The smoothness of the six cylinder engine was the first thing to impress. That, and its exhaust note, helped along by a home-made six into one stainless steel item. The previous owner's work, must've taken him many evening hours as it looked beautiful. Echoes of Honda's six cylinder racing bike were seen in the way the motor hung from the backbone frame and the way the 24 valve DOHC unit completely dominated the bike. It had a raw, brutal look that was not too common amongst bikes of the late seventies.
I had one of the early models with none of the grossness of later bikes, decked out, as they were, in a horrible, touring half fairing that did nothing for the machine's looks. No, all the bike needed was some subtle chassis parts that helped emphasize the hulking brutalness of its motor. The smoothness and willingness to rev, whatever the gear, actually made it both easy to ride and a sophisticated experience. That was okay, it let everyone think you were a real and total hero to control six cylinders of excess when in fact any wimp with a large enough wedge and reasonable inside leg could own the Honda.
Well, okay, it did weigh 600lbs, felt a bit top heavy at town speeds, was wide enough to make BMW boxer owners nervous and had the nastiest set of front discs I'd ever come across, but that silky powerplant and an excess of feedback from the much stiffened suspension meant it was never going to turn so nasty that I'd end up eating tarmac.
A 100 horses, back in '79, was worth shouting about, but the Honda's delivery of the ponies to the back tyre was subtle enough not to induce immediate cardiac failure unless a full throttle dash of complete madness was indulged in second or third gear. Certainly, something only a brain-dead juvenile would contemplate in the wet. In the dry it would loosen the front tyre's grip on the road to the extent that the bars would knock back and forth between their stops. As this happened, by its very nature, as I was having my arms torn out of their sockets and my lips drawn back in a rictus grimace by the vehement acceleration it was not something that I could exactly enjoy.
Equally heavy use of the throttle in taller gears did little damage to the stability of the chassis, although the ride was harsh as the past owner had fitted rock hard Konis and stiffened up the front end with both extra pre-load and a large brace that looked like it had been sourced off a Jumbo's landing gear. The former helped make the forks reluctant to move over anything but the most outrageous bumps and holes. When they did move a few millimetres they seemed to stick on.
I left them as they were. The past owner had regaled me with tales of the speed wobbles, dangerous weaves and attempts to throw him right off the seat. The bike had come to him with completely stock suspension, that after 20,000 miles, was frightening in the extreme. One of his first jobs was to modify it in line with the bikes performance. His parting words were to suffer a bit of a body bashing, as it was a damn sight less painful than being thrown off the machine during a speed wobble.
I dare say that a brand new CBX was probably a quite capable handler but once wear gets a grip on the suspension the weight overwhelms everything. I know that modern suspension would've held it in check and given my back an easier time but to buy the CBX at £2500 I'd handed over all the money I had in the world! Well, it only had 32000 miles on the clock and shone like a brand new bike.
In a way, the kind of motorcycle that you own determines the type of riding that you want to do (or is it the other way around?) and the most obvious area in which the CBX could excel was long distance touring. Two weeks after purchase I was off on an around Britain affair with several mates on plastic fantastic superbikes.
The Honda had flat bars, reasonably positioned pegs and a most comfortable seat in its favour. Against it, was a total lack of rider protection and an excess of heat thrown off from the projecting cylinders. Fortunately, there was only one wet day, which we all agreed was much better spent in the pub. The Honda held its own on the motorway up to 95mph. Thereafter, even flat on the tank, my arms, neck and thighs ached exponentially to any increase in speed, although it would put a mind boggling 150mph on the clock if I really put my mind to it.
At max revs the engine didn't feel very happy, surging, coming close to cutting out on me as if one of the pistons was momentarily seizing and then freeing itself. A scenario that immediately filled my mind with visions of the engine locking up solid, the rear wheel following suit whilst bike and I did the tarmac tumble, being torn asunder, leaving pieces of body and motorcycle littered along the motorway. Backing off a notch, though, had the engine back to running as smooth as a Roller, so it may just have been the non-standard exhaust system making it run lean right at the top of the rev range.
It says a lot about the aerodynamics and design of modern motorcycles that despite the frantic pace my bike turned in the best fuel consumption (and range) at 42mpg. More normal riding didn't improve that much, about 45mpg and continued shuffling at marginal speeds in town turned in an appalling 35mpg. Oh well, you can't win them all.
