Ever since I got the bike I have been puzzled a little over the lack of pressure on the front brake lever and the general sloppiness of the arrangement. While I was doing the forks on my Honda CM125C I had the front wheel apart and checked linings and other bits. One thing I did notice was that the return spring at the wheel was an inner coiled spring to maintain cable tension and then a rather weak affair which was a larger diameter spring around the outside of the cable tension spring which acted as a return spring. It seemed all weak and floppy and not really doing the job so having completed the forks I set about some research to see what the spring lengths should be and what the springs would have looked like when new.
Discovered that it didn’t look anything like what I have. The outer weak spring that I have shouldn’t be there and there should be a spring mounted on the actuator arm of the front brake. I managed to source a nice new spring from Honda and returned my front brake arrangement to its original state with the correct springs. Its made a huge difference to the feel of the brake lever. Doesn’t feel all loose and floppy anymore. Just goes to show its the smallest part that makes the difference to the overall feel. I also read somewhere that ‘Honda don’t make tat’ and it reminded me that if it doesn’t feel like a quality job then given its a Honda it probably means that someone has messed with it and its not how it was designed to be.
While I was working in this area, I replaced the brake cable as it was fraying at the end, put new linings in and added the correct spring. Gave it a clean as well.
Exhaust replacement coming soon.