A Tale of Two Twins

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Both Honda 450 twins, both 1982, but you'd never know they were brothers - let alone twins!  One is a Honda CM450A (Hondamatic).  The other is a CB450T (Hawk).  What both bikes share is the 450cc parallel twin.  This is a good thing.  These motors are rugged and simple to maintain.  They also have enough power to keep things interesting.  The valves are very easy to keep adjusted and oil changes are simple.  One of the neat features of these motors is the integrated oil cooler.

I never experienced these bikes when they were new, and they're far from that now!  Both of these bikes were fairly complete, but had just been sitting in storage for a number of years.  They needed the usual basics to get them back up and running - carburetor and fuel system cleaning, tires, and brake system renewal.  Beyond that, pretty much every bike is different as far as additional areas that may need maintenance and the level of cosmetic restoration or modification that you have planned.

Both of these bikes needed new steering bearings.  The hondamatic steering bearings were particularly bad.  When I was rolling that bike around by hand it felt like it had a flat tire when turning the handlebars.  I looked down and the tire didn't look flat, and it ultimately turned out to be the steering bearings.  The steering wasn't "notchy" as is usually the case (and was the case with the CB450T), but it was just difficult to turn throughout the entire range.  When it was finally taken apart, the ball bearings were just totally rusty and looked as though they could be crushed into powder.  A set of tapered bearing and races from "All Balls" fixed the problem.  In addition, this bike needed some fork seals and they were replaced at the same time.

To take a couple of steps back to the initial purchase of this bike (Hondamatic), I initially responded to a Craig's List ad that showed pictures of a bike that looked like new and said that the owner had stored this bike in his living room - "literally!" It said the carbs had been cleaned and the bike ran and would only need a little TLC to get it back on the road - particularly a "weak" front brake needing attention and some tires.  The price was right, so I called and asked some questions about it, and decided I wanted to go check it out.  

It was about two and a half hours away, and I had a picture in my mind of what I expected to see when I got there.  The owner seemed very nice on the phone, and turned out to be very nice in person, too.  He gave me his address and we set up a time.  When I got close I called to let him know, and he said he was running an errand and would be a few minutes late in meeting me, but the bike was in the carport and I was welcome to check it out until he arrived.  Very trusting soul!

I was pretty disappointed.  The bike was pretty nice, but the best days of the chrome fenders on the bike were long gone.  There was a lot of surface corrosion, and also some small dings that weren't visible in the pictures. The gas tank was pretty good, but also had some fairly good sized paint chips, and some surface rust had started in those areas.  In person, the carbs also looked very corroded or oxidized.  It may have literally been in someone's living room for some portion of its existence, but it obviously had spent some time outdoors (in a carport?) as well.

I was on the verge of calling the owner and saying it just wasn't the bike for me, but started noting some of the positives and factoring those in with the asking price that had seemed almost like a bargain, but now seemed more in line with this bike or maybe even a little optimistic for the condition it was in.  The forks were perfect - no corrosion at all.  The chrome handlebars were in nice shape, and the seat was very nice, too.   The chrome pipes looked pretty good, although it looked like the gasket material between the header pipe and the megaphone/muffler was coming out on the right side - unless it was some kind of a patch.... It was hard to tell for sure.  Other positives included the fact that all of the lights were there and were in nice shape as well as both chrome mirrors.  It also still had its center stand.  He said it had good tires on it, and they did look good as far as the tread, but the front one was definitely quite old with a lot of cracking in the sidewall.

When the owner arrived, he started it up for me.  It fired right up and idled nice.  It sounded like the valves might need to be adjusted, but nothing major, and the bike had over 19,000 miles on it.  All of the lights worked as they should, and he told me to go ahead and take it for a ride.  He reminded me about the front brake, and that's when he also mentioned that although he had cleaned the carbs to get it running, he couldn't get it to go above about 25 miles per hour.   Hmm, a little more bad news about the bike, but the motor seemed healthy, so I figured it was still a carb issue.  It was at this point when I took the bike off the center stand that I noticed the steering issue that at the time I thought was from low front tire air pressure.  At that point I told him I'd actually rather not take it for a ride.

