CNC brake & clutch levers.

CNC brake & clutch levers.

There was a scratch, well more of a little flat scrape on the tip of the original 'cast' brake lever from the previous owner, kind of like it had gone & scraped against the side of a wall. Most likely done along with those scratches on the bar end that side (a previous blog post). You know the kind of thing that happens to a bicycle all the time. It didn't effect how it works in anyway and I put a drop of black Hammerite on it, so it couldn't really be seen but, still it would be nice to replace it. Obviously it wasn't a big deal so I left it until now.

Looking on eBay at the spare parts I notice rather a lot of the new CNC aluminum levers, obviously you can't get one for this model 'particularly'. Well, maybe in the far east under one of its other guises there are 3rd party parts made especially for the bike, I don't know? I'm not particularly keen on cast levers I've had a clutch lever snap on an old Kawasaki years ago (It did get some usage) and cheaper quality Chinese Goped levers snap in two pieces before that were replaced with aluminium ones, and aluminum sounds good now too if I'm honest. Just for that if not aesthetic purposes.

However, I realise that body wise the bike is a clone of the previous shape Honda CBR 125, although it has more of an carbed reliable Honda 'CBF' type engine with the OHC, instead of the fuel injected engine of the CBR (not that it is a problem really as 4 - stroke single cylinder 125ccs generally all perform similarly in performance, it's just a reliable design for them to choose, as well as being implemented elsewhere on other bikes. You might squeeze a few more MPH out of some, the OHC will vibrate less than the OHV engines, but they are all pretty similar). So really it's a cross between the CBR and the CBF in a sense. Anyway, back to the body. Upon realising it's CBR 125 isms again I looked for a set of CNC levers for the CBR 125 / 125R 2007 - 2010 era. Then I checked them against the spare part original cast levers picture and they looked identical. It's not the main lever it's the part that fits to the bike, the black part on these particular CNC levers you need to look at. Now as an engineer I know full well that things could be well out between the two just from looking at a picture, it doesn't mean anything. The working 'design style mechanism' might just have been copied but the dimensions might well be different.

They were around the same price for the two mailed from the far east as the one spare original cast brake lever, so I thought bugger it, I'll take a risk & see. Now there are two types, long & short levers. I went for the long type as you can put your two or three fingers over the front brake for those times your still on the throttle, when you may need to brake. With the short ones you can't always do this. Now they come in all sorts of anodised colours and there's the original more generic choice of plain aluminum or anodised black. Of course I was sticking to the theme with gold, although the black would've been fine if there wasn't any in stock.

They're mainly ordered in from abroad and the far east on eBay but, postage is either free or very cheap anyway. Just as long as you don't mind waiting a couple of weeks. They have an adjustment switch, 1 to 6 which adjusts the lever to how you want it to sit to or from your fingers. They cost from about £9.00 up to around £20.00 from abroad, it's up to you to shop around on there, you will probably pay around £15.00 or so like me. Again, it's not a lot at all. The ones from sellers based in the UK were going for around £28.00 upwards and they're exactly the same thing so, it's up to you. If like me you already have usable levers, wait and pay less. If you've damaged yours and can't wait pay more & have them arrive quicker. Some were engraved but with 'CBR 125' you might not mind that if they're the only ones available at the time you're reading this but, I'm assuming since it's actually not a CBR 125 that the original plain ones will be the best bet.

 When looking at the fitting ends in this comparison photo below the CNC one looks bigger because it's closer to the camera but they are in fact the right fitting.

The hole diameter is the same and both notches fit ok and do the job they're supposed to do just fine.

The clutch handle is the same, everything fits fine.

Removing the brake lever and fitting this new one is really simple. Undo the nut underneath on the bolt holding the lever on there. Then undo and remove the bolt itself with a spanner or socket. The bolt should just pull out once the nut underneath is removed but it will be stiff, a few turns with the spanner or socket will work it out.

Once the bolt is removed you can swap the levers over and replace & tighten the nut / bolt. If you would like to add some grease to the bolt first, that's up to you. I would go for something thick like engineering grease or Vaseline not WD40 that will run all over the lever everywhere.

Now the clutch lever is a little different as you have to get the wire out the old lever and also put it back in the CNC lever. If your used to doing this sort of thing with the brakes on a bicycle then it shouldn't be much of a problem. The part that screws in on the end of the cable is moved to align its slot with the slot in the frame and so is the ring next to it, then the wire can be removed from under the handle & pulled through the slot.

However, it's easier to align the slots as mentioned above, as far screwed in as possible, just to get some slack for the cable, then just remove the bolt holding the lever on and pull the handle out moving the cable through the slots as you do, then you can easily remove the cable and put it into the new CNC handle. You can then of course locate the new lever and bolt it back down in reverse order. Then adjust the ring and screw so the cable is locked inside (the slots no longer align). The bolt is the same kind of thing as before, except that it has a flat head screw driver slot on the top, so you will need a flat head screw driver for that.

Once they've been fitted, obviously you want to drive up and down your street to check they both work fine and do everything as they should, before checking them again more throughly on the open road!

Although everything should be fine you don't want to find out your brake doesn't work just when you need it to!!

*edit.
 When buying these be savvy, there are some people selling the same product for around £150.00 vs. £15.00:

You're not really going to get any difference in quality regardless of a name on a box or website etc. At the end of the day it's still the same product CNC machined from a block of aluminum with the same ratchet mechanism and a couple of bolts.