Honda CB750

These Yanks are undoubtedly a spoilt lot. Just imagine if you, dear UK reader, were offered a nice brand new across the frame 750cc Honda four for just over two thousand pounds (or whatever the equivalent is to the American price of four thousand dollars by the time this literary effort gets into the shops). Yes, shocking ain't it, all Honda UK will offer you for the same price is a ratty old CB450 twin if you can find a dealer desperately discounting them or if you insist on paying full retail an even worse CD250U!

The equation becomes even less impressive if you throw in the fact that Americans, at least those with a modicum of intelligence, earn appreciably more than UK work slaves. Naturally, having had my Vee Max written off by a most inconsiderate car driver, the new Honda seemed just the thing to provide endless hours of amusement. The engine is basically a mildly tuned version of the good old CBX750, putting out something like 65hp. Maintenance is limited to balancing the four carbs and changing the oil and filter, the valve clearances setting themselves by means of some hydraulic trickery far too complex and boring to go into here.

The CBX engine was known for eventually burning out exhaust valves and occasionally wrecking pistons, but in this milder form should be just as long lasting and reliable as the original, sixties SOHC four from which the current model takes its designation and inspiration.

Engine power delivery is such that I suspect had Honda's engineers the imagination they would have got away with just a single carb. Power fades away rapidly once past 7500rpm, the pay back being enough low speed and midrange torque to make changing down through the slightly clunky five speed gearbox a waste of time once 35mph was achieved.

This is one very laid back motorcycle to ride, the civility of its motor enhanced by a lack of annoying secondary vibes at most engine speeds. However, somewhere deep in the engine something is seriously wrong. The CBX power plant shows its age and thus the bike up as a lashed together budget design. Just bumming around, enjoying myself without exerting too much throttle effort, revealed that the bike was only doing 35mpg (corrected for UK gallons). Further exploration of the economy prospects of the CB revealed a best of 42mpg (how to die from mindless boredom) and a worst of 31mpg (a 100mph freeway blast).

Part of the Honda's problem comes from its mass, around 495lbs with four gallons of petrol on board, not much better than the sixties design which managed to be both appreciably faster and more economical. It does seem incredible to me that having created a large capacity, low powered, low budget motorcycle that the Honda has such appalling fuel economy. I feel sure fitment of a single carb would've helped greatly, the 34mm CV's fitted are surely big enough to suit 120hp/litre engine designs and are probably leftovers from the original CBX750.

Progress of a kind has been made in the frame and suspension area. Thank god! It would have taken a pretty big idiot to throw together a nineties motorcycle that handled worse than the original sixties Honda CB750. The Honda sits on a fairly skinny 18" front wheel and a moderately fat 17" rear, a strange combination for sure, but one that endows the Honda with good straight line stability and a flickability that belies it massive mass.

The bike also sits on a conventional pair of rear shocks with 5 way spring load adjustment. These are better than many a FVQ set fitted to the Superdreams et al, but that doesn't say much. After the Vee Max it could be swept through corners with elan, but it was back to the death defying tactics, bum clenched madness to keep up with 600cc race replicas. It can be done but any half sane person will soon cough up for a decent set of aftermarket shocks.

The 41mm front forks have no adjustment, don't flex much despite being afflicted with fairly awful side loads from the single disc. They get a bit rattled by bumpy going and patter nastily over small surface irregularities, but for the money you pay they aren't half bad. The 59" wheelbase helps stop any weaves that might intrude on long fast sweepers and I did the odd 120mph bend without shitting my trousers.

The frame is off one the old American Nighthawks, an utterly conventional tubular construction with rather poor support for the swinging arm, where what would be saddle tubes on a cycle bend inwards in a decidedly dodgy manner. However, neither that nor the rakish angle of the forks conspire to upset the general feeling of correctness that the bike creates.

