Back in 1979-1980 I ditched my Honda CB750F1 because it handled like a wheelbarrow full of wet walruses. Now, of course, if I had but known, I would have checked some basics like steering head bearings and found out that that was all that was wrong with it…stoopid head. So, I went looking for another bike. It had to be a Honda but I was convinced that the 750 was just too big for me, and having had the 400/4 before that, I figured that the 500/4 would be ideal. I didn’t have the internet to do my research, nor was there bikesales.com so it was down to the trusty classifieds to see if I could score.
Sure enough, not long after I started looking, a likely prospect turned up. A 1973 500/4 low mileage, registered, is supposedly good condition. I rang the owner and found out that he was a long-term resident of the caravan park at Fyshwick in the ACT, about 10 miles from where I lived. At the arranged time, I arrived at a very unprepossessing looking caravan with an even less-impressive-looking annexe and the owner opened up to show me inside. There it was. In good condition? The thing was close to new. The only thing non-standard on it was a Walker muffler (standard Honda silencers came equipped with incipient rust in those days and rotted from the inside out in the first 20000kms usually) It was bronze and looked beautiful. I handed over the asking price of $700 (yes, you read right) and rode it home, my wife bringing up the rear in the car.
That’s my young son, Graeme (aged 3) and my daughter Natalie (aged 5) sitting on the bike, by the way.
So began my love affair with the 500/4. I started my touring career on it, fitting a small top box to the standard luggage rack and purchasing a set of throw-over panniers to add to the luggage-carrying capacity. I commuted to school each day and did day trips to the races with the CRRC push as well. I did countless laps around Macarthur Park after school and on weekends and generally fell in love with the velvety smoothness of the 500cc engine.
BUT, and it’s a big but, I learned very early that the single pivoted caliper disk brake on the front was marginal in the dry and non-existent in its effectiveness in the wet. So I started searching for a solution.
I didn’t have far to look. My good mate, Alan Harding, another CRRC stalwart, was a “tinkerer” of some note having recently restored a barn-find Vincent and also having built his own 500cc grand prix bike out of a GT380 Suzuki. And, he informed me, he had just wrecked a GT750 Suzuki so that he could get the engine and build his own TR750 replica racer (unfortunately, this project never reached fruition). And, since he didn’t need the front end, would I like to buy it and fit it to the Honda? A quick trip around to Alan’s place at O’Connor, some measurements with a micrometer and a few other instruments to make sure that it was, at least, theoretically, possible and I exchanged $80 for a complete water buffalo front end including the wheel.
Alan kept the disks as he was sure that they would work better in the wet and would improve the unsprung weight situation if they were drilled and I began fettling to bring the project to a conclusion. Fork diameter was identical so they slipped straight into the existing triple clamps. The Suzuki hub was slightly narrower, however, and that necessitated the manufacture of a couple of shims to pack out the space. Easy. Alan also undertook to lace the Honda rim to the Suzuki hub and also manufactured a new mudguard support that did double duty as a fork brace, hardly needed in such a light bike, but, it was “the” thing at the time so we had one.
Soon my disks returned from Switzerland (at least that’s where it looked like they had been) Alan worked in the Nuclear Lab at the ANU in Canberra, a strangely coincidental circumstance since Howard Wallace, who constructed all the custom made alloy parts for the Shadowfax also worked in the same location (that coincidence didn’t become apparent to me until 2011). Alan had drilled the disks according to the pattern of the “works” TR500 Suzukis and had removed 2 and a half pounds (about 1kg) of metal from each disk. As you can see from the photo, he did an astonishing job.
Unlike the fitment on the Suzuki, however, I chose, for reasons of inertia and what was the “hot set-up” at the time, to switch the forks legs over so that the disk brake calipers were carried behind the fork leg instead of in front.
Many of my friends doubted the wisdom of this amount of drilling on the basis of strength alone but I trusted Alan’s judgement and the fact that, if they worked in racing, they would certainly work in the road environment. And work they did. In the dry they were amazing and, if it rained, it didn’t make any difference at all. The added stiffness of the Suzuki forks and the fork brace also transformed the handling of the bike and, with the addition of some Mulholland shocks to replace the wimpy Honda ones, I had a bike that handled and stopped far better than any 500/4 had the right to do. A little later I was also lucky enough to buy, at a ridiculous price, a replica Dunstall tank, made of aluminium and unpainted. It fitted straight on and found myself well on the way to having a very nice cafe racer indeed. Sadly, I never took a photo of the tank or of the bike with it fitted.
Then, as luck would have it, We sold our house in Canberra, having moved to Sydney at the start of 1982. With some of the proceeds we bought a new car and I purchased the bike that I had been lusting after since the news of its release was announced, the CBX550F2. It was the factory equivalent of what I had sought to create in the 500/4 and more besides. I sold the 500/4 to a mate who, stop me if you’ve heard this one before, kept for about three weeks before totalling it in an accident from which he was fortunate to walk away with hardly a scratch.
Those who know the SOHC Hondas will all tell you that the 500/4 was the pick of them and my love affair with the motor has never really gone away. It was reinforced again on the weekend when I saw this lovely example in the pits at the Barry Sheene Festival of Speed.
This particular bike belongs to the wife of a very well-known motorcycling identity and is not for sale at any price. Totally original and unmolested it is a little time capsule that gets regularly ridden and enjoyed.
But it got me thinking again. What about restoring one and doing what I did before? Maybe even a little more radical this time. A set of USD’s on the front, a pair of Gazis on the back, some frame bracing, remove some of the extraneous stuff that isn’t needed, a cafe seat and maybe some mild rear-sets? A 610cc kit just to give it a bit of extra “oomph”? Mmmm, anybody know where I can lay my hands on a 500/4 going cheap?
sanoptic says
Hi Phil,
Back in the day my [future] Brother inlaw had a copper CB500/4 & his friend had one two.I was riding a CB750K2 so we all had Honda at that stage.
Your right about the disc brakes poor wet weather performance of the bikes of that era.
Reminds me of when i picked up a new Kawasaki Z1B ,i couldn’t wait for the week end so i picked it up during lunch break during my Tech day.
Nice and sunny on my way back to Blacktown tafe [as it’s called now] but during the afternoon rain set in & it was a tricky wet ride home .The Z1’s front brake was useless in the wet even keeping finger pressure on it while riding made no difference lucky the rear drum brake worked fine….
BTW i no longer have my Triumph i traded it in for a new Yamaha XJR 1300,what a lovely old style retro bike it is too,air cooled motor & twin old style rear shocks & high handlebars with no fairing.
Geez i think i’m living in the past again…haha!!
Seeya mate.
Joe
Phil Hall says
Yah, Joe, all the Jap bikes back then had useless disks. The Japanese thought that the Pommy bikes with their cast iron disks looked naff when they got wet and patches of rust started to form on them, so they made their disks from Stainless steel (coating). They never rusted or looked horrible, but neither did they WORK! Good to hear about the XJR, they are a nice bike.