After 4000 miles of tireless running my friends had changed their minds about my paying so much dosh for such an old bike. But their prejudicial opinions came back when the Honda developed a high speed misfire. They reckoned I'd holed a piston but the lack of exhaust smoke denied this slander. 50 miles later it revealed itself as caused by a flat battery, in turn created by an alternator that was putting out as much juice as a virgin daughter of an Iranian religious maniac. I tried some prayers myself but no-one up there responded and for the final 220 miles I had to suffer the indignity of being taken home by the AA.
After much phoning around a breaker was located who had a secondhand alternator he'd exchange for £65. This had me worried that I was in turn buying someone else's duff generator but a series of threats upon my arrival at his premises convinced me that it was probably genuine. It worked okay but the battery wouldn't hold a full charge, so that if I rode for more than 20 miles after dark it would start to drain until the misfire came back. After several narrow scrapes I invested in a new battery and everything began to work as it should. The lights and switches were rather good, so night riding was more fun than on most machines of this era (even if they weren't the fare that Honda had originally fitted).
I had some troubles in town, down to the machine's mass and weight. If I was doing a lot of commuting mileage I'd buy a smaller bike, especially for the winter when the alloy goes really bad and the brake calipers become constantly gummed up. Oh yes, the brakes. As mentioned they were very nasty. Not lacking in power, they could lock the front forks up solid, but having not one tiny bit of feedback. The front brake was really an on/off switch - there was either a locking, screaming wheel or nothing whatsoever. Goodridge hose was already fitted, the pads were in good shape and the discs were flat rather than warped. It was the calipers themselves that were at fault; CBX items are so rare that the only way I could replace them was by fitting a whole new front end; and that I could not afford. The back brake was tolerable and there was some engine braking.
The CBX is an expensive bike to keep in consumables, with quality tyres that last for less than 6000 miles, a chain that wears out almost as fast and an appetite for oil that makes it doubtful that's there's any benefit in changing the lubricant every 1000 miles (which I do out of habit more than anything else). On the upside, I've had the bike for a year, there's now 53000 miles on the clock and all I've had to pay out for is the alternator (I do the maintenance myself, don't ask.....). It runs and looks like a new bike, as much a joy to behold as it is to ride. I can't think of anything I'd trade it for this side of a Bimota!
Joe Knerr
****************************************************
My tale begins back in the late summer of 1988. The GS550 had burnt out a whole load of valves (again!) and on a particularly wet Saturday afternoon I had borrowed my girlfriend's XJ550 to try to find a cheap hack in one of the bike shops in my home town of Gloucester. The bike that caught my eye as I walked through the door of the first shop knocked me for six.
I recalled seeing it in a magazine years ago. The CBX1000 engine dominated the chrome molybdenum chassis of French design with some of the best brazing available. The motor, a six cylinder, 24 valve twin cam unit was standard except for an array of K & N filters which were necessary as there was absolutely no room for an airbox of any description. The GRP bodywork was painted in high gloss black and came with both a solo and dual seat.
The salesman was an old friend, so I enquired as to the asking price. It was an X reg with 13 thou on the clock, 12 months MOT.....mine for £3500. This then led to one of the hardest decisions I've ever had to make. On the one hand £3500 was a lot of money and about seven times more than I wanted to spend. On the other hand, I really wanted it. Sod it, I thought and gave him a cheque for £50 as a deposit and went away to arrange some finance. At the time I had a steady job and didn't have much trouble getting three years HP after putting down £500.
A week later the Moto Martin was parked outside the house. At first the riding position took a little getting used to as I had to lie along the bike rather than sitting in it! Every time it was fired up it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.....and still does five years later. Acceleration through the gears is both powerful and incredibly smooth, accompanied by the induction noise from the airfilters and a turbine sound from the 6-1 JAMA exhaust. I found braking to be ample, with the huge ventilated discs up front, and even a twin-pot caliper out back - standard fare on the Pro-Link CBX1000.
For the first week I didn't actually have time to put the bike through its paces but the following weekend was the Magna Carta rally in Essex and a load of us from our local MAG group were going. This was going to be a two-up trip so the dual seat was fitted. Although there wasn't much space for luggage at the back, the large, flat tank was able to support two sleeping bags, waterproofs and eight cans of Guinness, with the tent secured on the minimal tail-piece.
One thing soon became apparent and that was the incredibly stable handling, even two-up. There was no noticeable difference in the acceleration, the handling was precise despite having the standard nineteen inch front wheel. The bike could be powered into bends at speed with only slight weight changes on my part to bring us out safely on the other side. The only thing to ground out if I went a little too far was the exhaust which I altered soon after.
