“Only a complete idiot would buy one of those” my father commented in his usual sympathetic tone, when he came out of the house to greet my slumped form. I had just knackered myself pushing 420lbs of dead Honda VF500F three miles from the local backstreet dealer’s. Like myself, dad was a keen motorcyclist and knew all about the troublesome nature of Honda’s V-four range.
The dealer had told me to take the machine as it stood, sold as seen, for a mere £300. He had sold the machine three times. Within a month the owners came back with a dead engine which had to be repaired under guarantee. The dealer offered a partial refund because he knew the only way he could economically repair the treacherous Honda was by waiting for a crashed one to turn up in the breakers. Even so, he reckoned he was at least five hundred notes out of pocket.
I bought the machine because there was little else on offer and thought that with father’s help I would be able to sort the motor out. The engine still turned over, the sparks and fuel were getting through, but the bugger would not make even the slightest imitation of an engine about to grumble into life. The compression tester revealed that there was hardly any compression in any of the cylinders.
The water-cooled lump proved to be awkward to remove and left us both swearing our heads off at its weight once we had gone through the motions of removing various plumbing, wiring and cycle parts. Complicated is the understatement of the year. Those bolts and studs not corroded in position rotated in their threads, helping to explain the oil encrusted state of the engine alloy.
Eventual dismantling of major bits of engine revealed a horrifying state. Even dad, who had spent his youth fettling fifties British iron, was at a loss for words. Just about every component was wrecked. Cams missing large lumps of lobes with bearings whose looseness was only matched by that of the crankshaft, which was twisted and mangled out of all recognition. It became apparent that the dealer, curse his mother, had used all the wrecked components from the three previous blow-ups to create an engine only fit for scrap or paper weights!
The chassis was in a reasonable state for a 1985 machine. Probably because the engine had never hung together long enough to cause much wear and tear! It was just a question of rebuilding the seized rear brake caliper, touching up the odd bit of rust on the frame and fitting a front mudguard. The tyres were nearly new Metz's, the chain was halfway through its life and the brake pads had plenty of meat left. The only solution was to start looking for a crashed bike with a decent engine.
Seven months later we were in business, with a 1986 motor that cost a reasonable £275. The mileage on the clock of the donor bike was 27846, which hopefully meant some decent life was still left in the replacement engine. It took about a month to fit the motor and get the machine running, mainly because of a wire that was crushed when the motor was inserted, causing the ignition to malfunction.
By the time I was ready to ride the bike into the glorious distance, a quite severe winter had descended. I was not too impressed to find that after half an hour in the wet and cold, my meticulously polished alloy had turned to white dust, nor that after less than 50 miles the motor started to misfire and then the bike burst into flames. It was one way of warming up on a cold day, I had time to grumble to myself, as I frantically leapt up and down trying to smother the flames with my gloved hands.
The ignition unit had decided it did not like the idea of working for a living and tried the scorched earth effect for size. Luckily, failure of these items is rare and a secondhand one was quickly and cheaply obtained. Winter riding also caused all the discs to gum up, needing much attention after less than 700 miles. Apart from that, I was impressed with the willingness of the engine to slog along at sub 5000rpm speeds, comforted by the secure feel of the chassis on the treacherous road surfaces and relieved to find that it did over 60mpg whilst not doing much damage to the consumables. I had spent every spare penny putting the bike on the road, there was nothing left in the kitty for tyres, pads, etc in the first few months.
It wasn't until April that I started to use the upper reaches of the rev band. I was dubious about the engine's reliability and at least wanted to test it out for a few thousand miles of moderate riding that matched the road conditions. In those first few months I found that not one of the 16 valves needed attention and that the four carbs stayed in tune. Impressed, I gradually worked my way up to the redline, telling myself that the short bursts of potent acceleration caused by using more than 7000 revs would do no damage to the engine.
You know how it goes. By the time the summer arrived I was intoxicated with its speed and handling finesse. I was using all of its 70hp and revelling in its 135mph top speed. On one memorable motorway escapade I kept her just off the red in top gear for two hours, often having to take cars that hogged the fast lane on the inside. One driver stuck his hand out of the window and pointed skywards. I was unsure if he was indicating police helicopters or that I would shortly be on my way to heaven!
In 9000 miles of such abuse I was impressed by the way the engine needed no maintenance, although I always checked it over at each oil change (every 1500 miles). Tyres lasted a reasonable 8000 miles a set before the back end started twitching and the front sliding away. Despite the 16 inch wheels, there was none of the general twitchiness that caused so much horror in other machines, just so long as the tyres were replaced when they were down to 2mm. The pads went for about 7000 miles at the front, which given the fantastic braking available was OK. Even the chain made it it past 8000 miles.
After the second winter in my hands the chassis was turning dog rough. Flaking paint, falling chrome and corroded alloy did not impress either innocent bystanders nor the police. I was being pulled over at least once a week, although apart from a bit of slop in rear swinging arm bearings (not so bad as to affect the fine handling) there was nothing fundamentally amiss with the VF.
Comfort was lessened when the seat started soaking up water and the silencers started to fall apart, turning the delightful V-four growl into an eardrum shattering roar. This found even less favour with the cops. I patched the silencer up with my welding gear as best I could. When I managed to buy a new exhaust system for £95 off a dealer selling old stock, I took it as a sign that the machine was due for a complete chassis refurbishment. A month in the garage saw the machine emerge in fine fettle, at least if you don’t throw up at the sight of deep purple and lime green. I always did have a funny kind of sense of humour.
I needed it when the engine seized up solid 450 miles later. The motor obviously didn’t share my joy in lurid colour schemes. I had noticed that there a bit of lurching in fourth gear, but the wide spread of engine power meant it was dead easy to avoid this by changing from third to fifth. I should have paid more attention. The Honda was trying to tell me that the gearbox was breaking up. I wondered why pulling in the clutch had no effect on the fishtailing rear wheel.
The 80mph lurch was rapidly turned into a 50mph tumble when the bike threw me off. The motorway was relatively deserted so I was neither run over nor the cause of a mass pile up. I ended whacking into a concrete bridge after rolling over for what seemed like ages. My past life did not fly before me but the whack when it came knocked what little sense out of me that I still possessed. I was merely bruised, cut and slightly bloodied, my helmet splitting in two.
The VF was about a quarter of a mile down the road. I staggered after it, carefully collecting the bits of alloy, steel and plastic that had been torn off. A few car drivers had pulled over on to the hard shoulder. One of them rushed up to me, screaming, "You're lucky to be alive, you bloody moron." When I saw what little was left of the VF I tended to agree with him. It took about a week to hacksaw through the mangled frame to get at the engine, which had had both sidecases torn off. | was curious to find out the cause of the problem. There really wasn't one component in the whole machine that had not been wrecked by either the seizure or the accident! Faced with such disturbing carnage, I did the only fitting thing... bought an old VF1000!
David Murphy