Naturally, European riders will look askance at the raised nature of the handlebars, but the footrests are well placed and the seat comfortable (and low), so it only really becomes a pain if you want to cruise at more than 80mph for hours on end. The bar's width are great for hurling the bike around town and you can convince young poseurs that you are real man with stories of high speed junkets.

Wheels are surprisingly expensive looking five spoke jobs, the rear looking all the better for a single drum. No doubt Honda designers were scared shitless that the adequacy of a good rear drum would make all their rear disc brakes look silly, so they fitted this rod operated one with shoe linings that don't offer much by way of retardation. Ferodo, or someone, will doubtless make a killing in the aftermarket spares game.

The front disc is a reasonably modern design with a twin piston caliper that affords both adequate power and feel. Wet weather delay, I am glad to say, was nonexistent. However, in the six thousand miles I managed in a couple of months the pads were down below the wear lines and the drilled disc had developed some nasty grooves, doubtless the cause of the anti-social wailing noises the front brake took to producing. Given the poor quality of the rear drum, careful care and scrutiny of the front brake is mandatory.

Equally indicative of cheapo manufacturing was the rust on the underside of the four into one exhaust where the downpipes meet. The amount of muck this item picks up is not very surprising given the minimal nature of the front mudguard. Both exhaust and guard will doubtless be replaced by the keen owner as time goes by, so I suppose no great problem.

Owners will also feel rewarded by touching up the frame paint where it chips off - nothing like owner involvement. Honda have spent some money on the overall finish, the plastic and metal cycle parts being done in a well matched, deep red, the panels having a better fit than on much more expensive Kawasakis.

Styling is right on from certain angles, lumpy from others. It certainly isn't classic in lines like an early CB750 or Z1, more a Superdream with a few extra curves. Overall, it looks better than any $4000 motorcycle should, which can't be bad!

The motor ran faultlessly for the six thousand miles I've done so far. It never failed to burble into life first touch of the starter (mind you, this is hot old Texas and not freezing Shit City), never uttered so much as a misfire and the motor is lot quieter than the original CBX. The rear tyre has just about had it and the front looks good for about another 2500 miles. The chain has required just two very minor adjustments.

Whether the motor will keep going as long as the original CB is anyone's guess but it is very mildly tuned by modern standards and hard to rev into the red, so the prospects look good.

In America the Honda is seen as a step back from the race replica madness, a sane bit of machinery, a beefed up modern incarnation of the original Honda four. With its low price it undercuts all the opposition and where it might be lacking in certain areas is easy enough to upgrade as the years go by; I expect to see them customised every which way from back road racer to long distance cruiser.

Any UK reader interested in buying one would be a fool not to have a cheap holiday in the States whilst doing a private import - you'd still come out hundreds or even a thousand pounds ahead of trying to buy one in the UK.

Having escaped death aboard a veritable road rocket I needed a motorcycle which would not impress me with the need to speed mindlessly everywhere. In this respect the Honda is perfect, its nature is pleasant, easy to ride, easy to live with and not too hard on the pocket. As a long term economical mount I have serious doubts about its viability but as a bit of sixties/early seventies nostalgia it's not half bad, and a lot safer, to boot, than those early brutal fours.

Johnny Malone

****************************************************

The tail end of 1993 I was on the lookout for a bargain buy. I had an open mind, fancied something nearly new, around 750cc without too much plastic. It was all down to what turned up in the local papers. After looking at a Zephyr which was rusting before my eyes, I ended up with a 2000 mile Honda Seven-Fifty for 2800 notes.

Honda started off the whole four cylinder bandwagon back in the late sixties. I actually owned one of the CB750K1 models back in my youth. No comparison, really, the new model was much more sophisticated, accelerated faster and handled ten times better. The weight was the same at 480lbs, as was the top speed at 130mph. Progress can be weird at times.

The CB knocks out 75 horses at 8500 revs, with a linear delivery between 3000 and 9000rpm. The motor lacks entirely the gutsy torque so beloved by those mounted on European hacks. Civility's its calling card, even the gearbox and chain final drive was well sorted; something of a rarity on a Honda.