When our group got on the M4 to make the run to London we found ourselves travelling at 50mph. At the first fuel stop some of us were well pissed off and asked the lead biker what was going down. It was an old Honda 500 twin that would bust its guts above 50mph. 100 yards later, back on the motorway, some friend on a Ducati 900 roared off into the distance. It didn't take much thought to follow suit.
I cruised at 90mph for a little while but that was insufficient to keep the Duke in sight. It was obviously time for the top speed run. With a quick but comprehensive search for cop cars, I let loose with the throttle. 135mph came up easily enough but paranoia made me back off and we were soon back to a mere 80mph. The half fairing, frame mounted with twin headlamps, had been useful for keeping the blast of wind off, but the stretched out riding position meant it wouldn't have been much of a problem even on a naked machine. On that trip I could find no real faults with the Moto Martin.
The bike had everything going for it and for the next year it was used constantly. It was at this point that problems started to occur. I burnt out several starter motors, located behind one of the frame tubes, meaning the motor had to be lowered each time.
After one repair I was off to a rally on Dartmoor, two-up with an unlikely amount of luggage distributed over the machine. It was late February and I was beginning to have trouble with the starting again and it wouldn't run well in the rain, the whole bike showing a sensible if irritable dislike of the English weather.
The paint was becoming dull due to prolonged use in bad weather without proper cleaning. It was well on its way to becoming a high performance shed. An impression enforced on the return from Dartmoor - the engine appeared to run on only four cylinders with absolutely no go in it, popping and banging all the way home.
The next day at work dragged along as I was anxious to get home and find the problem. I thought at first that it might be a loose connection on one set of coils. The electrical layout is similar to the CB900 but with an extra set of everything. Pick-ups trigger amplifiers which boot the coils into life. However, a quick blast on the timing gun revealed full sparks in the right place at the right time.
I already knew that fuel was getting through so I did a compression test. There was no compression in the middle two cylinders, only the outer cylinders had the full 150psi, the others had about 40psi. There was nothing for it, the head had to come off. I took great care in labelling every part, the job itself fairly easy - the valves had begun to burn out, a common malaise on aircooled four valvers, especially when an engine's run on non-standard filters and exhaust.
Valves (£48) and a head gasket (£50) were purchased. I decided to lap all the valves in, a feat that took about ten hours but the following weekend saw it all back together. I fired it up and let it warm up.....without even getting into first it stopped dead. I pushed the starter button, the only thing going round was the starter motor. After lowering the engine down out of the frame, a look inside revealed a snapped main camchain. To this day I still don't know what caused it. Twelve valves were bent (£6 each from a breaker), two HD racing camchains at £80, about five hours lapping and another fifty quid head gasket.
As I rebuilt the engine again I double checked everything, like you do, concentrating and going by the book. That was to be my undoing, how a 30p washer cost me the top of my engine. There is a rubber oil pipe that runs up the back of the block, to supply the cams, which uses banjo bolt fittings just like on the brakes. The previous owner had used two thin washers rather than the thicker standard one (I didn't know that then), so I just used one of the thin washers.
After only ten miles on the newly rebuilt motor it seized up. So did I when I finally realised what had happened. The motor was dropped again and stripped, revealing another 12 bent valves, broken tensioners and deeply scored cam bearings, which were part of the head, just about writing off the whole top end! Morale was at an all time low. In a few months we were moving house so I lost interest in trying again.
A couple of weeks later I was scanning the spares section of MCN when I came across a guy selling CBX engine spares. A phone call revealed a complete top end for £120. The new head had some valves missing but I knew I had enough to make up the difference. I was again going to lap all the valves in and duly made a board up with numbered sections so all 24 valves, 24 buckets and shims, 48 valve springs and collets could be put back in the right order. At least that was until my brother-in-law's dog ran into it, scattering over 100 components the length of my garage.
By then I was sick of the sight of it. I trailered the newly built bike to the MOT station and then put it up for sale - I didn't bother to advertise as I knew a few people who wanted it. I was asking £2200, all the time wondering if I was doing the right thing. The best offer I had was £1800, I was tempted but decided to hang on to it.
After a long day at work I was ready to ride it again for the first time since the rebuild. I approached a roundabout at 1500rpm in third when the motor stalled again. A prod on the starter revealed a sound I'd heard before, just the starter turning. The bloody camchain had snapped again.
