1983 VF750S'83 V45 Sabre

[w***@gmail.com]

Does anyone know if this is a good bike? I hear alot about the cam-
lobes wearing down. Any other opinions?

the bike i'm lookin at has 30,000 miles, and pretty clean.

$2,000

Any opinions?

[Gary Walker]

You'll probably get much more realistic opinions over
at: http://www.sabmag.org/

Additionally, http://www.vjmc.com/ may be another
source, albeit to a lesser degree. However, it looks
like vjmc is undergoing some kind of maintenance.

Post by w***@gmail.com
Does anyone know if this is a good bike? I hear alot about the cam-
lobes wearing down. Any other opinions?
the bike i'm lookin at has 30,000 miles, and pretty clean.
$2,000
Any opinions?

[Jeff Mayner]

Post by w***@gmail.com
Does anyone know if this is a good bike? I hear alot about the cam-
lobes wearing down. Any other opinions?
the bike i'm lookin at has 30,000 miles, and pretty clean.
$2,000
Any opinions?

I know the V65 had cam problems. I wasn't aware of the V45 having them as
well.

Sounds high for that bike.

[Mark Olson]

Post by Jeff Mayner

Post by w***@gmail.com
Does anyone know if this is a good bike? I hear alot about the cam-
lobes wearing down. Any other opinions?
the bike i'm lookin at has 30,000 miles, and pretty clean.
$2,000
Any opinions?

I know the V65 had cam problems. I wasn't aware of the V45 having them as
well.

I know my buddy had the cams replaced in his '83 VF750F Interceptor
under warranty.

[Jack Hunt]

Post by Jeff Mayner
I know the V65 had cam problems. I wasn't aware of the V45 having them as
well.

All V-4 Hondas built before 1987 had the potential for cam problems. The
problem is low oil flow at low engine speed. Bikes that were ridden hard had
fewer problems than those that spend a lot of time idling at red lights.

There are aftermarket oil modification kits that route more oil flow to the cams
and cures the problem.

Post by Jeff Mayner
Sounds high for that bike.

It's almost double what a 750 Sabre is bringing unless it has the Hondaline
fairing and hard bags. It would have to be in showroom condition with the
fairing, and even then, $2000 is high.

--
Jack Hunt IBA#12795, STOC 1870
'99 ST1100, FaST Forward
'95 Suzuki DR250SE
http://www.huntslodge.com

[Rayvan]

Post by Jack Hunt

Post by Jeff Mayner
I know the V65 had cam problems. I wasn't aware of the V45 having them as
well.

All V-4 Hondas built before 1987 had the potential for cam problems. The
problem is low oil flow at low engine speed. Bikes that were ridden hard had
fewer problems than those that spend a lot of time idling at red lights.
There are aftermarket oil modification kits that route more oil flow to the cams
and cures the problem.

It didn't help my '84 VFR750 at all. Mine spent very little time
idling at red lights. It did mostly freeway miles. I used the best oil
Honda sold and even modified the head for more oil to the cams.
Nothing helped. When the cams failed at 20,000, the dealer tried to
help, but American Honda blamed me. They said I was "obviouly abusing
the bike by riding it at constant high-speeds" and refused to cover it
after it's 10,000 mile warranty expired. At 30,000 it needed cams
again. I sold the bike and bought something else.

About a year ago V4 Larry L. wrote this:

<quote.
Honda's great cam shaft crisis was the result of a factory cost
cutting
measure... they choose to mill the cam bearing blocks separately...
there
was no matching of components... consequently the cam bearing blocks
were not line bored with the head... if the tolerances happened to
add
up... the cam will flop about in the head.. you'll notice the edge
of the
cams fail first... a sure sign the cam shaft tilted and was allowed to
strike
the follower at an angle... this also explains why some cams go 100K
while other only 20K...

Honda spent a lot of money replacing hand cam shafts and matching cam
bearing blocks to erase the blemish on the V4 legacy...

Honda took a lot of stick over this problem and immediately went back
to
the expense of line boring the cam bearing blocks in the head...

Larry L

<end quote>

Post by Jack Hunt
From what Larry L. says, only a replacement line-bored head would cure

the problem. If the Sabre that the OP is speaking of has these alleged
better heads, it'll be obvious because if cam journals were line
bored, you'd see plugs inserted in the lower half of the cam/valve
boxes. Ever seen anything like that in the early bikes. I haven't.

I like Larry, but personally, I have my doubts that a new head "fix"
ever existed, and I never heard about Honda hand-matching problem
bikes until a year ago when he wrote about it. If my dealer heard
about a fix it I'm sure they would have at least helped with parts
matching that Larry spoke of. I got nothing. I just learned to replace
cam$ every 10,000 miles.

Two of the best days of my life: They day I bought that bike and the
day I got rid of it.

For the OP; Listen real closely to the motor. If the top-end has lots
of valve clatter like a high-mile '63 Plymouth Valiant slant-six
that's low on oil, and/or has no ability to make power close to it's
red-line, steer clear.
--
Rayvan

[Jack Hunt]

Post by Jack Hunt

Post by Jack Hunt
From what Larry L. says, only a replacement line-bored head would cure

the problem.