Handling required a touch more muscle than I was used to but after the first couple of weeks such effort faded into the background and I felt right at home on the shining beast. The tyres were Japlops that skittered like a young toddler over the icy roads of January and reacted to tarmac awash with water with a little bit of hopping and skipping but had none of the latent violence of seventies fours. That K1 used to wobble without any warning or apparent cause. I certainly wouldn't pay silly money for one.

Not in the light of the new bike's sterling performance. Compared to 600 race replicas it was very naff, even the grey import 400's could burn the old girl off. Compared to seventies stuff it was well on the pace and I never came across a car that was able to stay with us up to the ton. Being over thirty it was well fast enough for me, supremely comfortable and big enough not to be thrown around by the cross-winds or the slipstream of speeding artics.

Of course, the early part of 1994 was excessively wet and cold; I don't think the cagers stuck in traffic were filled with an excess of envy. It was dead easy to end up soaked through even when wearing waterproofs; the banana shape of the large petrol tank had the water streaming off into my groin whilst the bars left the rest of my body splayed out in the weather. A big Rickman fairing was considered for a moment but the potential weight rather put me off. A Gortex suit proved more waterproof than the Belstaffs, but the claims about being able to breathe proved false - walking any distance left me shivering from trapped sweat.

Summer came in March - for a whole day! Long enough to find the Honda sure-footed but somewhat lacking in ground clearance. I had quite a lot of fun in the dark (the front light was good for 70mph), sparking on the council's finest until something dug in. Having 500lbs of metal wobble like a broken helicopter ensured a more moderate pace as well as shaking hands and dirty underwear. I soon came to know the limits of the Honda.

In the next year I did 26000 miles of reasonably hard riding with nothing more than oil and filter changes. Plus quite a lot of consumables. Avon tyres were a major improvement on the originals, damping down a lot of the wet weather madness. They lasted about 9000 miles, the front having about 1mm left before it went illegal but showing a willingness, at that stage in its life, to slide away without any warning on damp roads. Given its size and power I thought the wear was quite reasonable.

The original O-ring chain lasted for 14000 miles; an amazing feat in my experience. However, I pushed the chain to its limits, the damn thing breaking when I was out in the countryside. The adjusters were at their limits! The flailing chain gouged the back of the crankcases but didn't quite break through. I know someone who had a broken chain take off the back of his leg! The replacement O-ring chain lasted for only 5500 miles. New sprockets have helped the replacement last for much longer.

Fuel was the least impressive aspect of what's essentially a lowly tuned engine, 40 to 45mpg. Compared to 50 to 60mpg from the K1 that's piss poor progress. Almost as annoying were the disc brakes. Pads went for 6000 to 7000 miles but after 13000 miles I suffered from sticking calipers, especially at the rear. On what's sold as a basic mount, especially in the States where they are dirt cheap, how can anyone justify a rear disc? Come on!

The front brake was plenty powerful enough to lock up the wheel! I had to use a bit of restraint in the wet. In the winter of '94 it had me off when the sticking caliper suddenly freed and locked up the wheel on a bit of icy road. The front wheel just flipped away, nothing I could do to save it. A lot of damage to the cycle parts and my poor old knee, but the bike was still ridable so I rode home with blood dripping from my knee. A waste of time spending hours hanging around hospital when I could clean it up at home.

The bike was about ready for an aftermarket exhaust, as well as the dents from the accident there was quite a bit of rust seeping under the chrome. Couldn't find one new, ended up welding and chopping an unmarked but used Alfa meant for a CB900. The engines were, in fact, very similar but the pipes needed radical surgery to increase the offered ground clearance of, erm, 2mm!

'Twas a touch loud but the powerband was as bland as ever. Cruising at 90mph gave a nice drone which drowned out jet engines above the ton! The Honda was surprisingly good on the motorway, bopping along at 90mph with the ease of a Gold Wing, the upright riding position not at bad as you'd expect because the pegs were well placed to help brace my body against the gale. No weaves or wobbles even when flat out, although the buzz that shook the chassis was redolent of the original 750 (at half the velocity).