As it turned out, the bike had been his father-in-laws, and he got it after his passing. He rode it some for a while, but then the bike just sat.  We talked a little more about it and I made sure not to say anything directly negative about the bike, just that it wasn't quite what I'd expected and I'd probably have to pass.  I told him I didn't want to offend him with an offer of what I'd be willing to pay for it - which was about $400 to $500 less that what he was asking.  

I figured that would be the end of it, but he said go ahead and make the offer.  I wasn't kidding when I told him I didn't want to offend him, so I offered $300 less that what he was asking, and was kinda hoping he'd say no.   However, without a second's hesitation, he agreed!  Hmm...  

When I got the bike home, I was going to take it around our neighborhood. It's a 1 mile loop with a 30 MPH speed limit.  Perfect for low speed test rides.  I knew I needed to check the tire pressure first. The back tire was at 45 psi - wow.  At least it was wow until I got to the front, which was at 60 psi - Dang!  Ok, steering bearings it is!  Those were ordered, along with a front tire and some fork seals as fork oil began to leak as soon as the bike was cinched down in the back of my truck.

I too could only get 25 to 30 mph out of the bike and took the carbs off to check/clean them.  Right away I noticed that the seal ring under the top cover of each carb had been put on upside down.  I switched them and put the carbs back on the bike.  I thought that might solve the problem. It didn't, but it did help. Top speed was now about 40 mph.  It turns out the carbs needed a more thorough cleaning and some of the jets were still plugged or partially plugged.  Once that was done, it ran great.  I also adjusted the valves.   

As for the front brake, I got lazy and ordered a new front master cylinder off of ebay.  It was about the same price as a rebuild kit for the original and looks like it belongs on the bike anyway.  I called Galfer for a brake line as I couldn't find one listed on their site for this bike.  They said it uses the same line as the earlier 400 cc Hondamatics and I ordered one of those.  It turns out that's not the case.  It was a little too short, and I ended up reusing the stock line.  The Galfer line is hanging in my garage next to the GaIfer GPz lines that didn't fit my GPz - although I bought those from an ebay seller.  In that case, I called Galfer and they sent me the correct lines.  I really like their products!  They are always friendly and helpful on the phone, and I'm sure if I told them about the line for the 400 not working on the 450 they would have taken care of it.  Again, I just got lazy...  I had also ordered a rebuild kit for the front brake caliper.  However, upon taking it apart I found that both brake pistons were fairly badly cracked and I ordered a pair from BrakeCrafters.  They fit and worked great!   All that being said, I now have about $200 in just the front brake, but that's how it goes sometimes!

The purchase of the CB400T was somewhat similar, but that bike was in a storage unit that wasn't very convenient for either me or the seller to get to. It was about an hour and a half trip for each of us from opposite directions.  When I saw that bike, I looked it over for a few minutes and offered the seller $100 for his troubles, but told him it wasn't anything I was interested in.  It turns out, he was pretty eager to make a sale as this wasn't the first time he'd made this trip, but he was hoping to make it his last!  He told me to just make a ridiculous offer, so I did.   I offered him half of what he was asking, and he thought about it, but asked if I could do any better.  I upped the ante by $100, and the bike was mine.  For the second time in as many weeks, I was on my way home wondering what the heck I had just done!  Ya, I got it pretty cheap, but it was probably going to cost more than the original asking price just to get it to the bike I expected to show up and see in the first place. (Front brake pads - Kevlar by Volar motorsport - mfg. part #VBP015-F-2), purchased on ebay from D2Moto).   As I continued to drive home, I went over in my mind the list of known issues with this bike: (Current sprockets on the CB450T: 17/36)