since this bike was effoff expensive when new? Well, the bits will be effoff expensive as well, and they wont have got any cheaper.
That would be my first worning shot accross the bow, to deter me from tackling a 125 Very-Oh, as a 'project'.
Next up, b) the other great thing about them, was the complexity. They were a V-Twin, with overhead cams, and twin carbs, and rather convoluted exhaust pipes.
NOW, I renovate little Honda 125 twins for 'Fun'. The parallel twin CB125 with the Benly engine. It has two pots, and two-carbs, but only one cam-shaft and one cam-chain, and the exhaust doesn't have to wrap around the motor in an intricate route to get nalenced length headers, and the carbs dont have to be squeezed into the tiny gapo between the cylinders, or be jetted differently front to back 'cos of the back pot running hotter and stuff.
That V-Motor is a bit of jewelery, concieved not for any other good reason than the simple aesthetic of it having to look like a V-Twin Harley's engine, in the Shaddow cruiser.....
In the Very-Oh? They rather chucked the baby out with the bath-water, hiding the engine behind a Sega-Super-Hang-On plastic fair-ground toy, to hide the fact it is so diddy!
Things does not make the mechanics any less daunting, and on anything likely to need spanner attension, even more so, because odds is, that few owners will have braved taking them panels of to do anything, like normal-routine-maintenence, whilst the space fills with road crud and silt, and in the UK inparticular with rather a lot of wet rain, and salted roads in the winter, everything will RUST... which means it'll be a swine to try take apart, and you will likely break a fair bit in the trying, like exhaust manifold studs!
The exhaust's too, are something of a bug-bear. Pipes rot from the inside out. Hydro-Carbon fuel, like wot petrol is, burns, in air, to make Carbon-Di-Oxide and water, plus a few other nasties, that are usually acidic; so water in the exhaust fumes condenses, and noxiouse stuff in the smoke dissolves into that water, which then puddles in the lowest part of the exhaust... and helps it rot.
OE exhausts are incredibly expensive, like you could probably buy a brand new Chinky CG clone for as much as a 125 Very-O exhaust costs....
And so it goes on.... when you start digging into one, and beyond the common or obviouse..... the worse it gets.
You say that your priority here is to save money.... well, sorry but if you wanted to save money, you shouldn't have bought a Very-Oh-Dear-Oh..... ANY 125 Very-Oh-DEAR-Oh. New, or used, working or a project, it aint NEVER going to be cheap or easy to tackle.
Get over your enthusiasm for the presumed bargia you though you were snagging.... take a good long cold look at this.
How much would a similar age, but working and road-worthy, ready to ride Very-Oh, cost on the open market?
Here in the UK a lot were bought originally by more mature owners, who often pampered them with main dealer servicing, for a few years. After that, they fell into the second hand market, where they frequently ended up in the hands of far less mature and far less afluent teen-agers, learners and newbies, and they held thier value well, for a bit, because of the premium build quiality Honda gave them as thier premier 125 when new, plus that expensive pamering early owners weren't so loath to treat them to. But by five years old they were in a market where they sold for a similar price to a three year old CBF, and becoming more solrely used, abused and neglected... and a money pit in waiting for the last optimist in the queue, expecting something with all the Very-0h, performance and looks, for Chinky bike money.... a-n-d the sort of maintenance levels of a CG125.....
SO! Long and hard. As a project, and one that needs some rather expensive carburettors before you even start.... this is NOT likely to be a quick, easy or cheap project to tackle; and even if you do scrub it up, in all liklihood you will have to spend more than you could have bought something that didn't need the work....
What you may get for the effort is something that has a bit more life in it, and a little more sparkle to its performance; B-U-T... it'll take a lot of blood, sweat and tears, money and hassle for it.
Paddy has linked a pair of second hand carbs from a breakers listed at £65... which is probably a reasonable price.... BUT they are second hand, and may not be much better than what you got, and good chance that they have either been mullered by muppets convinced that cleaning carbs is the all you have to do by way of bike maintenance, or they have never been touched and are likely gunked and firred up and in need of overhaul.... may be better than what you got.... but work will be required, and some parts still bought over and above.....
And this is not an insignificant sum of money; likely to be just the tip of a rather large lettuce, when you start burrying deeper into the bowls, and discovering that the exhaust is rtotten, the exhaust studs siezed; the brake calipers are gummed up and the seals perished, etc etc etc.....
FWIW... I wouldn't touch a 125 Very-Oh 'project' with a very large barge pole.... I just KNOW I would be buying hassles and problems and expense.
If I wanted a cheap bike.... I'd buy a cheap bike.... if I wanted a cheap project? I'd buy a project that stood at least some chance of being 'cheap'... few are... but, as said, you get the 'fun' of the resto, which if your are masocistically minded, can be worth it. Do the job right, and you can win a chunk of sparkle in the creation so that it does have a full quota of performance and reliability, for your money and pain... but you'll only get the value of that if you keep it and use it, and long enough to ride out the miles you have put into it.
