Waarom vind ik weinig over de CB 500 F ?????

Lady biker

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3 sep 2004
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Een leek wat betreft motors hier... (Zie mijn topic in "Nieuwe gebruikers")

Maar ik heb een vraagje...Wij hebben thuis een Honda staan van 1976,
een CB 500 F om precies te zijn.
Nou ben ik op internet al veel bezig geweest om daar info over te vinden
maar dat valt niet mee. Over andere types als de 200, 400, 600 e.d. kan
ik veel meer vinden.
Is daar een reden voor? Iemand die dat misschien weet?

Er is mij eens verteld dat er van de CB 500 F vroeger niet veel naar NL zijn
gehaald, zou dat een reden kunnen zijn? Of is dat gewoon onzin...
(Nogmaals, ik ben ook maar een leek :) )

Iemand die mij meer kan vertellen ??

Grtz,
Lady Biker
 
http://home.wanadoo.nl/honda.sohc4/500/index.htm (home.wanadoo.nl/honda.sohc4/500/index.htm)
Klik op de plaatjes, zijn scans van oude artikelen.

www.robbery.nl/motoren/cb500f/

En natuurlijk de topics op het forum, met behulp van de zoek-functie... 8-)

Maar deze sites had je zelf waarschijnlijk ook al opgegoogled! Valt inderdaad tegen om snel even iets te vinden zo. Veel succes met de zoektocht naar info verder!

:]
 
Een leek wat betreft motors hier... (Zie mijn topic in "Nieuwe gebruikers")

Maar ik heb een vraagje...Wij hebben thuis een Honda staan van 1976,
een CB 500 F om precies te zijn.
Nou ben ik op internet al veel bezig geweest om daar info over te vinden
maar dat valt niet mee. Over andere types als de 200, 400, 600 e.d. kan
ik veel meer vinden.
Is daar een reden voor? Iemand die dat misschien weet?

Er is mij eens verteld dat er van de CB 500 F vroeger niet veel naar NL zijn
gehaald, zou dat een reden kunnen zijn? Of is dat gewoon onzin...
(Nogmaals, ik ben ook maar een leek :) )

Iemand die mij meer kan vertellen ??

Grtz,
Lady Biker


Jochem heeft een schitterende cb500f. Hij post hier ook regelmatig en heeft denk ik een schat aan info over dit type. Hij doet er alle moeite voor om zijn "brikken" zo origineel mogelijk te maken/houden en heeft daar natuurlijk ook info voor nodig. Denk dus dat je daar wel succes zult hebben.
 
Hoi Lady 8-)

Ik heb een WP-handboek liggen van 350f en 500f. Deze sjientjes zijn eigenlijk elkaars broertjes, lijken qua uiterlijk ook erg op elkaar. I.t.t de opvolgers van deze beeskes, de 400f en de 550f waren deze nogal 'rond' van vorm. De 350f rijdt inderdaad nog genoeg rond, maar wordt volgens Haynes nou niet egzien als een succesvol nummer. Ook de 500 is niet zo succesvol geweest. de opvolgers waren dit weer wel. Dat zal wel de redn zijn dat er weinig van te vinden is...

Ik ga toch eens even kijken voor de toekomst naar een nette 500..de voorvork heb ik al ; zit in mijn 400 ;)
 
Jochem heeft een schitterende cb500f. Hij post hier ook regelmatig en heeft denk ik een schat aan info over dit type. Hij doet er alle moeite voor om zijn "brikken" zo origineel mogelijk te maken/houden en heeft daar natuurlijk ook info voor nodig. Denk dus dat je daar wel succes zult hebben.


Dankuzeerbeleefd! :)
kijk maar eens op de http://www.homepages.hetnet.nl/~honda-sohc4/index.html (clubpagina) een op mijn eigen site he?

Enne vragen kan je hier ook kwijt, natuurlijk. Check ook de internationale club eens.

Overigens: de 500 was de kleine tegenhanger van de 750. Een 550 is eigenlijk niet veel meer dan een opgeboorde 500...

Oh, en ik wil wel een piccie zien!

En als laatste dit topic...
 
Laatst bewerkt:
Maar ik heb een vraagje...Wij hebben thuis een Honda staan van 1976,
een CB 500 F om precies te zijn.
Nou ben ik op internet al veel bezig geweest om daar info over te vinden
maar dat valt niet mee. Over andere types als de 200, 400, 600 e.d. kan
ik veel meer vinden.
Is daar een reden voor? Iemand die dat misschien weet?

Er is mij eens verteld dat er van de CB 500 F vroeger niet veel naar NL zijn
gehaald, zou dat een reden kunnen zijn? Of is dat gewoon onzin...
(Nogmaals, ik ben ook maar een leek :) )

Nou, de 500 was juist erg populair, vooral omdat ie een stuk lichter is dan de 750 en omdat ie gewoon veel lekkerder stuurt ;) Het is veel meer een gooi en smijt machine...

er is echt wel veel info te vinden over de 500, gewoon lekker doorzoeken, wat voor info ben je naar op zoek eigenlijk?
 