With 28000 miles on the clock the head gasket started leaking. I tried to ignore it, was rewarded 500 miles later with boots covered in oil. Hmmmm! The engine had never used much lubricant between changes, now it was going through a half litre every 400 miles. When the motor started gasping I knew the gasket had finally blown. Damn! Tightening down the head bolts hadn't helped.

I got a mechanic to fit a new gasket, £70 including labour. There was no apparent reason for the failure - the valves and pistons showed no signs of the excess heat that might've resulted from running a non-standard exhaust and the plugs were spot on. Just to be on the safe side, I secured a stock exhaust from a breaker, off a bike that had snapped its front forks! Probably some fat clown going up a pavement.

A few thousand miles later I was shocked to find the front end wobbling away like an old H1. Shot steering head bearings. Whilst I was ripping the front forks off the rest of the bike fell over! Missed me but almost decapitated the cat - he went missing for a whole two weeks. New bearings went in okay, but from then on the suspension went off very fast. On knackered suspension, a lot of the old K1 traits came back - weaves, wobbles, wallowing, etc.

A new set of Hagon shocks sorted the back end, the swinging arm bearings showing no signs of looseness; something of a shock as they never received any grease. A fork brace was deemed an easy solution to the front end as stripping the forks had me shaking like an addict deprived of his kicks. I'd once taken some GS400 forks down and nearly took my eye out when it suddenly came apart with explosive velocity. The result wasn't perfect but the lack of precision wasn't dangerous so it sufficed.

At the time of writing, the clock shows 35,740 miles. The engine runs rougher, the chassis looser, but the bike still goes well up to the ton. The finish is good but only because I resprayed it after the crash. They do go off if ridden every day through the winter, a test of my endurance which I do every year for the simple reason that I don't have the dosh for a car. Even if I did I wouldn't buy one; no point sitting in traffic all day long.

I've seen K1's that look good after going around the clock. I doubt if the Seven-Fifty will match that longevity but up to 50,000 miles they seem okay, blown head gaskets aside. I've seen the odd one advertised for just £2000, so they are something of a bargain buy in these days of seven grand 600cc race replicas.

Jon Lyme

****************************************************

I needed a bike to do my summer blitz around England and Scotland. Down to one of Bristol's bigger dealers to have a look and then find myself astride a two year old Honda CB750 four. Fitted well between the legs and the riding position suited me fine. The dealer wanted four grand but when I pointed out that I could buy a discounted new one for not much more, he came down to £3500. £3250 was finally agreed upon, with a full service and one year guarantee. Probably not worth the paper it was written on but it's always nice to have the illusion of security.

Three days later the bike sat on the forecourt, ready and waiting. My last bike was a VT500, so it was a literal step up in the motorcycling game. I gave the Honda a final look over and, in all honesty, I couldn't find anything wrong with the 7234 mile machine. The CB gave off a feeling of quality - the sheen of its paint, the glow of its alloy, the precision of its switches and just that general fine fit and finish that Honda do so well. My grin was large and wide.

The first few weeks of riding did little to lessen it. Acceleration was much more snappy than the VT without being too dependent on revs. Smoothness was impressive - all those oiled components whirring away with immense precision; it's sometimes amazing to me that the internal combustion engine actually works at all - and handling was competent. The only slight weak spot was the front brake, twin discs, which seemed less than powerful two-up, but as I've been at the game a long time I usually look where I'm going!

The first blow came when I worked out the fuel consumption. 32mpg! The 20 litre petrol tank gave a range of about 125 miles, which didn't really test the comfort of the machine unless I was doing more than the ton for any length of time. When the upright bars resulted in severe shoulder ache. I admit that I liked to play with the machine's acceleration, but given the mere 73 horses at 8500rpm I was expecting at least 50mpg, perhaps 60mpg.

