The huge caravan was pulled along at a tremendous pace. The little vee-four motor whirred away frenetically between my legs. I had gone deep into the red in third just to keep it in sight. Then I'd had to do a double click up to fifth. Nine times out of ten hitting fourth would throw the engine into a false neutral. Tough as I'd found the VF400 in the past six months and 11000 miles I reckoned it wouldn't be happy at 15000rpm.
I hate caravans. Loathe them and the jerks who bounce them all over the countryside. Usually they block up the whole road by tottering along at 40 to 50mph. This one was doing twice that. The driver had planted his vehicle dead centre in the country road to stop the wildly weaving caravan taking huge chunks out of the hedgerows.
Even the Honda wasn't that stable on the rough road surface. Its 29000 mile old suspension was not far off being wholly defective! Only newish Metz tyres kept the plot from turning the weaves into wobbles. The tyres lasted over 6000 miles before the handling turned really vicious. When I'd first got my hands on the bike it'd had been very stable with a delicious willingness to flick its 400lbs through corners. Now, the fork seals leaked (they lasted about 2000 miles) and the rear shock was almost on its stops just under the rider's mass.
With 90mph on the clock in fifth the 55hp motor still had a burst of power and another gear in hand. I've had as much as 125mph on the clock. The Honda weaved about a lot but the motor was extremely smooth and the riding position still tolerable. I had no problems using the VF as a 100mph motorway cruiser. Well, none that a radar detector couldn't solve. And a large wedge of cash to cope with the 35mpg fuel consumption. It usually did better than 40mpg but not by very much.
It would probably go down to 20mpg, judging by the speed and revs necessary to take the caravan. I had great faith in the VF. I'd made so many escapes from narrow squeaks and avoided the dreaded tarmac rash that we had become old friends. I often ended up hating my bikes after a few months. I'd never paid more than 500 notes for a used bike. The handful of rats that were my usual lot invariably caused some nastiness either in engine or chassis demise. With the nine year old 400 I'd been relatively lucky, just having to clean off the corrosion and replace a few worn consumables.
A relatively smooth bit of road stopped both the caravan and myself from weaving all over the place. I was practically flat on the tank with the throttle wound home as we edged past the caravan. The car was finally revealed as a bloody great Volvo that was probably used as a hearse during the week. I felt like smacking the roof with a tyre iron as we rolled past. I knew that if I took a hand off the bars the VF would throw itself into a massive speed wobble. The Volvo driver didn't deserve that kind of free entertainment.
That wasn't the end of my dice with the car. The driver stuck to my number-plate like glue for the next 20 miles. I was forced to ride the VF way beyond the limits of its suspension to stop myself being run down. I'm sure he must've had the caravan on one wheel through some of the corners. I had to use the racing line through the curves.....hope like hell that no cars were coming the other way.
I only made my escape by throwing the Honda over a narrow hump-back bridge. The only way he'd get a caravan through the one-car gap was by knocking off the stone walls on the side of the bridge. The VF soared through the air. Revs rising as the back wheel lost contact with the ground. Hit the deck with an almighty bang, the bike slewing all over the shop for about a 100 yards. Half a mile later I pulled into a pub, sat there shaking and swearing for a long time.
A day later the hideous combination came roaring past me on the inside along the M1. I was battling it out in the fast lane with a Sierra that refused to give way. We were both doing the ton. The Volvo shot by like we were standing still. I caught a glance of a couple of kids waving at us from the back of the still weaving caravan. Talk about bloody daft. I decided to stay well clear, there was no telling what the homicidal maniac at the wheel might do next.
I once had to weave the VF400 through a procession of caravans over the Pennines. There was a mile long queue of cars stalled behind the wobbling behemoths, which added to the fun. Such terrorist antics the Honda handled with aplomb. The V-four was powerful enough to produce very startling bursts of acceleration and the chassis was just light enough to throw the machine in and out of gaps between the vehicles. Came close to knocking off my kneecaps against oncoming vehicles a few times. Most cars give way if you play chicken with them!