Ik heb ook een CB500 Four, ééntje uit 1973.

full


Er is inderdaad minder informatie over de 500 te vinden dan over andere types zoals bijvoorbeeld de 750...maar als je goed zoekt kom je best nog veel tegen.

Ik ben ook wel benieuwd naar een fotootje van je motor!
 
Off-topic: hoest met vrouw en vader Henk?
Ik heb je wel gemist (nou,niet echt: nu was mijn triple wèl de luidruchtigste! :P ) ;)
 
Ik heb ook een CB500 Four, ééntje uit 1973.

(Afbeelding)

Er is inderdaad minder informatie over de 500 te vinden dan over andere types zoals bijvoorbeeld de 750...maar als je goed zoekt kom je best nog veel tegen.

Ik ben ook wel benieuwd naar een fotootje van je motor!


kvin da wel een heeeeelle mooie hoor...Is uit hetzelfde jaar als het kleine broertje van me...de 350f...MMMmMmMooooOooiIiiI *D
 
Nou, dan wil ik óók even patsen hoor ;)

DSCF0001.JPG


'T is een K2 uit '76...

(Voór de restauratie, welteverstaan...)
 
Ik heb ook een CB500 Four, ééntje uit 1973.

(Afbeelding)

Er is inderdaad minder informatie over de 500 te vinden dan over andere types zoals bijvoorbeeld de 750...maar als je goed zoekt kom je best nog veel tegen.

Ik ben ook wel benieuwd naar een fotootje van je motor!

Edwin,

Kijk je wél uit voor krasjes op je tank, met die mooie tanktas?

Mijn K0 (die ik toch nog moet overNOSsen) is behoorlijk voorzien van die krassen. Vroeger deden we er een lap schuim onder, herinner ik mij.

Gr, Rene
 
Kijk je wél uit voor krasjes op je tank, met die mooie tanktas?

Mijn K0 (die ik toch nog moet overNOSsen) is behoorlijk voorzien van die krassen.

René,

Bedankt voor de tip, ik heb er nu nog een 'oude' tank. Maar goed om te onthouden voor als ik mijn 500 ook ga overNOSsen ;)
 
Wie heeft voor mij een oud 500 wieleke liefst met schijf staan ? mag ook een 550 zijn ovrigus... Moet de naaf hebben voor ombouw naar 18 inch...

ff mailen en prijs doorgeven...

*D
 
Info over een cb500f: Had een een artikeltje op mn HD (nee, geen harley, maar Hard Disk) staan, komt 'ie: (nu maar hopen dattie niet te lang is....)

Oh ja, neem het niet te serieus, 't is wel een beetje miereneukerig en overdreven, vind ik persoonlijk dan :)

komt ie:

