My first ride on the '76 Honda CB550F was so bad that I was almost reduced to tears. It was so cold that every time I dropped the visor the air froze solid. My fingers had lost all feeling. The only reason that my feet hadn't gone the same way was that the engine was stuck in second. The vibes that blitzed the pegs was an exotic way of keeping my feet warm.
All things being equal, I could've probably survived but the engine was also cutting out. Power came in, went out, came back in a thoroughly unpredictable way. The back wheel hobbled around in response to the jerky power delivery. Patches of ice ridden over would have the chassis in near terminal shakes. I was as frozen as i was petrified.
At one point i was down to 10mph. The engine had cut out on to just one cylinder which whispered its reluctant beat like Tina Turner in a particularly intense moment. I had the throttle fully open when all three other cylinders suddenly came in. The back wheel squirmed and my frozen body threatened to crack in half. I started singing to myself, fearing that exposure would set in and I’d sink deep into sleep as I rode along, and wake up being put back together by indifferent surgeons.
That's what happens when you buy a bargain bike in January. £75 for a working if wrecked looking CB550 was too good a deal to turn down. I should have paid a bit more out and got someone to cart us home. The house was more than a welcome sight as we finally made the outskirts of Brum. The Honda stopped dead as soon as we came to a halt, with a clunk that sounded expensive.
After several days of recovery | was ready to attack the bike in earnest. It was too cold to ride even if I'd wanted to. The living room was the warmest in the house and using irrefutable logic therefore the ideal place to see what was what. The gearbox troubles turned out to be nothing more than worn splines on the gearchange shaft. It'd do one or two changes when the securing nut was tightened up with spanner breaking force, but thereafter refuse to work. I hammered some nails into the spines with the lever on loose then tightened up. It worked!
Encouraged, I waded into the notoriously fickle ignition system. Someone had, sensibly, already fitted electronic ignition. The HT leads and caps were heavy duty, rubberised. The coils were the only other source of malaise but they shone with newness. The only other thing I could think of was the engine cut-out switch. I couldn't be bothered to pull it apart but tore its wiring out of the system - there was always the chance that a bit of insulation had worn out.
A quick blast around the housing estate revealed that everything worked as well as could be expected from a 48000 mile motorcycle that wasn't even on the pace when it was new. I was congratulating myself about being a clever little boy when I fell off. The dreaded black ice had kicked the front tyre away. Fortunately, it was at low speed, both bike and I survived the experience with little more than a shock to our systems. Just my luck, though, that the local school let out a horde of urchins. There were absolutely delighted at viewing a real life accident. Especially when the ice got me the second time as I tried to boot one of them up the arse. I went flying, nearly breaking an elbow!
I decided to wait until the spring before riding the CB again. That gave me plenty of time to go over the chassis, clean up the rust and do a not unreasonable paint job in bright orange. There was plenty to do, including finding newish tyres, chain and pads. The chrome on the wheel rims was disgusting, cured with a wire brush and black Hammerite. The rust hadn’t gone so deep anywhere on the chassis that it wasn’t possible to do a salvage operation. Not bad for an eighteen year old bike.
When temperatures were more moderate and the ice had done a disappearing act, I was ready for the open road and an excess of high jinks. I didn’t get very far. The battery revealed itself as not willing to hold a charge. We stuttered home, lucky to make it to the door before the bike sunk into a deathly silence, made all the more spectacular by the Mad Max roar from the 4-1 exhaust that normally echoed off buildings. Bike batteries are extortionately expensive but there was no way the CB would run without one.
The next ride was more successful. I did nearly 100 miles before disaster struck. The OHC four was not the most powerful middleweight in the world; indeed, could be called gutless by those of an unkind disposition. That was not the impression I had when I shut the throttle dead at 70mph in third. Nothing happened, or rather the bike continued to scream ahead as if the throttle was fully open. It dawned on me, as I saw my life flash before me, that the cable was stuck.
In retrospect, it was quite impressive, the way the Honda shot over on to the wrong side of the road and then banked over so far I almost took my kneecap off. The suspension was old, stock stuff that turned to quivering mush then locked up solid. I feit like I was on a rocking horse that was about to fall apart, but she held her line and got us out of the corner at about twice the speed I'd normally entertain. It was only then that thought to switch off the ignition! After a slow journey home the throttle cable was filled with grease and given an easier route. I then had to spend two hours putting the carbs back into balance.
The handling was generally reasonable but seemed heavy for a 420Ib bike. Town riding was hard work, partially down to the extremely narrow bars fitted by a previous owner (of which there had been eight) but they did allow comfortable 80mph cruising. A remarkable lightening of the handling occurred when I loosened off the steering head bearings a touch.
In town that was fine, but on the open road at speeds above 70mph the bars began to twitch in my hands. The steering head bearings were pitted and looked egg-shaped. A new set of taper rollers had a beneficial effect on handling - light at town speeds, as steady as an FZR up to 80mph, when the weaves would come in due to the shagged suspension. By 85mph the front wheel didn’t seem to know what it was doing and I thought my early demise was written in the way the chassis needed a couple of lanes to weave across.
I kept to 80mph and below. It was quite fast enough to keep up with most traffic and with a naked bike there was an exciting feeling of fighting the elements. This was helped along by the way the motor vibrated. The mirrors were useless, the tank threatened to fall apart whilst the bars and pegs made a Triumph twin seem a paragon of smoothness. Along with a rock hard seat, the CB didn’t really have enough beef to make it as a grand tourer.
There was always some minor irritant that intruded upon my feeling of well being. The engine would suddenly cut out and refuse to start. Felt like fuel starvation, sure enough no fuel coming out. Looked in the tank to see bits of rust floating in the petrol. The filter at the bottom of the tank was blocked up. I shook the bike a bit to free the debris, rode home with two more stops to repeat the exercise.
When I went to undo the fuel tap it wouldn't shift. After taking a lump of skin out of my hand I became really nasty and whacked the screws to loosen them off. The next thing I knew I was holding a large chunk of petrol tank still attached to the tap! The rust had eaten so deeply into the tank that there was no chance of welding it even if I found someone willing to wave a welding torch in its direction. That's how the bike ended up disguised as a CB400F, as I picked up a good tank and seat for £25. At this age old Japs are at the end of their natural life and liable to fall apart under you!
One day I was riding along, quite content with my lot in life, when I glanced down at the motor to see oil spurting like blood out of an artery where there should've been a valve cap. It had fallen off despite the fact that I'd tightened it up after adjusting the valves the day before (a 750 mile chore but there were only eight of them and they were simple screw and locknut jobs). By the time I reached home there was hardly any oil left in the engine but it didn’t seem to do any permanent damage.
It seemed like a good time to sell the machine to a mate who'd fallen for its simplicity. That's what the pervert said, anyway. Blow me if, in the past six months, the damn machine hasn’t run like clockwork. The heaviest expense was fuel at 40mpg. I only used cheap, worn consumables and made a nice profit on the deal. It’s not a very good motorcycle but as a cheap hack I couldn't really fault it.
Kevin Cody