In a similar vein the VF was an accomplished hack for commuting through London. The only thing I didn't like was the sharpness of the front brake in the wet. London road surfaces can be very greasy and a front brake that would suddenly lock up often threw me into heart attack country. True, I never came off as the tyre rapidly regained traction as soon as the brake was released. A change of pads might help, but I've yet to touch the brakes at either end. Something of a record for me. High speed braking was a different story. Brake power was of the tyre squealing variety that produced some amazing stopping distances.
With reasonably coherent suspension it's possible to get away with some very wild riding on the little Honda. I've found the bike is something of a giant killer when there are some curves involved. Amuses me no end to give some five grand race replica a hard time. It helps knowing that I can bodge my bike back together for next to nothing if the worst happens.
Actually, it's more likely that the engine will give some problems than the chassis fail completely. The DOHC vee-four motor is a fearsomely complex beast with 16 valves, water-cooling and accessibility problems.
The engine looks a complete mess to anyone used to the elegance of air-cooled motors or the functional lines of European models. My solution was pretty simple and so far effective. Keep an eye on the coolant level and change the oil every 2000 miles. My theory is that now the engine is bedded in there's no reason to play around with valve settings or try to balance the four carbs.
The top end, as in all Honda vee-fours, is supposed to be very dubious. With dire warnings about getting a dealer service every few thousand miles but a couple of those would add up to more than I paid for the VF in the first place! Still, apart from the dodgy fourth gear I've had no problems from the motor and it whirrs away like it's going to keep on forever.
I doubt if I could get very much money for the heap even if I wanted to sell it. The vee-fours have such a poor reputation that no-one wants to buy them even when they are low mileage and in pristine condition. I picked up one with a seized engine and a couple of dents for the princely sum of £80. The back pistons had welded themselves to the bores, only removed with the application of a chisel and bloody great hammer. I was laughing all the way to the bank as the cache of newish consumables was worth more than I'd paid for the bike. And, I will soon have suspension that works properly again!
The larger models may well be a pain in the butt, but the little 400 has been mostly a delight. The fact that they are saddled with a poor reputation means that reasonable ones can be bought for next to nothing!
Dave
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'Catch me, if you can,' I screamed at the GPZ500S rider, as I waggled past with the front wheel a good two yards off the ground, no mean feat on a VF400 that had a front end normally glued to the road. Great care and concentration was needed on the gearbox and clutch to avoid false neutrals. The wheel came down to earth as acceleration diminished after 85mph, though the bike still pulled strongly past the ton mark.
The DOHC vee four engine remained, as always, remarkably smooth, having both perfect primary and secondary balance. Even flicking the tacho into the red failed to provide any intimations of mortality, just encouraged all out thrashing on each and every trip. The chassis was up to such abuse, its 55hp fighting with 400lbs of metal more than a match for the GPZ500, at least up to 110mph when the VF would begin to run out of power and the 25% extra cubic capacity of the twin would allow it to zoom off into the distance.
Being cunning, though, I always chose to race with bigger bikes where there were lots of curves and few long straights. Here the VF usually won out, as shod with Metzeler tyres I could get away with outrageous angles of lean and taking thoroughly dangerous lines through blind curves. I rode to an imaginary strain of wild rock and roll.
It wasn't all honey, though. As mentioned, the gearbox verged on the demonic (this with over 30,000 miles on the clock), possessed a mind of its own that the hydraulic clutch action did little to subdue. When the fluid went off the action became at once vague and violent. As with most rotted Japanese alloy taking out the bleed screw was just asking for a stripped thread and getting all the air out of the system was about as tedious as trying to reassemble the corroded left-hand switch cluster after I'd spilt brake fluid over it. About two million springs and broken bits of metal fell out of the cluster, that not even much artistry with a tube of Superglue could reconstruct.
In just about every way the gearbox would try to spoil my ride, although there was quite a broad range of power for a 400cc engine. At a pinch, I could dump the box in fourth or fifth, ride along on the throttle quite happily - until I needed to blow off devices like GPZ500's. Then it was down to some mad footwork - well not mad exactly, as it required a sensitive boot and perfect matching of throttle to road speed to avoid missed changes. When the change went really wrong, the offensiveness of the false neutral was much amplified by the crunching, grinding noise of gears trying to tear each other's teeth off!