CB500 Articles
For those who value function more than form and know enough to appreciate subtlety we offer something beyond the mundane mass-market motorcycle, and something finer than the typically exhibitionistic and uncomfortable cafe racer.
By Gordon Jennings
CYCLE - NOVEMBER 1975
In England a couple of decades ago, there was a type of car that came to be known by the name, "Gentleman's Express." Vehicles in this category were not in the strictest sense sports cars, though they certainly were intended to be driven in a sporting manner. But where the sports car was aggressively contrived to dazzle the beholder's eye with its flashy looks and make the countryside ring with the echoes of its booming exhaust, the Gentleman's Express was subtle, subdued, built to move its owner from where he was to the place he wanted to be without creating any unnecessary stir along the way. A proper Gentleman's Express had enough engine to work up an impressive hurry, but the power was not purchased by borrowing from broad range tractability, or by introducing a fussiness of behavior that might have its owner changing spark plugs when he would rather be changing into a dinner jacket. Handling and braking had to be of a high order, while avoiding any suggestion of harshness, and the seating package had to be perfect. For the very essence of the Gentleman's Express concept was to allow individuals of taste, judgment and coordinated ability to travel rapidly along all kinds of roads without inflaming villagers passions, arousing the ire of the constabulary, or fetching up against an oak.
Potentially, we have a parallel situation in motorcycling, which already has a sports car equivalent in the raucous, flamboyant Cafe Racer. All that's needed to complete the parallel is a two-wheeled version of the Gentleman's Express-and we see evidence that such machines are emerging. They aren't coming from the major manufacturers, who continue to devote themselves to the mass-production of reliable but often characterless appliances. Motorcycles in the true Gentleman's Express mold are, like the Cafe Racers, being created by individual riders for whom the motorcycle is a very personal thing, needing a lot of fine tuning before it suits their personal requirements. With all that has been written about the Cafe Racer in recent months, we need not elaborate on the nature of that particular beast; the "Gentleman's Express concept, as it applies to motorcycles, is less obvious in its details, less likely to call attention to itself, and for those reasons (and others that will be come apparent in due time) deserves treatment here.
You should be aware at the onset that while fewer dollars are involved in the making of a genuine Gentleman's Express than would be spent on all the accoutrements of a full blown Cafe Racer, the former requires more hours, thought and mechanic's skills. This difference results from the fact that your typical Cafe Racer is counted a success if it achieves only form; the Gentleman's Express concept is a denial of form and a worship of function-and it always will be easier to make a motorcycle look good than to work well. Especially when the increase in performance must be obtained without any loss of amiability - which is central to the whole Gentleman's Express concept - and the other goals of riding comfort and improved handling can only be reached through subtlety rather than the application of main force.
There is, of course, a matter of basic suitability to be considered in choosing the motorcycle you will transform into a Gentleman's Express, but for most people this won't present a problem. Riders to whom the concept appeals will in most instances, guided by instinct, already have bought a bike that in stock condition comes close to what we have in mind. Almost anything could be used as the basis for this kind of project; it should be obvious that something like an old BSA twin promises to be prohibitively difficult. A far better choice would be any one of the modern four-cylinder models, and the best that comes to mind is Honda's 500/550 Four-which has no serious handling problems to be overcome, is light and inherently nimble, yet has enough engine to provide (given a little help) very spirited performance without violating the concept's implicit prohibition of fussiness.
We'll use Honda's mid-size four as a case-study in making our point because of its fundamental suitability, and because Cycle's Art Director, Paul Halesworth, has a 1972 500 Four that he's been converting into a Gentleman's Express since the day he first rode it home. The rest of Cycle's staff-owned motorcycles tend to follow the same pattern, but Paul's has received the most attention and comes closest to being the complete example of the type - though naturally some work remains to be done. The point is that most of what has been done is applicable to all the other suitable candidates for the Gentleman's Express treatment.
Riding comfort is an essential element of the concept, and getting it is going to involve some switching of handlebars. Typically, your standard factory-fresh motorcycle will have a bolt-upright seating position that's great for tooling around town, but subjects your arms to tensile strength testing when you begin to hurry. Handlebars are, on average, too high and wide for fast riding, which is why so many riders cancel the airspeed factor with a windshield - an accessory not entirely consistent with the concept being outlined here. If you're going to split the gale with your body, you'll be more comfortable behind a lower, narrower handlebar. You don't want those Cafe Racer clip-on bars, which are a racing-speed necessity but an abomination on a Sunday Morning Ride; what's needed is a handlebar that moves your hands closer together and slightly ahead, which aims your arms more directly into the wind and tilts your torso forward so that it acts less like a sail. The idea is to lean into the gale enough to balance its pressure, but not so much that you'll get a mortal crick in your neck.
