What kind of madness causes a
person to buy a rat VT250 with over 41000 miles on the clock?
My only excuse was that it was very cheap (£275). The 1986
machine was then a mere five years old and in one hell of a cosmetic
mess. Judging by the way the original engine screws had corroded
into the cases, I could well believe the owner when he insisted
that the motor had never been touched!
Despite its appearance, my brief
test ride on the pillion revealed plenty of go and not too many
vibes through the pegs. He would not let me have a test ride but
agreed to ride the bike to my house - I waited until we got there
to hand the money over, there was always the chance that the engine
might explode en route. I decided that a thorough clean up was
necessary before risking life and limb on the open road.
The oil drain plug was Araldited
in and only came out after some vicious and violent attention
from the hammer and chisel. What little oil was in the engine
was so sludge-like that it took half an hour to drain out. The
only way that the plug could be fixed back in was with - you guessed
it - Araldite.
After removing half a decade's
worth of crud, I managed to get at the top end of the watercooled
vee-twin. Despite only having two pistons, all the plumbing makes
the engine appear fearsomely complex. Probably why the valve clearances
were way out, no-one had had the guts to check them before. Pitted
cams made setting the clearances difficult. Ignition and camchains
were maintenance free, so that just left the twin carbs to balance,
no easy matter as they appeared worn out.
The chassis turned out to need
even more attention. The Pro-Link bushes were oval, the fork seals
shot and all the consumables in need of immediate replacement.
The local breaker was kind enough to sell me most of the bits
for next to nothing, although he refused to put the tyres on -
what a f..king job! Honda wanted a minor fortune for a set of
Pro-Link bushes so the old man was persuaded to give over his
engineering works to their production - the recession was such
that he didn't have much else to do.
This all took nearly a month to
do, along with cleaning up the cycle parts and applying the odd
bit of paint. I could have just swung a leg over the bike and
ridden it into the ground for a few months, but I have been around
long enough not to actively enjoy being thrown off motorcycles
due to engine or chassis failure. I had time on my hands and the
total cost of regeneration was nicely minimal.
First ride was a bit disappointing.
Power was minimal and the chassis was very twitchy. The brakes
were wooden and the gearbox full of false neutrals. The second
ride was better. More air in the tyres helped and 7000 revs finally
found some energetic acceleration. Back home, oil was seeping
out of the cylinder gaskets and the exhaust was backfiring, one
of the silencers had suddenly developed large holes. Tin sheet
and Jubilee clips time.
Serious riding followed, a long
weekend of back road hustling. I'm a bit old to need to keep the
throttle to the stop and play with the gear lever all the time,
but once I'd got the hang of the handling - the bars needed a
bit of excessive muscle when entering corners - I could make good
time down my favourite roads. Top speed wasn't much more than
90mph; on a bumpy road with slightly soggy suspension, the bike
felt like it was about to throw me off, so I probably would not
have gone any faster.
The first fuel stop indicated
that it was doing little more than 40mpg - such poor fuel economy
revealing the true state of the motor. Despite that, I was in
a pretty good mood. It didn't last long, the muted growl of the
vee-twin on cam suddenly turned into a dirge that threatened to
shatter windows. A silencer had fallen off and disintegrated as
soon as it hit the road. The engine refused to run below 8000rpm
and by the time I hit a city with a motorcycle shop the clutch
plates were turning molten. A pair of cheap megaphones solved
the problem, albeit causing a flat spot between 3500 and 5250rpm.
No great loss as there was sod all power there.
As I became used to the bike I
started taking liberties with its handling. The main worry was
the way the undercarriage would suddenly dig into the tarmac threatening
to flip the bike right off the road. Handling was made even stranger
by the odd bit of oil hitting the rear tyre. Like riding on ice,
only the low mass of around 350lbs allowed me to wrench the bike
away from disaster.
I was quite pleased to get back
home after 700 miles of weekend hustling.....the seat quickly
flattened out, mixing road bumps with a slight buzz from the vee
twin engine; a combination that left me all shook up.
The next few thousand miles went
by without too many incidents. I was not too amused to find that
the newish rear Metz was worn out after a mere 4000 miles nor
the way the calipers liked to seize up, but on a cheapo hack hassles
are usually the order of the day.
With 46000 miles done, some fierce
knocking noises came up from the top end. I had been doing 1000
mile oil changes and valve adjustments - the cams were looking
pretty knackered so I guessed they were on the way out. Rode another
500 miles until camchain rattle added to the frenzy and the speedo
resolutely refused to budge beyond 70mph. Nothing for it but to
tear the motor apart.