I couldn't understand what had gone wrong. Down the pub, friends discussed probable causes, from bent crank to buckled cam sprockets. It was possible that when the engine seized, the camchains took the whole weight of the bike for a split second before I pulled in the clutch, and in that moment the camchain could've cracked, although a visual check before had revealed nothing.
I inquired in all the local bike shops with a view to having them sort the problems out, but nobody would touch it, partly because I had already stripped it and partly because news travels very fast around here and they all knew its history. With this in mind, I wheeled the bike to the back of the garage and forgot about it. I had the idea that when I retired I'd have another go at it.
There it remained until about two years later. I had a cheque arrive one day, a pay out for an accident I'd had a few years before. It was enough to buy another CBX, from which to extract an engine. MCN prices were too high. £2000 to £2500, but one eventually turned up in the local paper. It was an older model with twin shocks and an extra five horses, T reg and about a grand. It was just what I was after, a worn out chassis with a nice motor.
Three months later, I finally got around to the transplant. The task of fitting a CBX engine into a Moto Martin chassis I had narrowed down to a fine art, all I used were three car jacks. The first was placed opposite the side stand to keep the bike upright as there was no main stand. After manhandling the rear of the motor up so the back mounting spindle could be fitted, the other two jacks were used to lift the engine until the top mounts lined up and the whole thing was bolted in.
The bodywork was resprayed and I bought new HT's, had the solo seat recovered, fitted stainless Goodridge brake lines (courtesy of the yellow CBX) and moved the battery and electrics to beneath the solo seat hump. I sold the stock rolling chassis, the tank, panels and tail-piece, the blown engine and all the fittings for £500. It worked out cheaper than doing a straight engine rebuild!
After some trepidation - was the bloody thing cursed? - I was soon back into the swing of things. Another 16000 miles were added to the clock, including a European tour last summer. I found the rear tyres to range from 1000 miles on a Pirelli Demon to over 4500 miles on a Dunlop K625. Front's last for 5000 miles whatever rubber was used.
It's running better now than it ever did. I'm planning a trip to Southern Ireland on it as I've heard they have some nice roads, and of course, draught Guinness. The moral of this story, if there is one, is that if you're ever offered a CBX, buy a car.
Kev Brown
****************************************************
For the first 26000 miles the CBX ran like a dream. I know people take the piss out of this era of Hondas for having naff camchains that wouldn't last as long as the drive chain for a kid's tricycle, pistons made out of eggshells and gearboxes straight out of tractors, but mine was a bit of alright. The bike had been cossetted like a well loved pet for its first three years and delivered into my hands, like a new born babe, in 1982.
Only 3000 miles on the clock. I spent a long time examining the bike, looking for the hidden fault and finding none spent the next 1000 miles riding very mildly until I was convinced that the engine wasn't going to blow up on me. The bike seemed too good to be true and impressed me mates no end.
That huge, hulking six cylinder engine, brightly polished alloy more stunning than most Harleys, whirred away with a rustle of 24 valves, rattle of camchains and whine of gears; but a sniff of the throttle unleashed that uncanny growl of six cylinders. Wow! The noise alone sold the bike.
Along with the noise comes the smoothness. It makes your average four feel like something out of a farm yard. Cruising at up to 120mph is incredibly impressive, the engine feeling more electric than combustive but without ever becoming so remote from the rider that boredom sets in - the motor's mounted directly to the tubular spine frame without the usual rubber mounting. A trick Honda used to employ in their six cylinder racers in the sixties, though they, unlike the CBX, handled like a camel.
I expected the worst with a 600lb machine with a wide engine that was going to give a high centre of gravity. Honda had angled the cylinders forward, dumped the lower frame rails and put the alternator under the carbs, so that the engine was only slightly wider than many a 1000cc four, a helpful engineering twist that perhaps explains why the CBX turned out to be an easier ride than I expected.
First off, this is a motor that revs very freely but also runs well at low revs. Useful momentum available even when keeping well below 5000 revs. Second, the riding position's quite natural and not too much of a stretch. Those two elements helped me combat the top heavy feel up to 20mph, then some ingredient of the chassis dynamics made the Honda relatively at ease with its mass and girth.
The major limitation on popping around town at speed was the sheer width of the bike which made me think twice about some moped sized gaps. Not as limiting as a BMW boxer, I nevertheless ended up wedged in between a couple of tin boxes. The CBX came with the kind of crash-bars that would do a tank proud and could take the side off a cage in the blink of an eye.