Paul found what he considers a near perfect handlebar for his Honda on BMW's parts shelf. It's the one BMW uses as a standard item on European touring models and it works a lot better than the "drag bars" it so closely resembles. The BMW handlebar rises slightly above the fork-bridge clamps, then turns back and tilts downward slightly. This bar is really nice on any bike that doesn't have you sitting too far from the fork stem; on big, stretched-out bikes like the Kawasaki Z1 or the Ducati 750 the BMW handlebar gives your body more forward lean than is comfortable at anything less than 100 mph, and it's too short (24 inches, tip to tip) for the steering leverage a big motorcycle needs. We have found that the handlebar from Suzuki's GT 185 is a better choice for big bikes: there doubtless others made for small models that would transplant as successfully.
Footpeg location is far more important than most riders imagine, and most manufacturers almost invariably position the things too far forward. They do it that way to provide a comfortable spacing between the rider's and passenger's footrests, and because pegs that are too far forward for real riding comfort feel all right when you sit on the bike in your dealer's showroom. And most of us have ridden so many miles on bikes with badly positioned footpegs that we don't even realize anything is wrong until we're on some twisty road and forcing the pace a little. It will then seem that something isn't quite right, but few of us will be able to pinpoint the problem, which relates to riding technique.
Within fairly broad limits, footpeg location doesn't mean much as long as you're just sitting on the bike like a lump, letting it carry you down the road. But when you're really riding you'll find yourself working the pegs almost as much as the handlebar: you shift your weight from peg to peg, and slip from side to side on the saddle. None of that will come easily or naturally unless the footpegs are directly under your personal center of gravity. When the pegs are correctly positioned you can lift your backside an inch or so above the seat by tightening your leg muscles and you won't tend to fall forward or back. The typical touring bike's pegs are located too far forward and you can't "post" on them without toppling backward unless you get a good grip on the handlebar-which really is intended to be used for steering, and not as a grab handle. Similarly, the pegs should not be too far back, and that rules out using the passenger footrests. The answer, for most bikes, is one of the rear-set kits made for the Cafe Racer crowd. Price one of those kits and you may think it's a lot of money for something seemingly inconsequential; ride a bike with pegs where they should be and you'll understand why we have discussed this point at such length, and why the good rear-set kits are worth having.
There's not much reason for doing all the work needed to get yourself comfortably situated to handle a motorcycle unless the bike itself will respond to the control inputs. You just can't get comfortable on a machine that slides, hops, shudders and wobbles when ridden hard. Nor can you expect to correct all those forms of misbehavior-or, for that matter, any one of them-with one inspired modification. Handling problems are generated, piecemeal, by a whole collection of deficiencies sprinkled throughout an entire motorcycle, and some of them are inherent design flaws that never can fully be corrected.
The first step in improving a motorcycles ability to travel rapidly is to maximize primary road-holding: to give it tires that get a good grip on pavement and then make the most of those tires., And for all-around paved-road performance, sunshine or rain, we haven't found anything better than Dunlop's K81. Other tires may be less expensive, or wear less rapidly, but the K81's tread compound has an almost magnetic affinity for paved surfaces and a Gentleman's Express deserves nothing less. Unless it's a big one like a fine-honed Kawasaki Z1, on which the original-equipment Japanese Dunlops seem to work about as well and last somewhat longer.
Before you rush out to buy a set of tires, give some thought to your bike's wheels, which will in most cases have rims made of a serviceable but inelegant chrome plated steel. There's room for improvement here, though only marginally if you are thinking in terms of weight: light-alloy rims or cast mag wheels look very trick; they won't be appreciably lighter than those standard steel hoops. This is not to say these replacements are lacking in merit beyond what they do in the area of cosmetics. Cast wheels are made of an alloy that contains far too much aluminum to be particularly light, but they are
true when you get them and stay that way because they have no spokes to work loose, and they are very rigid-which, probably is an advantage. The great disadvantage of cast wheels is that they are
not easily adapted to just any motorcycle. The front wheel presents only a problem in brake-disc spacing; the rear wheel is likely to be a nightmare, requiring fabrication of a whole brake assembly, special sprocket adapter, etc.
With all the mounting problems, cast wheels would be worth the effort and expense if only they were available in the right range of rim widths, and if there was a broader selection of tire sizes, but of course the same thing may be said of replacement wheel rims. As it happens there’s a kind of "Catch 22" situation in motorcycling, with all the bikes suitable for Gentleman’s Express conversion (circa 500cc and up) needing fatter tires and not getting them because our tire manufacturers are reluctant to try anything too large for existing rims and the wheel makers equally reluctant to widen rims in anticipation of tires that may never become available. So, for the moment, you have to work with WM3 rims because that's the widest available (at 2.15 inches between flanges) and the largest tire the WM3 will support adequately is a 4.26. You can get a 4.50-section tire from Goodyear, but while the firm's "Eagle A/T" is a splendid gripper of pavement it feels wobbly when mounted on a WM3 rim. We'll give it another try when wider rims become available.
Given the availability factor, you should think in terms of a WM3 rim for your Gentleman's Express' rear wheel; a narrower WM2 (1.85-inch) rim is often used on touring bikes' front wheels, and may give steering characteristics well suited to the average rider, but we would advise switching to a WM3. The largest tire recommended for a WM2 rim is a 3.50, and there's a good chance you'll want something that puts down a bigger contact patch if your riding style includes hard use of the front brake and muscular steering inputs. The WM3 rim can be fitted with a 3.25-section tire, if you decide you like the way a bike handles with a smallish tread up front, and the wider rim will-as previously noted-accept anything up to a 4.25, all of which adds up to a flexibility of choice you don't get with a WM2 rim.