Just about everything inside the
engine cases was way beyond reclamation.....only the crankshaft
bearings were in good nick. Two hundred quid to a breaker bought
a 52000 mile motor but I'd heard it running and there were minimal
rattles. This went into the frame after a great struggle but refused
to start. Half the street were coerced into giving the bugger
a push and after about a quarter of a mile it thundered into life.
Immediately spoilt its copy-book
by tearing up the street on full throttle - I'd snagged the cable
leaving the damn engine at 12000 revs until I'd hit the ignition
switch. This engine ran fine, would put 95mph on the clock, but
burned the engine oil at a terrifying rate. Not realising this
at first, I almost ran the crankcases dry after a 300 mile run
involving a race with a Z750 twin (yes, quite!).
The engine didn't seem to mind
until nearly 3000 miles later when the box kept slipping out of
gear. I'd be screaming along at 10,000 revs in third or fourth,
suddenly finding the engine plunged into a false neutral with
the tacho needle bouncing on its stop. The box would then take
a dozen or so frantic stamps before it engaged. On several occasions
I was stranded during an overtaking manoeuvre, surviving only
by sheer luck!
About a week of this madness was
all I could take. Ripped the engine out and used the bits from
the other motor to replace worn selectors and cogs with teeth
missing. The replacements made the box very tight indeed, especially
changing up from fourth, but it was a lot better than having to
suffer sudden plunges into false neutrals. The rear chain, for
some reason, hardly ever needed any adjustment.
Another 1000 miles went by until
the smog out of the exhaust became too heavy to ignore. Most of
it was down to the rear cylinder, so I tore that off to find that
the oil ring was naff. Took half a day to tear it out of the piston.
There were interesting score marks in the piston and bore but
I ignored them and whacked in a new ring. I used the old gaskets
in the reassembly.
The motor was reluctant to fire
up but eventually gave into my persistence. Massive oil leaks
compensated for the lack of oil being burnt out of the engine
- it was dead easy to empty the sump after 150 miles of hard riding.
Not that the heap was willing to rev much past 8500rpm.
When the bearings in the Pro-Link
started rattling again I decided that it was time to get rid of
the VT whilst there was something still saleable. But not before
the bike had been flung into a desperate 400 mile round trip.
I had little time, so the bike was thrashed all the way, rarely
with less than 70mph on the clock.... fuel hovered around 35mpg
and the buzz sent both my feet dead by the time I got back home.
I was quite impressed by the fact
that it didn't break down. A newish VT would probably be a neat
bike, but once they get over 30,000 miles there are so many things
that can go wrong with their complex engines that they are not
viable as anything other than cheapo hacks.
After that trip, the coolant kept
boiling after as little as 20 miles of riding and the spark plugs
kept fouling up as the oil rings seemed to have gone again. The
gearbox also started slipping out of gear again. I phoned around
a couple of dealers, found one who was interested in buying the
VT. Gave the bike a good polish, rode gently to the shop and left
the engine running (it often needed two minutes on the starter
even when hot).
The dealer went for a ride, came
back complaining about the way the bike pulled to the left (I'd
never noticed it) and that the engine felt like it was about to
seize up. I thought he was going to offer me fifty quid, so when
he suggested £250 I grabbed it with both hands before he
had a chance to change his mind. Came by the shop a week later
to find that the VT had been clocked back to 8000 miles and was
sporting an £850 price tag. A few days later the bike was
no longer in the showroom......I made a mental note not to buy
any bikes from that dealer in the future.
Gary Browning
****************************************************
Whilst all the attention has recently
been on Honda and Suzuki's new 1000cc vee-fours, the former has
long had a sporting vee-twin in their range. Okay, it's only 250cc
and the UK's VT250 was never quite inspiring, but one look at
a grey import 1989 Honda VT250 Spada convinced me that it was
the business. It had all the edge of their bigger bikes without
any of their silliness.
The engine's a similar 90 degree
vee twin to the earlier VT250. The biggest difference is that
the Spada makes lots more power. 40 horses at 12000 revs! That's
obviously good. The bike also weighs a mere 320lbs, feels very
compact and easy to throw around. It needs a good work out on
the throttle to really shift, but there is a modicum of torque
below eight grand, revs at which there's the first surge of real
power.
Incidentally, my particular bike
ran very lean, was nervous as a cat amongst a pack of dogs for
the first ten minutes. The watercooled motor needed time to warm
up, and given Honda's sometimes dicey cylinder head designs I
had no intention of cowing it into submission by taking the throttle
to fifteen grand.