A brand new bike might've been better but Honda had a reputation for dodgy gearboxes on machines of this era. Needless to say, every time I missed a change, the GPZ sneaked past whilst I fumbled my way through the box, ending up with either a hopping back wheel or a gear so tall that even a Superdream could've pulled harder. In top the VF needed at least 5000 revs before there was discernible acceleration.
There was also an annoying resonance in the final drive when the motor was under load at low revs. This might explain why the chain didn't last for more than 6000 miles. Had the engine been less than silky smooth I might've missed the mild churning of the chain but it often seemed louder than the exhaust. The final drive was incredibly sensitive to wheel alignment, surgeon-like skills on the adjusters was necessary. Sprockets only lasted for two chains, when both they and the chain were in a final state of deterioration the gearbox became impossible to use.
The chassis would do a similar trick when the tyres were down to 2mm. Switch from an inspiring sense of security to a worrying twitchiness and sudden sensitivity to minor road imperfections. Happily, the tyres took at least 10,000 miles to wear to that stage, so the expense was within the bounds of my budget.
The past owner had fitted gaiters to both the forks and single rear shock, as well as extra mudguarding around the back of the swinging arm. Sufficient protection to keep the suspension and linkages in good shape with no apparent falling off in their ability, still able to soak up most bumps without letting the wheels waggle around all over the shop. They were much superior to even the suspension fitted to a one year old GPZ500, which would react with sudden violence to certain combinations of bumps and road camber, whereas the VF would just sail through serenely even under the most tremulous of road conditions.
Even when plunged into a false neutral, even under the ensuing back wheel neurosis when there was invariably a mismatch between road and engine speeds, the VF tended to shrug off the back wheel's intrigues rather than try to throw the rider off the road. For a 125 graduate its calm composure and complete competence would be winning virtues that'd save them from premature extinction.
On the other hand, the finicky front discs would have a novice rider on his earhole in no time at all. They just lacked any kind of precision even if they were quite powerful when used in anger. No amount of fiddling with the fluid, adding Goodridge hose or even rebuilding the calipers had any discernible effect on their behaviour.
Having quite a lot of experience with big bikes I was able to live with their unpredictable reactions and dubious wet weather antics. EBC pads made them slightly more demure but were chomped through in a mere 4000 miles. Winter riding resulted in seized up calipers every month, it taking about ten times longer than on any other bike I've experienced to pull the brakes apart. Had the forks shown any sign of wear I would've quite happily thrown on a better front end but as the suspension was so good it was too much of a waste to contemplate.
One curious bit of handling was that sometimes mild use of the front brake in corners would cause the tyre to slip away as it locked up, a stomach churning lurch resulting as I hastily let off the brake and twitched the handlebars. Neither engine braking nor the back brake were very impressive so I tended to rely on the way the chassis could be easily flicked on to a new line.
The excellent package of svelte handling and silky power can easily be ruined by engine reliability, Honda's whole vee-four range having the kind of reputation more in line with Iron Curtain manufacturers. Early versions were more rolling test-beds that proper production motorcycles, most of the problems centring on the four valve heads, camchains and tensioners. Valve clearances need to be set with a special tool, which given the massive complexity of the watercooled engine is really a dealer job - and a proper Honda mechanic who knows what he's doing (and charges accordingly).
My '86 model was the last of the line, leading me to assume that all the faults had been eradicated and such pedantry could be safely ignored. In 12000 miles of abuse all I did was balance the four carbs once, change the oil filter twice and the oil four times, working on the assumption that any valve troubles would show up in a drop-off in performance or by the intrusion of some vibration. So far so good.
I have ridden a couple of other VF's and was a bit startled to find some midrange vibration, so the sign of a good engine seems to be smoothness throughout the rev range. Most are high mileage now, therefore somewhat dubious, but for around £500 a reasonable example offers lots of kicks in an unusually practical package. I'm keeping mind for as long as possible.
Graham Carter