The problems of adapting those trick cast wheels being what they are, it is our feeling that you should apt for the relatively simple alternative of lacing light alloy rims on our bike's existing hubs. The change in rims won’t make enough difference in weight to matter, but it involves very little more expense than swapping to a different set of steel rims, and you can always tell yourself that the alloy rims are stronger, more rigid (as they probably are) to justify doing what may not be sensible but is extremely appealing as regards its effect on your motorcycle's appearance. Polished aluminum rims do something for a sporting machine that chromed steel-however effectively it is used-cannot hope to match. Man cannot live by logic alone.
Paradoxically, the more success you have in your choice of wheels and tires, the more likely it is that your bike's overall handling will deteriorate. This stems from the fact that improvements in traction are reflected back into a motorcycle's chassis as an increased level of stress on the frame and all the suspension hardware. You may as well be prepared to do some work in those areas, because few stock motorcycles are equal to the stresses they feel when ridden hard-even if absolutely nothing has been done to improve their grip on the road.
One area almost certain to offer scope for improvement is your motorcycle's rear suspension. For reasons best known to their cost accountants, the major bike manufacturers seem dedicated to the proposition that overly stiff springs combined with limp shock absorbers add up to a good ride and acceptable handling. It is obvious to everyone else that this is not really the case-though it certainly is true that if you must for any reason have to live with bad shocks, then stiffening the springs will help keep a bike's handling from becoming downright dangerous. But a far better approach is to invert the manufacturers' normal selection: you pay whatever price is being asked for good shocks and fit these with the softest springs that will keep the suspension from bottoming.
It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to make anything resembling a blanket recommendation for rear suspension springs and shocks. All We can do is to give you the benefit (?) of the results of such experimenting as we have done in this area.
We do know that both Girling and S&W shocks will do wonders in steadying the way a bike goes around corners, and we believe the S&Ws to be a bit more consistent in their action. On the other hand, we've gotten good results with Koni shocks by taking advantage of their adjustability. Any of these shocks may be expected to do a better job of preventing the pitching, hobby-horse chassis movements (a major component of cornering wobble) than most of their original-equipment counterparts. And because they control the pitching, it becomes possible to use softer-than-standard springs: a stock Z1 has 135 pound/inch springs and shocks that don't do much beyond holding the springs in place; with Koni shocks, having a turn of added rebound damping cranked into able to use 120 we were able to use 120-pound springs and got improved ride and handling; we're now trying S&W shocks with 90/110-pound progressive-rate springs and those work even better. Similarly, our various 750 Ducatis, which came to us with Marzocchi shocks and 110 pound springs, handle and ride better with S&Ws and 90-pound springs. Paul's Honda was too softly suspended with 75-pound springs and he's hoping that 80-pounders on shocks with a little more travel will do the job. He's hoping, but
doesn't know, because it's an area in which experimentation is the rule and the road to perfection is littered with discarded expensive parts.
A word of warning about replacing your bike's rear suspension units: just make sure the replacements fit You can use shocks slightly longer than the originals to lift the machine's ride-height and get a bit more cornering clearance, but this shouldn't be overdone because raising a bike's tail reduces the fork rake and can make the steering very peculiar. The second thing you have to watch is the fit at the shock's mounting eyes, which have to be free to pivot slightly as the suspension works. If the fit is too tight all kinds of bad things can happen, including outright breakage of the mounts; get the fit too loose, vertically, and the excess clearance will act like a delay in the damper's response to movement.
A bike's rear suspension usually needs a little time and a lot of money before it meets your particular requirements. This order is reversed when you tackle the fork, which in most instances needs very little modifying but a huge amount of adjusting. There isn't much you can do about fork damping unless you have a lot of specialized test equipment available, and if you had the equipment it wouldn't help because forks' big problem is compounded of misalignment and static friction in its seals. The manner in which fork assemblies are made and bolted together leaves a lot of room for error, and manufacturers' assembly-line workers often take horrible advantage of the latitude provided. They'll just stab the fork tubes into the fork bridges and tighten all the pinch bolts without making sure the tubes are pointing in the same direction. Then, after the sliders are in place, they'll install the front wheel in such haste that the fork legs are pulled together or forced apart. The net result is that the sliders don't want to slide, even assuming that all the seals and dust-scrubber caps aren't too tight, which is a very dangerous assumption. Finally, the stiction problem is made all the worse by manufacturers' cost-conscious selections of fork springs. If you want to use the cheaper spring steels, and they do, then it becomes necessary to stiffen spring rates and install the springs with a lot of pre-load to compensate for the inevitable sagging.
So what do you do about the fork? You more or less remanufacture it, that's what, and the process of correcting some of the built-in error can make you crazy. The error hardest to correct is the one in which the between-centers distances for the fork tube holes in the upper and lower bridges
