The Honda CB450D was far from my first choice of machine, but a non-running, two year old for £400 seemed too good a deal to miss. The vendor was desperate to off-load the rotting heap before its resemblance to a motorcycle disappeared under the layer of corrosion resultant from it being dumped in his back garden. He was vague about the cause of its demise, reckoning that one day it had simply refused to start. Sure, sure.
The good thing about this deal was that I only had to push the bike half a mile to my home. I'd taken the chain off and removed the front disc's caliper to aid the ease with which it could be rolled along. Despite only weighing 400lbs quite a lot of effort was needed, the tyres not holding much air causing excessive drag. The rubber was down to the carcass but the breaker threw in a free set of slightly worn Dunlops when I gave him £375 for a running CB450D motor.
It only took a week to put the Honda back on the road. Quite good going, as I'd stripped most of the bits off to clean and paint ‘em up. The engine came out of a 23000 miler but I'd heard it running and that told me it was as free as rattles as you could hope for this final incarnation of the ubiquitous Superdream. For 1993, 43 horses from 450cc is not too impressive, with neither an excess of torque nor exceptional frugality by way of compensation.
The best description of the revived Honda was torpid, both in its acceleration and handling. The former wasn't helped any by a horrible gearchange that made noises like a seventies BMW and had all the precision of a 50,000 mile Benly I once had the misfortune to own. Handling varied between mush from the shot shocks (obviously a relative of the old Fade-Very-Quickly units) and arm shaking from the ineffectual front forks, but it never seemed really vicious. As someone who had fallen off a CD185 when the shot swinging arm bearings had allowed a terminal speed wobble, I was quite happy with the CB450's relatively mild wanderings.
The engine wasn't what you'd call smooth or sophisticated, in fact it felt just like every other Superdream motor I'd come across that had done more than 20,000 miles. Rough at tickover, it smoothed out a bit between 2500 and 7000rpm then went into the kind of frenzy associated with old British twins. Where it differed, was that it could be caned along at 10,000 revs in third or fourth without falling apart under you.
The Honda would still put 100mph on the clock after relentless caning on the throttle and gearbox. I felt like a couch potato with bits of my excess flesh splayed all over the place as I got my head down. In this crouched position vision was a bit limited and the awful row of a madly twirling motor and rotted exhaust gave me an instant headache. Sighting what looked like a police car up ahead I grabbed the front brake lever, only to find that it came back to the twistgrip with only the mildest of retardation. I floated past the car, which turned out to be a civilian, at 85mph.
Back home, I tried to bleed the system only to find the bleed screw corroded or glued in (I'd previously just pulled the whole thing off and wedged it between the top of the guard and forks). Simple enough to fix, drill through the old screw then after bleeding put a self-taping screw coated in Araldite into the hole. Probably not the safest repair in the world (not recommended - Ed) but it worked fine for me.
Even with all the air out of the system, some half worn pads and a Bullworker inspired grip on the lever, retardation was never going to melt the tyre, but it seemed well matched to the minimal front springing and slightly loose feel of the forks. I was surprised that their pitted chrome didn't lead to the seal leaking, but this, I later found, was due to a complete absence of damping oil. It fooled the MOT inspector but I was forced to replace the rotted silencers with a pair of baffleless CB350 units that the local dealer was off-loading for a tenner the pair. They were new, found in the depths of his storeroom when he was having a clear out. They made a muted roar but improved the carburation at low revs.
The CB450 is rather more a CD type machine than anything else and Honda would've done better if they had marketed it as such. It certainly can't compete with the likes of Suzuki's GS450E or Kawasaki's GPZ500. Mine was giving only 45mpg even when used mildly, even new ones don't do much better than 55mpg.