It didn't go quite that far, denting one rear bumper and a wing. The two cagers couldn't believe it! Took them a while to calm down. We exchanged insurance documents, though I never put a claim in because it only took a little work to get the paint off my crash-bars - they weren't even dented! After that I paid a bit more attention to the size of gaps in traffic but had a few near misses. I avoided more metal bashing by going ape on the brakes.
By the end of the seventies the Japanese had gone some way to sorting out their disc brakes. A triple disc set-up that could lock either wheel. Sometimes the front wheel'd lock without any warning which gave me an instant heart attack. The forks leapt about a lot but the bike kept on its line with the same kind of fidelity, but without the spine crunching ride, as a Ducati single. I actually believed the tales in Bike Magazine, went out and bought a 450 Desmo - lasted all of a month before I sold it on. If the Six makes a four seem merely agricultural it makes a Ducati single akin to a pile-driver gone out of control.
The brakes, then, were plenty powerful but rather harsh without sufficient sensitivity to make bad weather work a pleasure. The easiest cure's a set of Dunlopads, which eradicate both a slight wet weather delay and the tendency to lock up without any warning. Someone used to a drum braked commuter would still have the shock of his life if suddenly placed on the CBX but he'd probably escape the mortuary slab. To be fair to the bike, after a couple of years the problems with the brakes faded into the background; time had taught me just how much pressure they could take.
They were certainly nice to have at the end of a fast straight, when I had the sudden need to halve the speed to deal with the corner. The ground clearance wasn't exactly generous and the suspension allowed wallowing if the bike wasn't set up dead right for the flow of curve.
Several times, I ended up with my heart in my mouth when the bike started drifting wide in a bend and a car appeared out of nowhere, charging towards the bit of road that I wanted to occupy. If I tried braking the chassis tried to wobble itself apart. If I accelerated I'd end up in the hedge on the other side of the road. All I could do was slam the throttle shut, lean over until the undercarriage ground into the tarmac and hope like hell that the resulting imitation of a kangaroo didn't have me off. It never did!
I certainly didn't feel at ease when trying for the top speed of 140mph. Beyond 120mph the chassis seemed to give up, the springing and damping not working together. Basically, the bike was saying no more in a big way! Motorways were easy enough, wide A-roads okay and twisty lanes navigable at low rates of knots. I've ridden 750's that had heavier handling and less stability.
The bike was heavy on fuel, tyres and pads - 30-35mpg, 5-7000 miles and 6000 miles for the front pads. Maintenance, other than oil, was a complex affair that I left to the Honda dealer every 5000 miles, or once a year. Oil was changed every 1000 miles in the hope of avoiding the usual Honda engine hassles.
The first hint of a problem came at 26,200 miles. I came out one morning to find a dead battery. I charged it up only to find it doing the same trick a few days later. The rectifier had blown and the alternator was burnt out. Because of its type, I couldn't find an exchange one and used ones were as rare as a full head of hair on a long term despatcher.
I carried on, charging the battery every night. At 26,800 miles the engine started clattering - I don't know if this was connected to the alternator's demise - a couple of pistons going. The engine was repaired but never ran well again. It was such a complex beast that once disturbed it was close to impossible to assemble perfectly - many CBX1000's end up like this! I soon sold mine at a loss.
G.K.
****************************************************
Having read in past UMG's about readers' experiences with rebuilt CBX1000's, I was wary in the extreme when the vendor told me he'd done the bike's top end. He was one of those types who had eyes that invited trust, making me distrust him all the more. He gave me some spiel about being a fully qualified mechanic who found working on Japanese engines dead easy. He insisted I have a test ride and remarked that I would be impressed by the engine's power and smoothness.
Six cylinders! Wow! The sheer width of the engine was a bit mind blowing, though it's not that bad as there's nothing on the ends of the crankshaft. The alternator sitting under the carbs. The bike wasn't that wide around the tank, and with the cylinders in front of my legs I felt quite secure and well protected. The heat off the engine was a mixed blessing - good in winter, annoying in summer.
The bike spat into life with some graunching noises from the starter but soon quietened down to a lovely mechanical whirl. For a litre bike I found it needed quite a lot of throttle and gearbox effort, but when wound up shot forwards fast enough to snap my arms off. The smoothness was most impressive, another world after the series of rattly fours I'd owned. This quietness and smoothness impressed me enough to take a chance on the machine. Mine for £1500, not bad as it was an early one with the classic shape.