are not the same. If for example, the upper pair of holes are closer together than the lower set then the tubes will diverge instead of being parallel. We've found this condition existing in all kinds of forks, including one example of the ultra-trick, ultra-expensive racing variety. The only satisfactory cure is to remachine the upper fork bridge-boring the tube holes oversize, on the same centers as those in the lower bridge, and inserting sleeve spacers to make up the difference in diameter.
Your bike's fork tubes can be out of parallel as a result of sloppy assembly, and this condition is relatively easy to correct. You start by taking the fork almost completely apart, removing the front wheel and sliders, and loosening everything that hasn't been disassembled. Some kind of surface plate is needed to get the tubes parallel, viewed from the side, and of course they can be checked for divergence/convergence at the same time before tightening all the clamps at the steering head and fork bridges.
Following the above operation you reinstall the sliders, making sure the seals and dust caps aren't so tight that they act like friction dampers. Then you can replace the front wheel-but don't tighten the axle clamps until after you've worked the fork up and down a few times to let the slider ends locate themselves on the axle. It is distinctly possible to get the slider ends pulled together or forced apart in the course of fitting the bike's front wheel, and that's something to be avoided. Static friction in forks can cause more handling problems than poor damping and badly chosen springs together, and anything that causes binding between the fork tubes and sliders will increase that resistance to motion.
While you're working on the fork, see if the construction of the sliders is such that the brake caliper can be relocated behind the axle, Most aren't, and while we are assured that there is good reason for forward-mounting calipers (the brake pads stay cleaner and cooler positioned ahead of the slider) our experience is that handling is improved by getting as much of the fork's steered mass as possible tucked in close to the steering axis. A Kawasaki Z1 with dual-disc front brake is markedly wobble-prone when its calipers are hanging out ahead of the sliders; it steadies nicely when the mounting is reversed. Indeed, anything you can do to reduce the inertia of the steering will improve handling. Reversing the brake caliper helps, as does fitting a shorter handlebar (which moves hardware like the control levers and brake master cylinder closer to the steering axis), and a lighter front fender couldn't hurt. And when you're mounting the fender, make sure it slips into place without pushing.
Softer fork springs will do wonders for a motorcycle's ride, and improved quality in the springs will overcome the sagging problem. But you can't reduce a bike's fork spring rates too much below the stock level without having the fork bottom under hard braking, assuming that straight-rate non-progressive springs are being used, and that the bike is not to much I lighter than stock. What's needed to get both ride and anti-dive, is springing that's soft for the first couple of inches of travel and then stiffens as the fork compresses toward its bottoming stops. Those characteristics are best obtained with true progressive rate springs, but when such springs are not available you can get much the same result by stacking two or more straight-wound springs of different rates inside each fork tube.
Back when our own Jess Thomas was racing a modified Honda 350, he found one handling improvement in the reversed brake caliper-and another in finishing the welding job Honda had begun on the frame. The CB350 frame had a backbone tube made of two stampings spot-welded together, and we suspected that it was doing a bit of flexing between spots. Welding a continuous bead between the two stampings and tying them together more securely made this already good handling bike even steadier in corners. Your own bike may not have any spot welded pieces in its frame, but it may need stiffening. Far too many of even the latest motorcycles still have limber chassis, and handling that is not what it could be due to that weakness. Paul's Honda 500 Four is not conspicuously lacking in rigidity, yet we see evidence in the flaking of paint where the frame's swing arm-pivot supports join with the lower cradle tubes that it is flexing at that point. The cure, in this instance, will be reamed-fit, oversize engine mounting bolts. The stock bolts are a loose fit in the crankcase and frame lugs, which means that the engine cannot contribute much to overall chassis stiffness. A crossbrace in the form of an "X" or "N" would tie the frame cradle tubes together in much the same way, and might be the preferred alternative on some other motorcycles, but the Honda engine's sump extends down into the space such bracing would have to occupy, so we have elected to make the engine serve as a chassis structural member.
If you're determined to get really good handling from your Gentleman's Express, you probably will have to do something about the swing arm's pivot bearings. In many instances these are made of a phenolic substance that is light, cheap, doesn't require much lubrication-and falls woefully short of having the load- carrying capacity it needs to cope with the stresses it will have to endure in any motorcycle that is ridden hard. Swing arm pivot bearings aren't subjected to high rotational speeds; they do have to carry enormously high thrust loadings when a bike is banked over in a corner and phenolic simply isn't equal to the occasion. Don, Vesco's replacement swing arm for, the racing Yamahs goes to the opposite extreme, in having tapered roller bearing at the pivot, and there are a couple of roller-bearing kits being made for touring machines that should be very good. But it really isn't necessary to engage in that kind of overkill: ordinary bushings machined from brass or aluminum will do the job, if made and fitted with care. Plain metal bushings do require fairly frequent lubrication, but they'll serve the purpose very well if the shaft is hard enough. Unhardened mild-steel shafts will wear even when the bearings don't, so the pivot journals should be treated to give them better wear resistance. You don't want a brittle pivot shaft, for obvious reasons, and that suggests a surface treatment of the steel-case hardening or industrial type chromium plating.