On a 125, that most folk don't keep more than a year or two, before they are old enough for bigger and better, that can be a bit of a long-shot. And if you have to spend nine months or a tear or more getting it road-able first? It might have a very short shelf life, where you just wont get the value of what you do to make it work, from the riding after. You certainly wont get t from the resale when you punt on.
THIS is the reality of the job.
IF you are savvy, and IF you are Very-Very lucky, you might be able to make the thing road-able; and you 'may' not spend 'too' much money along the way.
BUT, to put this into perspective for you; I do The CB125 Twins. I have a heap of them, about half of which I have broken for spared for the others, so I can to some degree keep costs down a bit not paying a premium to a breaker for odd parts, I have them on another bike in the shed! I reckon, that to get a bike to road, in any decent state will cost me between £700 and £1000. If I wasn't quite so pedantic about making them look like the amount of work that's gone into then, by way of replica decals and new paint, and stuff, I 'might; get one sort of roadable, if rather tatty, for about £500... but much the same work will have gone into it, and what I save on the build I loose on the resale, plus; so its still not any more ecconomically viable.
And that is the much more common; much less intricate and out-of-sight-out-of-mind CB125, not the overly convoluted, all the awkward bits more awkwardly hidden under expensive panels Very Oh-Dear-Oh....
As said, I would take a very long, very hard, very cold look at what you got, and what you can reasonably expect to achieve.
As a long layed up deralict, it's likely no better than a bike ridden int the ground, as far as what needs attension, because a bike that's clocked the miles will get the essentials it needs as it goes. The deralict just sits there and rots, and bits dont break until you try use them; and find that fork seals, brake caliper seals and stuff are perished, brake pistons and float pins siezed or sticky.
And the 125 Veradaro was NEVER a cheap bike..
You want a 'cheap' bike; then a 125 Single, preferably an air-cooled two stroke, was 'cheap' far less intricate and a dang site easier to scrub up and make something of.
So what are you hoping for? End of the day, even if you made it good as new, its still a 125 Vera; its a 15bhp four-stroke 125, and nothing more. Its a bit more plush than a CG or the like, but its not as sporty or as exiting as say a Yamaha DT125 or a Cagiva Mito... and twenty years past its sell-by date? Its just another 'old' bike, and nothing particularly special, for ALL the Very-Oh-Dear-Oh appreciation society hype and reputation.
IS it worth eve trying to fix this one up? How far are you prepared to percevere with it, and how much are you prepared to spend on it, until you hit another major stoppa, like a rotted exhaust or a cracked cylinder head where some-one's tried to get a siezed exhsust stuff out?
The risks are there... sure... you never know, you might be lucky.... but the odds is not in your favour, and in all likelihood, even if you ARE lucky, and manage to blag a decent pair of 2nd hand carbs, the project will NOT get done before you want something different anyway, or if it gets done, it wont have a particularly long service life in your care, and it will have cost more than its worth when you come to punt on.
So? Re-Engineering the thing to run a single carb on a manifold like a Hardlee or something? Yup could be done... But, in the long run, likely more hassle and more expense than buying a second hand set of stock carbs.... and either which way, this idea of 'cheap' fixes will continually rear its ugly on you as you go, and the all-in cost of this 'cheap' project is almost certain to prove rather expensive, one way or another.
So... 2nd had carbs from a breakers... could get you over THIS niggle... and is probably the most effective ways about.... but the Vera was never a 'cheap' bike, it was an effoff expensive one... and at tag end of life tending to a money pit....
I seriousely reccomend you rething 'the plan' from the top; and what you hope to achieve; what funds you can bank on to achieve it with, and what skills and tools you'll need to do it..
And rank that against the time, cost, hassle of buying 'something' that is ready to do the job, as is... or a much 'safer' project base, like a CG or something that isn't so involved or risk-strewn and a dang site easier to spanner.
And I would do that now, before lifting another spanner or spending another penny.... its a dang site easier to write off 200 Ero's now, chucking the thing in a skip as a bad job, than when you have persevered and spent 800 Euro's, to still have a half finished project, you are loath to stick in a skip, or find another mug to give you hard cash for.
Your call... but, its not a great starting place, to be in.
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My Webby'Tef's-tQ, loads of stuff about my bikes, my Land-Rovers, and the stuff I do with them!
Current Bikes:'Honda VF1000F' ;'CB750F2N' ;'CB125TD ( 6 3 of em!)'; 'Montesa Cota 248'. Learner FAQ's:= 'U want to Ride a Motorbike! Where Do U start?' |
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rancevas
Derestricted Danger
Joined: 15 Apr 2019
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