The front brake caught me out once in town, when it failed to pull up the bike within fifty feet from a 40mph emergency stop. I hit the pedestrian at about 10mph, the old dear having stepped on to the crossing as if she owned the whole world. She toppled over, the front wheel running over her leg before I could finally stop the wobbling Honda. A couple of other women went into uncontrollable hysterics whilst her husband was so enraged that he tossed the bike off her with such violence that I was sent sprawling. The day grew worse when the cops pulled up but after two hours of begging and pleading they let me off with a caution, as the old dear had survived without any broken bones.
Out of curiosity I'd stripped down the old motor, the cause of the failure being a snapped camchain (at 29000 miles). That had caused a valve to hit a piston, which sent bits all around the engine. There wasn't much that could be salvaged. Honda were king of the pricks re camchain tensioners, with my motor rattling away merrily as 28000 miles was achieved. I let the local back street bodger fit a replacement (£55) but it only diminished the rattles by a marginal amount. At least the valves were in proper adjustment.
The chassis was passable after I'd patched it up, wasn't too affected by riding through rainstorms or on salted roads. The chain, though, was a bit of a chronic problem, already having a couple of links missing when I'd bought the bike. Even a mild twelve mile commute needed an adjustment, the back wheel ending up all over the place after a week. I splashed out on a new chain but the sprockets were so far gone that a mere 1000 miles had that chain in the same state as the original.
The pattern chain and sprocket set I bought proved even more defective. Both sprockets were manufactured out of true, resulting in a terrible grinding noise every time I went above 40mph. If I wanted to go that slow I would've bought a C50. I put the old sprockets back on for a couple of weeks until I turned up a used set out of a low mileage, crashed CB450. Even then, chain wear always seemed heavy, taking only 7000 miles for me to have to repeat the process.
Throughout all this the Honda ran on tirelessly, coming to life after about 30 seconds on the starter on even the coldest of winter mornings and grumbling up the road. It would sometimes stall dead at junctions if I didn't keep twitching the throttle like a sixteen year old moped merchant (remember them?) and the caliper would seize up about once a week, but a few gentle kicks with my size 10's usually sufficed.
With 40,000 miles drawing close I was congratulating myself on lots of cheap motorcycling. I thought I'd celebrate by giving the tank, plastic and guards a going over with the spray gun. Deep blue went on without any problems but a few days later fell off the plastic. The seat took that as an opportunity to split and the rear shocks threatened to collapse. Slightly used bits from the breakers sorted these minor quibbles.
Better weather encouraged me to use the Honda more and more. It seemed to thrive on revs and speed, if you ignored the vibes and weaves. It was pushing the limits of the whole device to cruise at 90mph for a couple of hours but I got away with it many a time. It was pretty exhausting, with only marginal comfort and excess of numbed extremities. It all depended on what you were used to riding, the parade of old hacks that had passed through my hands made the poorly constructed and badly worn Honda seem like a state of the art motorcycle. Stop laughing, out there!
Come 46000 miles the marginally maintained motor began to smoke heavily and rattle so loudly that peds turned round searching for a particularly far gone metal band. Some frantic phoning around the country located a nearly new engine a mere 220 miles away. I was determined to check the motor before I bought it, so rode the sick CB all the way there at less than 50mph; took eight hours. Just as well that the engine was a good ‘un because the old one wouldn't have got me home.
Only took 90 minutes to swap motors and I persuaded the breaker to throw in a front end off another CB450 which had blown its guts. It was cheaper than buying a new front tyre, mine down to about 1mm. The motor was brilliant (perhaps it was just the contrast), being smooth and almost powerful, putting all of 110mph on the speedo, which immediately had a fit at such an outrage, the needle spinning madly until it went dead. Oh well. There wasn't much else on the bike due for replacement, so I had a pretty neat package ready to run for the next year or so.
The CB450's probably a bit too basic for some tastes but I find it a neat enough bundle of alloy and steel, that for any reasonable riding is more than adequate. For around a grand something with a bit of useful life left in it can be purchased. There are enough in breakers (probably because of the minimal front brake) to be able to keep regenerating them as the engine and chassis wears out.
John Watts