Should all the measures listed fail to improve your bike's handling you can try stiffening the swing arm itself, though that is a modification we regard as unpromising because it is easy to add a lot of weight without increasing stiffness to any worthwhile extent. Besides, the typical standard swing arm, while not a marvel of rigidity, is at least adequate, Considering the effort involved and the potential rewards, the only swing arm modification that makes sense is a. change in effective length. A longer swing arm extends a bike's wheelbase and shifts its center of gravity forward - both of which are steadying influences. Unfortunately this kind of change entails fabricating a replacement for the stock swingarm - which isn't going to be stiff enough if it's lengthened – and the whole thing leads off into an engineering/manufacturing project best avoided except by those who really know what they’re doing and are prepared to do it for days.
At some point early in your Gentleman's Express project you'll discover that all touring-type bikes have clearance problems when heeled over in a cornering attitude. Ride hard, if your bike's tires will permit a little sporting excess, and various bits of hardware will come into contact with the pavement. Get careless and one of the contacting bits of hardware may be your helmet, as the best of tires only grips the road while it touches the road-and grounding a stand or exhaust pipe can lift a bike's rear wheel. Experience with a broad range of street machines shows us that the first thing to graunch against pavement will be a bike's side stand, so you can unbolt that item and toss it away. Then you will find that the extension on the center stand begins to drag, and that will have to be shortened or heated and bent up out of the way.
And after you've fixed the stands so they aren't dragging it probably will be the exhaust system that gets you into trouble, which raises an interesting question: do you switch to one of the trick accessory exhaust systems, or try to work with the stock mufflers? There is a tad more power to be had using those free flowing accessory systems, and a reduction in weight along with (sometimes) an increase in cornering clearance. But such virtues as the accessory exhaust systems may have are, to put it mildly, "compromised" by ineffectual muffling. Most of them have a short glass-pack section at their outlet end, and while that may soften the pulses rattling around the exhaust plumbing it cannot subdue them to an extent satisfactory within the Gentleman's Express concept, not to mention the average policeman's notion of what meets the requirements of the law. Paul has a four-into-one "collector" system on his Honda, loves it for the effect on power and cornering clearance, and frankly admits that the racket is more than even he can comfortably stand. In that respect Paul's bike is much more Express than it is gentlemanly.
As noted, one attraction of collector type exhaust systems is their lightness compared with the average set of stock pipes and mufflers. The difference in weight is enough to account for some of the improvement in performance. Which is a point to be applied elsewhere on your motorcycle. Weight has only a small effect on top speed (which isn't important in this context) but it is a very large factor in acceleration, as this is very much a function of power/weight ratio. For example, a stock Honda 500 Four weighs a hair under 450 pounds filled with gas, has about 40 bhp and, if we use those
numbers, 11.25 pounds per horsepower. Without resorting to extremes, Paul has shaved his Honda's weight down to a lean 405 pounds (most of the difference being in the exhaust systems) and that improves the pounds/horsepower picture to 10:1 before any engine modifications are considered. Leave the Honda's weight at the stock level and it would need an extra five horsepower to achieve the same kind of acceleration.
Motorcycles seem like such sketchy, bare bones machines in standard form that weight reduction may strike you as being a near impossibility. It isn't, if you look carefully and are willing to pare off ounces all over the bike instead of looking for one or two big chunks. Just removing the side stand will be worth about two pounds, on average, and Paul has done things like fitting a nylon rear sprocket (another two pounds-off the unsuspended weight) and peeling away the massive passenger-peg mounts. His Honda would kick-start easily, so he removed the electric starter and dropped another seven pounds-with an even greater reduction possible by switching to a smaller battery. Paul also swears that his bike's alloy rims make each wheel 31/2 pounds lighter than stock, and it may be that Honda's penchant for using heavier material than others think necessary has been extended to the 500 Four's steel rims And then there was the switch to a Kerker exhaust system, which was worth a 20-pound reduction in net weight. But most of the pounds came off Paul's Honda in amounts insignificant taken singly, and that's how the weight will come off your bike.
The very last thing you should worry about, in creating a Gentleman's Express, is how you're going to grab some big chunks of horsepower. What you want, if you're going to do any engine work, is a broad-range increase in output: something that is right there every time you open the throttles, and no waiting for revs or having to downshift to get them. How do you accomplish that? With displacement and compression ratio, mostly, because big carburetors and racing-type camshafts tend to produce racing-engine fussiness-which is impressive for maybe the first five minutes of riding, thereafter becoming and remaining a nagging ache in the hindquarters.
Placement and compression ratio isn't as easy as it may sound-unless you don't mind accepting an assortment of problems as a part of the package. You can't just whiz A boring bar through an engine's cylinders and drop in a set of pistons. There are limits in overboring stock cylinders, and other limits when you try to fit oversize cylinder sleeves in an existing cylinder block, and some crucial choices to be made in the selecting of oversize pistons. It all becomes very complicated very fast – if you're trying to do the job right-as Paul Halesworth has discovered with his Gentleman's Express Honda 500.
