[ashwinprakas]

21500 kms Update!







My front tube gave up and I had to get the same replaced, the stock size i.e 2.75-17 wasn't available so they put in 90/90-17, seems decent for the time being, tire has around 10k kms of life left or so I hope, do share your thoughts.



Also got to learn that both my tires do not come with specific rotation pattern and can be put on either way, a first for me.

[ashwinprakas]

H4 Conversion Completed!

Sourced a Lumax H4 Dome made for the "Hero Honda CD Dawn/Ambition"



Got an OEM "Hero Honda" H4 connector as well.



Had to DIY a bit to make sure things were plug and play, which was a bit of a pain considering that my soldering skills suck.

P.S. Do let me know if anyone would require a DIY guide. I am asking as I had to do a bit of trial and error as no specific guides were available online.



Got myself a "Osram Silverstar HS1 35/35"



Had played around with the stock H4 temporarily borrowed from my Zen. As it was a 60/55 I somehow ended up blowing my brake light. I got it replaced with a LED unit gifted by a friend who ensured me that it won't blow out due to brake lighting being DC. I'm still a bit skeptical when it comes to the park current.



All is well for now. Only downside is that the stock Beam Adjuster had to be removed as it was not compatible with the new headlight unit. However that won't be much of an issue as most classic bikes don't have a beam adjuster and the beam height is adjusted by tilting the unit manually.

Next major overhaul is roughly 3.4k km's away. Fingers crossed!

Cheers,
A.P.

[sinhead]

Loved reading this thread!
Hows is the suspension of this bike - at the softest setting, is it absorbent and plush or stiff ? How does it take mild/shallow bad patches and speedbreakers?

[ashwinprakas]

Originally Posted by sinhead

Loved reading this thread!
Hows is the suspension of this bike - at the softest setting, is it absorbent and plush or stiff ? How does it take mild/shallow bad patches and speedbreakers?

Thank you for the kind words.

The suspension is commuter-ish, meaning it is Uber plush even at medium settings. If you're into cruising then it is perfect for you. But if you ever think about pinning the throttle to WOT then I'd suggest you crank it up to the stiffest setting else the rebound when turning at a later apex could make you feel... well.... 'insecure'. I'm not able to find another word to describe the feeling.

[ashwinprakas]

Its been a while and sadly I've not covered much due to the unemployment bit and to make matter more complicated my CT100B's battery died on me after being kept idle for the past few weeks.

Hence after evaluating the pro's and cons I decided to scrap the battery for good and go with a capacitor as a one time fix.

DIY: Motorcycle Battery Eliminator

As mentioned in the DIY I had to raise my idle a bit because of it being set pretty low from factory. Other than that I've only had to swap out the recently changed LED tail light to the stock halogen type. Due to the park function, LED sets keep blowing out as expected due to the AC current. So to reiterate, on an AC motorcycle's tail light only the actual brake function is DC whereas the park function is still AC and LED's blow out when running on AC current.

[ashwinprakas]

Hey Guys,

After experiencing a shimmy while riding my CT100B I thought I'd give up being cheap for now and change the chain and sprockets a bit earlier than the 30k mark, which I'd kept in mind considering that I'd change a lot of things in one go including the brakes and tires. But then I was already past the usable life which prematurely was at 20k on to odo after the golden quadrilateral run and I'd purchased all spares after the ride. For some stupid reason though I decided to extend the interval by another 10k's so that I'd only have to take things apart once and be good for another 30k's. But was I wrong, so now at 24.5k on the ODO my chain and sprockets would be changed for the first time.

Here's the DIY Guide on how to go about a Chain and Sprocket Change:

DIY: Chain and Sprocket Change on the Bajaj CT100B, an Investigative Thriller of Sorts!

And here are some teasers i.e missing bolts and nuts;





Cheers,
A.P.

[Captain Slow]

Thanks very interesting, I am planning to pick up one these for my office use, How practical is this for everyday city use? And the most important question, how much is the mileage?

[ashwinprakas]

Originally Posted by Captain Slow

Thanks very interesting, I am planning to pick up one these for my office use, How practical is this for everyday city use? And the most important question, how much is the mileage?

This is as practical as it gets, you cannot go beneath this if you're considering MT. You can thrash it day in and day out and it will still be running as swell as it did the first day of ownership, provided you change consumables religiously, which again is cheap considering that the motorcycle is DIY friendly as you can see from the above posts.

As for fuel efficiency, I have no clue about that. During the Golden Quadrilateral run I was able to clear 7600+ km's with fuel costing around 8.9k. So at that time the fuel efficiency was calculated to be over 60 kmpl, and this is with the throttle being pinned to WOT for 99% of the time as I had to keep pace with a RE Bullet 500.

[ashwinprakas]

25,000 km's Update!

After a little over a year and 25k km's the tires had to be changed as today I'd experienced a crazy rear slide while negotiating a sharp turn, as the tires were changed at the nearest tire shop I could find, I had to cancel the Timsun's I'd ordered and had settled with the following;



Front: Apollo ActiZip F2 80/100-17 (Stock is 2.75-17)
Rear: Apollo ActiGrip R1 3.00-17

The front tire is a TL used with a Tube as they didn't have the stock size in stock and I was left without any other options.

Total amount charged was 3350/- they didn't charge me for the new Brazza tube which had to be extra as the front tire was a TL model hence didn't come bundled with the tube like the rear tire.

Here's a snap of the retired tires;

[adrian]

Originally Posted by ashwinprakas

25,000 km's Update!

Here's a snap of the retired tires;

Attachment 1815404

There is something wrong with your front suspension and/or wheel bearings. The one side wear in your front Tyre is resultant on this.

regards adrian

[ashwinprakas]

Originally Posted by adrian

There is something wrong with your front suspension and/or wheel bearings. The one side wear in your front Tyre is resultant on this.

regards adrian

Spot On!

