Nice little bike. Looks like original exhaust with no rust. And the cable operated disc front brake.

I looked in my Honda Motorcycle Identification Guide and (at least in the Guide), your bike is listed as a 1974 model. The 1973 came in Candy Topaz Orange (like yours), but had different graphics on the tank. The Guide shows the 1974 having frame numbers CB125S-1100001 and up, and the 1973 has frame numbers CB125S-1021922 and up. I don't remember if they had the placards on bikes back then showing the manufacture date.

Anyway, it's a sweet looking bike in good condition. Enjoy!

 

Ah, good eye! The placard does say 12/73, so it's indeed a 1974 model.

Since you like motorcycles, you'd probably enjoy my other bike - a 1975 CB360T.

 

I like your 360 also. Thanks for the pics. A friend had a 1973 CB350 in the gold color. Liked that too. I think just about all of the bikes from the late 60's to the early 80's were good looking. I had a 1970 Suzuki T125II Stinger (twin cylinder 62.5cc per cylinder), a 1973 Yamaha RD350 (stolen), a 1974 RD350 (rode from Orlando to LA and back), and a 1976 RD400 (stolen). All great bikes. Miss them all.

Good luck with you Fit build. Nice work.

 

Oooooh, motorcycles.

My first was a 1980 CB750F. Black, of course. My brother had a yellow 1977 CB400F with those headers that combed over to one side. But my 750F blew him into the weeds.

 

I wanted to buy a silver 1982 CB750F, but couldn't get credit. The yellow CB400F was a sweet color.

 

I don't want to derail Julian's thread, so I'm just going to hit the "Like" button on this.

 

Back to four-wheel talk

Drove the Fit around the block, noticed a not-so-nice sound was being made. Thought it was this...



Fixed that. Drove it home, the noise was still there... Ran errands the next day and drove it to a friend's house to see if we can diagnose where it's coming from. Sure enough, it was a wheel bearing up front. He said he could get one in half an hour or so (shop account), so we got to work.




No more noise! Hoping the other three behave. Shocking they've even made it this far in life, to be honest. Went about 30 miles on a bad bearing.

First fill-up and wash in 2021. There was still salt on there from December which hurt my soul.




​​​​​​​Have done about 120 miles on the new engine and all seems to be fine.

 

So this was the first wheel bearing failure after all the miles on your Fit ? The fix is to press in a new bearing or replace the entire assembly?

 

Correct. Going to be on alert with the other three for the rest of the year.

The front requires a bearing to be pressed into the knuckle. Rear I believe needs the entire hub assembly replaced.

 

Great thread, love seeing a high mileage car's documented trials and tribulations!

 

Fantastic.

 

Meant to ask: Do you notice any difference in mileage with the Insight wheels? Wheel face design can have a noticeable impact on mileage so I'm curious.

 

Glad to see your Fit back on the road again. Good Job!

 

Thanks, y'all!

To be completely honest, I drive way too aggressively and on average at 80 mph on the highway to really notice a difference. I'm the wrong person to ask haha. Speaking of Insight, I am trying very hard to not buy a first-gen now. These wheels are on Canadian-market 2009-2013 Fit LX, by the way.

The only thing I noticed is that it does corner better due to them being lighter than steel wheels.

 

Really? Huh, I always thought those looked kinda heavy, but I didn't really know better. They do look nice though. And congrats on getting the 'ol girl running again!

 

That's great, you must have spent a lot of energy and time to maintain it.

 

Still alive and driving, just not as much. Motorcycle and Miata have taken up a lot of my time and miles. Fit has recently gone through its first oil change since the new engine has been swapped in. Mileage is currently around 571k and approximately 10k since the swap.

Immediately after the engine was swapped in, I picked up the last two pieces I needed for my Sport interior conversion: a front-passenger side seat and front-driver side door panel. This is just me being picky, but those two pieces are noticeably faded compared to the rest of the seats and panels. I'll live with it. Worst case scenario I will switch the panel out if I find another clean one at the yard. My friend also got me the accessory armrest (08U89-TK6-112). Carpet was also replaced.






Of course, cleaning was involved. I did not wet-vac the rear seat though due to the dog being the only one using it.




I didn’t install this yet, but I will once I decide to replace one of the tie-rods and get an alignment done. The wheel is out of a non-leather equipped/non-Si ’06-11 Civic with the accessory wrap. Currently, I have a well-worn factory leather-wrapped wheel. P/N is 08U98-SVA-101.

 

For the past few weeks, I’ve been smelling a faint scent of coolant. Didn’t realize it was me the entire time until I was as far as Fairfax County, VA last week. Thought it was weird that the temps have been higher than normal while sitting in traffic. Popped the hood and noticed coolant in the engine bay, particularly on the ends of the radiator. Even the front lower control arms were drenched in coolant...



Thanks to my UltraGauge, I was able to monitor temps and managed to limp it home without overheating the engine, although I overheated myself after blasting the heat to keep the temps down, especially during 495 traffic.

Picked up a CSF radiator. Unfortunately, it was the auto model radiator, so I had to loop the lines. Miata dealt with the same thing.





RIP 572k mile radiator. You did us well. That's what I get for talking about aircooled Porsches around the Fit.

 

572K miles on the original radiator is pretty amazing. I have owned several Honda’s and most needed a radiator around 200K. I have one of those spill free funnels and it works great for coolant system work.
Never liked the fact a Fit did not have a temperature gauge for situations like what you experienced.

 

Rads live an easy life if the air is constantly flowing through them!

That funnel was one of my best purchases. A few months ago, some of the constantly used fittings started to rust. Threw them in the tumbler and painted them. Now they'll last forever. I've been using it a lot lately. Used it twice last month on the Miata!



The UltraGauge was another good purchase. I, too, hated how the Fit lacked a temperature gauge. Wish I could get oil temps as well, but as long as I have the coolant temperature, I'm good. Along with that showing, the intake temperature, distance to empty, and a voltmeter are displayed since the minimum amount of gauges I can have are four.

Also forgot I made an improvement to the rear liftgate. I got fed up with the panel popping out whenever I was in a rush, so I took a Sparco tow strap my buddy had laying around and bolted it to the liftgate's frame.