Paul's first departure from standard specification in his Honda CB500 Four was a switch to a Yoshimura "Road and Track" camshaft. There usually is a trade-off with trick camshafts in which sheer power is purchased at the expense of wide-range tractability but this is particular Yoshimura part seems simply to intensify the stock Honda characteristics.
The cam swap was easy getting more displacement and a higher compression ratio wasn't. Paul had such good results with the, Yoshimura camshaft in his Stage-One, engine that he opted for Yoshimura's 550 kit pistons and rings when he decided to reach for more displacement. With the cylinders overbored and the pistons installed there was a boost in power, and a vastly larger appetite for oil. The Yoshimura rings refused to seal, and the engine was pumping oil at the rate of a quart in 200 miles.
Inspection of the offending rings did not encourage further work with the 550 kit. Paul decided, instead, to buy a stock Honda CB550 cylinder block, bore the liners out to 61mm (from 58.5mm) and fit a set of slightly modified CB750 pistons. Honda's pistons are first-rate, and the stock rings are superb.
The above task eventually was completed, but not without a lot of difficulty and discarded parts along the way. One problem was that the CB550 block, which has larger cylinders, will not just drop into place on a CB500 crankcase. The cylinders' exposed lower ends are too large in diameter to fit the crankcase recesses. Before the parts will go together it is necessary to either machine the cylinder spigots smaller or the case recesses larger, and as our Sears lathe doesn't have the accessories to do that kind of work the job was contracted to a very big-name motorcycle speed shop.
And the speed specialists botched the job. They cut the cylinders and the crankcase, rather than making just one modification, and followed that mistake with a cylinder rebore that only averaged 61mm. Somehow they managed to give the bores a slightly hourglass form, viewed from the side, and made them slightly triangular as seen from above. Paul wasn't too happy with this, but figured anyone can make a mistake and let the same shop have a second try-with CB750 cylinder liners. They fumbled again, badly distorting the 750 liners in the course of machining them to fit the 550 block.
Poweroll came to Paul's rescue, fitting both the CB550 and CB550 cylinder blocks with their own 61mm liners. They sent along a set of their pistons, which are remachined Honda parts, but because these were idiot-proof cut (oversize valve pockets and radically shortened skirt) Paul decided in favor of a set made in Cycle's very own shop. We machined around the edges of the CB750 piston crown to give it the same height above the wristpin as the CB550 piston, and cut a bevel leading in from this clearance band to give a dome matching the combustion chamber shape. New valve clearance pockets were carved, these to suit the position of the CB500 valves and the overlap-phase lift given by the Yoshimura cam. An arched relief low on the piston skirt was needed to clear the crankshaft counterweights.
It should be stressed that a minimum amount of metal was cut from the CB750 pistons and that the pistons we made probably would not fit in any other CB500 engine. The bore/piston clearance would be about right, but the crown height, etc. very likely would be wrong. Poweroll's converted CB750 pistons provide more clearance, top and bottom - and don't have to be custom fitted. We did the custom job because we wanted a higher compression ratio and the longest piston skirt that would still clear the crank.
Along the way, it was also discovered that the Honda's cylinder head had distorted, and the valve seats no longer were concentric with the valve guides. That kind of thing is encountered often enough in all kinds of engines to make close inspection essential. You don't have to "blueprint" an engine; just make sure that there's nothing badly out of alignment or outside recommended tolerances.
Plan to do some carburetion work, too. Paul's Honda needed a slightly larger main jet, and the metering needles were raised a notch. With those changes, and a small reduction in the ignition advance, the Honda runs very well; the engine is little changed from stock, so equally small tuning changes were enough.
No modifications were made in porting or valve sizes/shapes, as the stock configuration is almost always entirely satisfactory when you're building a "midrange" engine. Relatively small ports, in combination with a modest boost in displacement, give high gas velocities, which tend to spread the power over a wide range of engine speeds - this being essential to the Express concept.
Paul's Honda has a fairly conservative engine. Its compression ratio is a point higher than stock, the Yoshimura cam is mild as such things go, and the displacement is still only 593cc. But it also is very light, at 405 pounds with the 5.5 gallon tank brimming, and it will run with the average Kawasaki Z-1 without the fussiness that usually characterizes Giant Killers. Others who have tried the Halesworth Honda are suitably impressed. The bike is subtle, fast and comfortable, the very image of what we mean when we say Gentleman's Express.
The story of this bike as told by the present owner...
I recently found the SOHC/4 website and would like to inform you that one of the motorcycles (shown parked in front of a large Coke sign) is the 'Gentleman's Express', which was first featured in the November 1975 issue of Cycle magazine [I would really like a copy of this article and the one from June '94 - Glenn]. It was originally a 1972 CB500, but was highly modified by the original owner, who was the Art Director of Cycle. His name was Paul Halesworth. The 'G.E.' has since changed hands a few times and is now owned by someone I know only as 'Sarge'. It's now 591cc with modified Honda CB750 pistons and many other mods (alloy wheels, rearsets, Kerker exhaust, aftermarket seat, shocks, halogen headlight, CB750 gas tank, etc.). The 'Coke' photo was the lead shot in the original article, and was later reprinted in the June 1994 issue of Cycle World, in Peter Egan's article, The Three-Hundred Dollar Jewel, which is well worth reading.
 
En je wou foto's: Dit is de mijne, voordat ie uit elkaar ging dan:

Tadaaaaaaa!!!

full


Inmiddels vind er een flinke metamorfose plaats: knalrooie tank, zilveren zijkapjes, andere (dichte) uitlaat, clip-ons, inlaatkelkjes en veel ontroesten, poets- en spuitwerk. Nu nog 'effe' in elkaar zetten, haha!

Groeten!
 
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