The second blow came after 700 miles when the bike was attacked by fierce vibration and a lack of go-go juice. I went running to the dealer, waving the guarantee under his nose, but he reckoned the bike needed its carbs balanced. In fact, apart from oil and filter changes, that's all the servicing that the CB needs - £35 a time.

Sure enough, the vibration went away and performance returned... but every 1000 to 1250 miles it needed a carb balance, but at least it meant I went to the bother of an oil change at the same time - kept the dealer in loose change anyway. I've never had to do a carb balance in my life, before, so it all came as a bit of a shock.

One day I was riding along, merrily minding my own business, when there was a bang at the back of the bike and the next thing I knew I was attacking the tarmac. I'd been riding in the middle of my lane, obviously slowing down some idiotic cager who decided to knock me off. When I staggered up I found the Honda battered and dented but in one piece, without any serious damage. I was a bit bruised but had rolled with the fall. Which didn't stop a few ped's bursting into hysterical screaming fits, obviously expecting to find severed limbs and mashed heads.

The cage was nowhere in sight. I rode home in a foul mood and spent the next few days going around the breakers for bits. They reckoned the motor was tough enough and that most of the ones they had in had battered front ends. Bits and bobs weren't exactly given away, cost £80 to put the bike back into its gleaming state. Cheap enough not to annoy the insurers.

All set up for a tour of the UK, with a nice pair of Krauser panniers, I found that the 475lb machine when overloaded with two people, full panniers and tank-bag, was down on its suspension, with about an inch of travel left to deal with our ruined roads.

It was quite impressive in that there were no weaves or wallows - the tubular frame was hefty, the steering geometry and weight distribution dead on for stability, and the Michelin tyres had a tenacious grip if short life (about 5000 miles) - but the lack of ground clearance made for deep furrows in the tarmac. I returned home, dumped all the camping gear and decided that the plastic would have to take the strain of staying in hotels.

The bike was back to its former glory, although as mentioned the braking's a bit marginal. Performance hadn't been affected by the extra weight and the pillion reported that the seat was comfortable for the 125 miles between petrol stops. The grabrail was useful but I prefer my women passengers to hold on with a bear hug.

Interestingly, high speed work tended to keep the carbs in balance for longer - good for about 2000 miles. Unfortunately, the gearchange went off after 1500 miles unless the engine was treated with fresh oil. Daily mileage was between 200 and 800 miles, depending on whether we came across somewhere interesting or were just blasting through the scenery.

With a naked bike the major thing's the weather. All I can say is don't go to Scotland unless you enjoy riding in the rain, 90% of our week there was wet. The Honda doesn't have the kind of vicious power that makes wet weather riding difficult but there is a lot of mass high up, which means if it starts to go things can turn vicious. I didn't fall off but had to get my boot down on one wet, leaf strewn road. In the brief bursts of sunshine, the scenery was revealed as breathtaking but I preferred the constant sunshine of the Pennines.

The Honda did nearly 10,000 miles in three weeks. With its carb balancing and oil changes, it whirred away as good as new - which was exactly what I'd expected. Well, not quite. After carting us around at high speed, the suspension was the worse for wear. Both ends feeling loose and the wonderful directional accuracy that I'd experienced first time out on the bike was gone. It wasn't actually dangerous but it didn't inspire spirited riding.

As the summer riding was over, I decided to leave it until we'd emerged from the winter commuting. After a couple of months of rain and salted roads I was shocked and horrified to find that the discs, at both ends, had gone into quick rot mode. Foolishly, I just sprayed some WD40 at the calipers and ignored the more ominous squeaks. Even my garage was turning into a fridge, didn't inspire mucking around with bikes.

The end result was three knackered discs and calipers. Luckily, someone had written off a 2000 mile bike in the breakers. I had newish brakes and shocks, plus rebuilt forks...total cost £190 - not bad as the bike is as good as new again. Not a true sportster but as a general all-rounder the CB750 takes some beating and old ones start at less than two grand.

Phillip Coleman