This story begins in a public house in Worthing when a character asked me if I wished to buy a CB500T on the cheap. I replied, OK, let’s see it. Outside the pub sat this dirty orange thing with a very classic shaped K&Q saddle. He fired it up - by god, it was loud. But the engine sounded great. It had only 49000 miles on the clock; for a twelve year old Jap twin I thought that was fairly low.
I exchanged cash for documents and away I roared. The first thing I noticed was that the speedo didn’t work (bang goes the 49000 miles) so a quick trip to a breaker sorted out a new cable. The clutch was excessively heavy, even for an old bike - off came the cable for a quick grease up. Next the tyres, a new set of Roadrunners were bunged on.
This appeared to cure all the immediate problems. A Sunday afternoon cleaning soon turned a dirty looking heap into a gleaming beauty. All was fine until three days later when my nice new rear tyre acquired a puncture thanks to some excess junk in next door’s skip. That was put right but left me over an hour late for work, so I opened her up, resulting in the baffles leaving home and the bike doing a good impression of a tank (sorry Mr Plod).
The exhaust, incidentally, was a two into one exiting in a very narrow silencer which, I’ve since been informed, was originally intended for a 250 single. The days and miles passed for quite some time in a pleasant enough way until I began to smell petrol. The paint began to peel off the back of the tank and my laundry basket was full of smelly jeans and trousers. Even the Belstaffs were sulking at me.
Time for the tank to be removed, cleaned and checked. After searching for a little while, I found that the seam at the back of the tank had started to weep. I tried all kinds of filler but none of them re the leak, but two coats of Hammerite seemed to stem the smelly flow.
Back on the bike and the head gasket blew on the way to work - a nasty slapping noise started and putting my hand beneath the tank revealed the problem. I jumped off and opened up the tool bag. I didn’t have the right spanner to fit into the cutout around a couple of the bolts. So I let the engine limp along to a nearby garage and borrowed a socket set. The head nuts were tightened down, probably way beyond the recommended torque but it appeared to work.
The same day I bought a new top end gasket set. The bike just about managed to make it back to my flat, but I had nowhere to strip the engine down. The next step was to remove the engine in the street, dump it into the back of a friend's car to take it to his house. All of this went fine, even including being chased around with a five foot bullwhip in the middle of Worthing whilst doing it (courtesy of my crazy wife and my friend’s mad girlfriend).
So far, so good (what’s a bad day like? - Ed). We stripped the engine in the front porch to avoid splashing the carpets with oil. Great, except the (dreaded Honda) camchain was a never ending one. A quick whip (not the bullwhip this time) around Worthing and Littlehampton only turned up a bicycle chain link extractor. With a couple of mods this worked fine, only whilst we'd been out finding the extractor, the wife had gone and bought a bottle of brandy. After a few shots of this work stopped and a mammoth beer fight ensued (bang go the clean carpets).
The engine had acquired one or two nasty spots during its 49000 mile life - like pitted cams and worn out valve guides. On the other hand, there was no wear to the big ends or piston and bore. The camchain was a pig pen, though, as it runs through a labyrinth of tunnels, guides and adjusters. I think Honda must have put all their new ideas at the time into one engine to see which one turned up the most warranty claims first.
Anyway, we did eventually get the bike back together even though it took us two weekends to achieve (can you blame us with the distractions we had). The bike behaved really well when I started it up, it came to life after the third kick (never did get the electric start to work). This wasn’t to last for long as I broke down on the way home - someone had left the points screws undone. A little bit of cursing and tinkering at the roadside got us on the road again.
Even though I retorqued the head twice (once at 500 miles, once at 1000 miles) the bastard blew again after only 5000 miles. This time I decided that enough was enough, quickly banged in a new head gasket and sold the bike for £150. The guy who bought it promptly sprayed it matt black and pranged it. However, despite all the problems I did enjoy my use of the 500T. I would recommend it if you enjoy a sore bum after 70 miles or pin and needles in your hands and feet from the vibration (my wife liked those). I would buy another one, but only as a second bike, not one I'd have to rely on.
The bike was fun to ride, with a nice torquey motor and reasonable acceleration - but don’t expect the speedo to show more than 95-105mph. The fuel consumption was a reasonable 45 to 50mpg. The road holding was not dangerous, and there was plenty of ground clearance as the centre-stand had been junked to allow fitment of the 2-1.
The suspension lacked enough damping to cope with two-up riding and bounced all over the place. The brakes, however, were horrific. You can’t stop quickly from any sensible speed with the single front disc - at high speeds you just yank them on, close your eyes and pray. My bike never ticked over happily below 3000rpm but it hadn’t been re-jetted properly for the 2-1. But friends who have owned similar bikes assure me the things will tick over, unserviced for months, at about 600 to 750rpm.
The old beasty thumped along happily and never actually left me stranded. It always seemed to want to get home, even when the head gaskets blew. It was always getting pissed over by the Nippon Denso (350 YPVS et al) crowd and there were one or two embarrassing moments with 125s and 250s.
The bike is very easy on the maintenance front, the valves easy to adjust as the locknut and screw (of the eccentrically mounted rocker spindle) are on the side of the engine. The twin cams do pit and the very long camchain is a pain to put back right. If properly maintained the engines can last for high mileages but it’s important to keep a check on those cams. Cheap enough to use as a hack, get one before the classic mob get funny ideas about them.
G Lowe