After the deal was done, the guy told me I'd be wanting to take care with the brakes. The twin discs could be very vicious and problematic in the wet. He was sure I'd soon get the hang of it. There's always something on old bikes, isn't there?
On closer inspection, the discs were wafer thin and the calipers bodged with Araldited screws. My friendly local Honda dealer opined that I was riding an accident waiting to happen. No, he didn't have new parts in stock but he could always order them from Japan if I had a few hundred quid to blow. The breaker was even less helpful, telling me the Honda was far too big and powerful for me and that I only had myself to blame. Reluctantly, he sold me a front end off a CB1000N for two hundred notes...I'd also noticed that the CBX suffered from a pogo-stick front end above 75mph.
The newer front end didn't go straight on but my father was persuaded to make up some yokes on his milling machine despite the fact that he thought I should have bought a British bike. He was quite impressed with the sheer, excessive engineering of the CBX, though. With the new front end I was all set for some serious riding.
Obviously, no 600lb bike is going to be easy to flip around but I was impressed with just how pleasant the bike was to ride. The engine's used as part of the frame, just like in all those sixties Honda twins, with a tubular trellis above and behind it. It gives a massive structure that feels very purposeful and holds a nice steady line. As the suspension wasn't stock at either end, I can't really comment on the original bike, but mine felt very together and stable.
Of course, all that stability needs a bit of muscle to punt it through the bends. Here, I found the Pirelli tyres the least satisfactory part of the equation. Tyre choice is very important on this kind of bike, with the CB front end fitted it was mismatched with the rear Dunlop, which had to be upgraded to a Pirelli PDQ to get rid of the impression of imminent death! Ground clearance limits are easily reached when the Honda feels like it wants to grind itself off the road and the tyres go all squirmy - that 600lbs of metal plus my own eighteen stone showing up! I don't think the tyres were designed to withstand such forces.
In the wet the bike had a nervous front end that wanted to go walkies and didn't respond to sharp invective that would've been the envy of that dog woman! The only solution was to slow down. It was no coincidence that two CBX1000 riders I talked to exclaimed that they never rode their machines in the wet! Gently, gently on the throttle was the only survival mantra, but even then some looseness in the transmission caused the back wheel to flip around!
The gearbox was actually quite slick and precise, just so long as the change was done under a rising throttle. At all other times it felt like a right bag of nails, though it never missed a change. In other words, better than most Hondas and probably in line with the 49000 miles on the clock.
Or so I would have thought until part of the petrol tank fell out! I was motoring along, minding my own business and revelling in the sound of those six cylinders on cam, when I felt some wetness sprayed back at me and the strong smell of petrol. Before the thing exploded into flames, I pulled over and looked astonished at the large hole in the side of the petrol tank!
After doing some deep breathing exercises to still the panic attack, I was able to suss what had happened. The inside of the tank was cracked and the previous owner had repaired a large section with GRP, only the GRP hadn't set properly so that the whole repair just fell out. Whoever did the paint job should've had a medal as I didn't suss it even after a careful examination. No way I could push 600lbs of dead metal home, a friend was told to rescue me with his Jap pick-up truck.
Used CBX petrol tanks are nonexistent. I was quoted over 400 notes for a new one! Yet more GRP was added to the tank, sanded down to a mirror finish and the whole lot given a new coat of silver-grey paint. Only it looked just like someone had done a GRP repair and painted it silver!
Not long after this incident, the central carb started leaking fuel. It was a sod to get at. After cleaning out the float valve, I put it back on and then replaced the outer carb. Sob! I now had a four cylinder six, if you see what I mean. After much muttering, head scratching and screaming, I finally figured out that I'd cracked the rubber manifold when replacing the outer carb. Oh well, that's easy. Bit of inner-tube soaked in Araldite under the clamps. Made me feel really good when it actually worked!
The bike behaved for the next two weeks, then the alternator burnt out. No lights, dead battery, melted rectifier, etc. The bike obviously thought it wanted to be a GS Suzuki! I could still ride around on it, though. Disconnect the charging circuit and charge the battery every night. As long as I didn't use the lights or horn and didn't do more than 100 miles I was okay. One friend, who does the same trick, keeps a car battery in his GS550's top box!
Three weeks later the top end started rattling. Oh my God! Another panic attack. This wasn't Honda's best design of camchain! I distracted myself by having another go at the tank paint, doing a much better job this time. Down to the local Honda dealer. How much would he give me against that new, discounted CB750 in the window? £2500! End of story!
Andy Stanton