There is no lateral play, hence I'm gunning at uneven suspensions, there are no visible leaks but I'll be overhauling the front end as soon as I get the time.

Except for the wheel bearings and springs I've procured everything else i.e seals, oil, tool and cone-set.

The overhaul was planned to be done around now but personal commitments are taking away most of my free time.

Something that confuses me is that usually with a misaligned(mostly in the case of bent forks) front end the motorcycle kicks back when countersteering but I've not experienced anything of that sort.

Edit: There's no front end wobble as well, hands on/off.

Edit 2:

Here's something I found online, seems interesting:

My front tire often wears more on the left side than the right. Is this an indication of a problem with my bike?
Not necessarily. It’s actually a common phenomenon for the left side of the tire to wear a little bit more than the right side.

There have been several reasons put forth as to why this occurs. Here are a few of the more common ones:

It depends on personal riding habits, motorcycle balance and the roads frequently traveled.

The existence of road crowns, allowing rainwater to drain from the center of the road to the sides, causing wear on the left side of the tires since you ride on the right side of the road.

At intersections, left-hand turns are literally longer than right hand turns because of the necessity of positioning yourself in the rightmost lane of the road you’re entering, as demonstrated in the simple diagram below. This means that you literally ride a greater distance on the left side than the ride side of your tires.



Diagram Showing the Long Turning Required from Left-hand Turns Compared to Right-hand Turns

The latter two suggestions in particular have gained a number of adherents because motorcyclists in countries which require driving on the left side of the road typically wear out the right side of their tires instead of the left side.

While it isn’t necessarily an indication of a problem, you might want to have your tire checked by a professional to see what their recommendation is if you find yourself wearing the left side faster than the right. It’s always better to have an expert provide their opinion before dismissing an issue.

Makes a bit of sense as the excess wear was on the opposite side in my case which I guess is because we ride on the left.

This was noticed first after the GQ ride where we clocked under 8k km's in under 2 weeks.

[ashwinprakas]

Quick Update: Tappet Clearances Adjusted!

DIY: Setting Tappet Clearance on Bajaj CT100B

Initially had set clearance as per the Scandinavian version of the CT100B's workshop manual;



On realizing that the specification was off, I went with my Indian instinct to make a random assumption in an area where I lacked technical expertise and decided to add a 0 before the 7 making intake clearance 0.07mm which surprisingly solved the issue!

Here's the updated page from the workshop manual;



Cheers and Ride Safe,
A.P.

[ashwinprakas]

27,000 Km's Update!

Got back yesterday from a 400 km's weekend errand, this was the first time I rode interstate on the CT100B with a pillion on-board.

It was fun to be back on NH7 with the CT100B after a break, though riding two up with both our luggage on-board resulted in cruising speeds of only upto 95 kmph on the speedo at WOT.



Courtesy of the chassis being able to accommodate some flex in unison with the suspension being able to take up all the brunt, we were able to maintain 70+ kmph on the deserted wastelands of Thirunelveli as long as we both made sure our respective bottoms where off the seat at the time of impact.

Courtesy of the new tires riding through rubble and sand was also a breeze.

A day before the ride the motorcycle had a minor spill which resulted in some scuffs and twists here and there and finally led me to opt for a more off-road friendly kick stand as the stock one had its limitations.



I'd also bought myself a 2.5Ah Amaron maintenance free battery as with the capacitor alone the 45/40(Stock is 35/35) OSRAM Rallye was sucking too much juice out of the system at lower rev's resulting in the horn cutting off at times.

Speaking of which, I'd scrapped the BOSCH Sharptone I had for the Hella Mach 11 Hightone as the former had issues when ridden at speeds over 80 kmph due to wind-blast.

She currently stands at 27,050 KM's, and just earlier today had her oil changed to Shell HX3 20W50.

Cheers and Ride Safe,
A.P.

[ashwinprakas]

Got to catch up with my co-rider after a bit, and there's a surprise for those who've been following this thread!

This is a picture of our rides taken during our GQ Run;



This a picture of our rides taken just recently;



The Bullet 500 has been sold and replaced with a CT100!

He did try to get the same variant as mine considering that it was cheaper and purely utilitarian but unfortunately the CT100B was phased out and replaced with the CT100(Kick Start) quoting below the feature comparison from the first post of this very thread;

Originally Posted by ashwinprakas

Specifics - CT100(KS) v/s CT100B

• Wheels - Alloy v/s Spoke

• Headlight Type - Bikini Rectangle v/s Naked Round

• Headlight Bulb - H4 v/s BA20D(Mine has been converted to HS4)

• Mirrors - Standard Rectangle v/s Round(Mine has been changed)

• Rear Panels - Fibre Panels and Standard Grab rail v/s Single Metal Rail with integrated Grab rail and Rack

The engine is the same with the exception of his having a SAI system being a BS4 requirement, mines a BS3.

Also took the opportunity to compare headlights, his is running the stock 35/35 HS1 and mine is running the Osram Rallye 45/40 HS1, both motorcycles were set to low beams to avoid glare and mine was also tilted a bit off-set as even on low beam the spread was interfering with the camera.



So that's all for now folks!

P.S. This is not the first CT100 conversion I've done among motorcycle enthusiasts, so don't tell me you've not been warned!

Cheers,
A.P.

[CrAzY dRiVeR]

Originally Posted by ashwinprakas

The Bullet 500 has been sold and replaced with a CT100!

Your enthusiasm is truly infectious, can't deny that.

Wish you and your friend a lot more epic rides to come.