My Humble Horse: Honda Activa 2007 Review & Mods


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bhvm

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Honda Activa Needs no Introduction.
Honda Activa - Wikipedia
Honda Activa (2008) Price, Specs, Review, Pics & Mileage in India

One of the Most successful and largest selling scooters all over the world.
We brought our Humble Horse somewhere in 2007 (was that 08?). The horse has been doing its mundane chores dutifully since then. My version is the absolute first 1G with 100CC engine, Full metal Body and tall 5Amp (full size) battery. Since then Honda has launched over 5 generations and newer 109CC and 125CC engines. I am not going to go into technicalities of this humble and simple scooter nor present a comprehensive review on how it rides, Because I think everyone is well versed with that. This thread will serve as a placeholder for my Experiences, Mods and Long trips with the scooter.

So lets Begin? First, how it looks after 12 years of serving me,
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Mods-

1. LED DRL

2. Car headlight bulb

3. LED headlight bulb

4. Blind spot Mirrors.
Service-

Long trips-
 

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Thread Starter #3

bhvm

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Thanks @
THE_DRIFTER

Yours is the first and only comment on this thread. It will always be remembered. Looks like No one else is interested in 12 year old scooters! [cry]
 
Thread Starter #4

bhvm

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My 1st Long Distance scooter Trip Came in 2015 against all family (Parents) Orders & Understanding.
We made roughly 200Kms round trip to Auranbad Outskirts. Places visited include Ellora, Pittalkhora Caves and random bylanes.
Since I was overcome with the feeling to explore, I also found out an Unnamed lake and went offroading in my Typical fashion.

Random Lake-
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Thread Starter #7

bhvm

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Ellora Caves-
Make sure you hire a Govt certified guide. They are very expensive at about 2k but there is no other option. Just looking at Rocks & Carvings makes no sense.
We spent about 2 hours at the caves listening history, And according to the guide, we are about 20% done. Unfortunately we had to leave as we had to reach home before dark and scoot has really useless headlights.
If you are keen on understanding full depth of Ellora caves, it needs full 2 days or so. There are times when listening to the history where one asks the question to oneself "Are we really living in a modern society?"
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Thread Starter #8

bhvm

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Rust Touch up-
Battery box rust is a known hotspot in Scooters. Interesting since I have used only sealed batteries in my Activa after the original OEM battery. I guess 12 years is good enough time for this to happen.
The rusty battery box was sanded and then primed with red oxide. Then normal Black paint was applied.
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Thread Starter #9

bhvm

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Blind spot mirror-
Activa (or Any scooter for that matter) comes with these really small, useless mirrors. The field of view is very narrow and is mostly focused on showing your shoulders rather than traffic behind. Adding a BSM was one of the most significant upgrades that I made for safety.
Note how much more of the Safari Spare wheel I can see in BSM compared to original Photo.
The pic with tree does not show Safari wheel in original mirror, but BSM shows Safari too.
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mayankdixit

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Thats a whole travelogue of Ajanta Ellora in pics.Good pics.
Well done in maintaining your scooter.
We have this one more thing in common ie a 12 year old 2 wheeler.
My discover dtsi is also 2006 model.
 
Thread Starter #11

bhvm

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20K Service-
Ever since purchased, The Activa had been going for regular Services at Honda ASC. The running being very low, services were done on time basis rather than KMS.
Since last 3~4 months one irritating issue I faced that scoot will clip off at idle. It went twice to Honda ASC who could not fix it.

The Problem with Most Indian ASCs is that they are just interested in Changing the oil and washing the vehicle. But no one understands the comprehensive meaning of term "Service".
I again sent the scooter back to ASC and it was returned as is citing they did not understand the issue.

Watching good amount of youtube videos and Reading the Service Manual made me confident that I can service the scoot at home.
Here are the things I did-
1. Checked enging oil level. Oil was new but a little less, so I topped up using 50ML of STP engine oil additive designed for petrol engines. Will report the effects later.
2. New Primary Air filter. Old one was very dusty.
3. Cleaned the secondary air filter and re-oiled the same.
4. Adjusting the carb screws. This is the important part. It appears that the ASC is accustomed only to FE aspect of Carbs, and keep Idle much too low to increase FE as much as possible. A slight Idle tuning of the carb screw solved my issue.
5. Inspecting general chasis & rust. Clear coat was applied on rusty areas.
6. Changed Nuts & bolts that were either rusty or worn out. Looks like years of overtightening by enthusiastic ASC folks took their toll.
Added Iftex system G as an additive to fuel.

The amount of satisfaction one gets from Self service and smooth idling of scooter is Immense.
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Thread Starter #12

bhvm

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The scoot suffered a Bulb out situation. Running lamp was working but brake filament was not.
2 screws and the glass was out. Oh! How I love simple designs like these!
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A Decade worth of Dust and grime-

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Now cleaned-

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It uses a simple BA15D Dual filament bulb. Got a bulb leftover from Safari. Testing the new bulb-
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Refit Was just as simple. Forgot to take further pics.
 
Thread Starter #14

bhvm

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expected you will changeover to LEDs.
I ended up using LEDs for the Elephant.
BTW, Activa uses a small glass panel (not visible in the Pics) to shed light on the Number plate below, from the very same bulb. Quite a clever design.
Adding a Red LED bulb here will cause Number plate to loose readability and will also look funny. So Incandescent it was then....
 

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