One of the advantages of a lack
of cubes was smoothness, even with the throttle to the stop there
wasn't any hint of vibration or torque reaction. Quite right,
too, at this kind of capacity with a ninety degree vee twin it
should be ultra smooth. I came across another Spada owner who
was most disenchanted with his machine. We swapped over, he not
believing the smoothness and speed of my bike.
His felt like an old dog. Even
the handling was naff. Crashed and clocked was my prognosis. Sure
enough, he'd bought the bike from a notorious south London dealer,
who had a bit of a reputation for hitting customers who complained!
He was almost in tears as until then he'd been blaming Honda for
a bad design rather than the dealer for malpractice! It's worth
getting to know the good grey importers and having an idea how
a machine should perform.
The handling of the Spada was
close to brilliant. It was both easy to chuck around and nicely
stable. The only weak point was that the suspension was marginal.
Okay for my nine stones (yes, I know, wimp, but I'm only nineteen)
but as soon as the lightest of girls was placed lovingly on the
rather minimal pillion perch (brought a bit of colour to their
cheeks every time!), the suspension turned to mush. This was Japanese
spec stuff, set up for a cushy ride through town. Even with the
suspension creaking away on its stops the bike was far from suicidal
and could be pushed to the edge of the rather brittle Japlops.
Have you priced mono-shocks of
late? Whilst it's possible to buy two old style shocks for around
fifty quid, the cheapest mono-shock retails for more than 200
notes. Absurd. Even breakers quoted me a hundred quid for something
that might or might not work better than the one I currently had
installed. I made do with some heavy-duty springs for the front
forks, which added an element of unknown precision to that end.
The bike had 19000km on the clock
when I bought it for £1600. General condition was excellent,
just the odd patch of alloy corrosion, though the tyres were down
to 3mm and the chain had seen better days. The latter did whip
around a bit at low revs and contributed to the typical Honda
gearchange - they should definitely do some head-hunting over
at Suzuki, if they want to get a precise, smooth change. On occasion
I managed to bang the box into a false neutral, the rev counter
going off the scale (the rev limiter had been disabled), the poor
old mill wailing away like it was dive bombing into an early grave.
A new chain and sprocket set went
down very well, a dramatic improvement in the slickness of the
gearchange. In London I was able to do battle with any number
of bigger bikes, the narrowness of the Honda allowing me to scream
through the dense traffic at unholy velocities. The front disc
brake could be relentlessly hammered when some dumb animal in
a cage forgot himself. The brakes being immensely powerful and
the bike almost as light as a 125. So much so that it was dead
easy to do a stoppie, and I almost had a complete endo wipe-out
several times. The way the rubber squeals causes ped's to go into
heart attack mode and gets the cops running around in circles
in sheer anger.
On the motorway, I could put 115mph
on the clock, as long as I got my head down. The nakedness of
the bike meant an upright posture resulted in a refusal to go
above the ton, although it would hold that speed for cruising.
The bike wasn't a sitting target for bored cagers, could keep
up with the general flow of motorway traffic. It would even speed
ahead if I got down to it, though I was often blasted off the
road by some rich bastard in a Merc or Jag. Tossers!
The weak rear shock let the bike
go into a gentle wallow in 90mph curves but the little nutcase
was basically stable even if it sported a short, 54 inch wheelbase.
Good weight distribution, I'd guess. Over on the edge of the tyres
it felt a bit frail, but as the rubber was almost bald this was
to be expected. A nice new set of Metz's finest would doubtless
transform the beast but I have to make my tyres last.
Fuel was cheap at 60mpg, as was
road tax. Insurance was a ridiculous £400, some companies
wouldn't even give me a quote, despite two years accident-free
riding. Many near scrapes but still a major achievement the way
I ride. I know a lot of kids who ride without insurance because
they just can't afford it. They end up having death races with
the plod. Sometimes they win, sometimes they end up in hospital
or worse!
Having just emerged from one of
our wonderful winters, the Spada's finish isn't exactly intact.
Lots of surface corrosion, a rather loud exhaust and a pair of
wheels that show every inclination towards dissolving. So much
for Honda's famed build quality but I don't suppose they design
bikes to last for much more than half a decade.
Overall, the Spada's a brilliant
bit of kit, ideally suited to UK traffic conditions. For sure
I'd like the massive grunt of a litre vee-twin but it'd be a quick
way of getting myself killed or arrested and I could never afford
the insurance. The little Honda's a touch more sensible without
ever being close to boring.
Alan Sears