No such head exists, and never has. The 86s had line bored cam holders. They
failed too. Larry is full of sh!t, which I have told him on several occasions.
But Larry is like a parrot. It's the only song he knows and he sings it
whenever he can. He doesn't let a little thing like accuracy get in the way. He
read that crap in a book somewhere and just went off the deep end about it.

Post by Jack Hunt
I like Larry, but personally, I have my doubts that a new head "fix"
ever existed, and I never heard about Honda hand-matching problem
bikes until a year ago when he wrote about it.

That's because it wasn't the root of the problem. The problem was that the oil
to the cams first had to go through the transmission bearings and then get run
through a soldered t-joint and up to the heads. There often wasn't 5psi of
pressure left by the time the oil got through the transmission and if there was
a restriction where solder had partially plugged that t-joint, no amount of
modification was going to help. If the oil isn't available, it's not going to
get there.

There was never a new head. I have asked him point blank many times what
someone can do to an existing engine and he starts with that line boring crap.
There is no way to line bore an existing pre-86 head. It has never been done.
Doesn't stop Larry, though.

Post by Jack Hunt
If my dealer heard
about a fix it I'm sure they would have at least helped with parts
matching that Larry spoke of. I got nothing. I just learned to replace
cam$ every 10,000 miles.

Starting in 87, Honda redesigned the oiling system to route more oil to the
heads, bypassing the transmission. End of problem. Also around the same time
they started line boring the cam holders. Casual users couldn't see the
redesigned oiling system but they could see those half-moon rubber plugs and
pointed to them as the cure to the problem.

Honda never endorsed the oil mods, they are all aftermarket. The first one was
built, oddly enough, by someone looking at a V-4 Honda race bike at Laguna Seca
and copying what they saw there. Honda would do it to their own bikes but
wouldn't do it to yours.

Post by Jack Hunt
Two of the best days of my life: They day I bought that bike and the
day I got rid of it.

I have seen several V-4 Hondas with over 100,000 miles on them with no
modifications whatsoever. I have seen others that croaked with less than 10,000
miles. I had some pitting on my 750 and an oil mod stopped that. I rode it
another 50,000 miles and it's still on the road almost 10 years later. I have
moved on to other bikes but my wife still has a 500 Interceptor with that
engine. AAMOF, there are 3 V-4 Hondas, all running and street legal, parked
behind my house right now.

I have had a 1983 750 Magna, a 1985 1100 Magna, and a 1985 1100 Sabre. My wife
had a 1985 1100 Magna when we got married. She traded it for a 1994 750 Magna
and later got a 1986 500 Interceptor. None of them have ever needed cams. You
can't allow the valve adjustment to close up, it keeps the oil wiped off the cam
lobes if they get tight enough to rub the rocker arms all the time and leads to
early failure. Adjust the valves at least once a year, setting them at .005 to
.006" cold. You can't afford not to.

The special Honda tool for holding the cams up while adjusting the valves was
snake oil and didn't help anything. Don't waste your time or money getting one.

Post by Jack Hunt
For the OP; Listen real closely to the motor. If the top-end has lots
of valve clatter

Nope. That can be a symptom but not always. It might just need a valve
adjustment. You need two feeler gauges. Set the valves to .005-.006" cold.
Look for pitting and scoring on the cam lobes and followers. If you have
pitting or scoring, install an oil mod. If they're smooth and shiny, just ride
it.

Post by Jack Hunt
and/or has no ability to make power close to it's
red-line, steer clear.

That could just be clogged main jets, a common problem with bikes that haven't
been started in a few months.

--
Jack Hunt IBA#12795, STOC 1870
'99 ST1100, FaST Forward
'95 Suzuki DR250SE
http://www.huntslodge.com

[Rayvan]

Post by Jack Hunt
You
can't allow the valve adjustment to close up, it keeps the oil wiped off the cam
lobes if they get tight enough to rub the rocker arms all the time and leads to
early failure. Adjust the valves at least once a year, setting them at .005 to
.006" cold. You can't afford not to.

In my case at the time, a valve adjustment once a year would have been
more than 10,000 miles. I was adjusting the valves every 3 or 4 months
and the cams were still disolving.
--
Rayvan

[Jack Hunt]

Post by Rayvan
I was adjusting the valves every 3 or 4 months
and the cams were still disolving.

There was more than one cause. The root cause, as I said, was low oil pressure
to begin with. Couple that with leaks around every bearing in the transmission
and you have even less pressure delivered to the oil tube that went to the
heads.

Once the oil got in the tube, it had to deal with ever-increasing cam-to-holder
clearances which spilled oil back into the crankcase. By the time it got to the
last lobes, there wasn't any oil left.

It wouldn't matter if Ged himself hand-matched, line-bored, and waved a dead
chicken over the cam bearings. If they didn't get enough oil to them, they were
going to wear out, spill oil, and starve the lobes.

Replacing the cams was a temporary fix. Putting higher pressure oil to the
heads was a permanent fix but dealers wouldn't attempt it. Honda stopped making
the Magna between 1989 and 1993 and when they resumed in 1994 it was with a
modified VFR engine, chain drive, and practically nothing in common with the
first generation of V-4s.

Allegedly, VFR cams will fit in the 3rd generation Magna engines making them
fire-breathing sleeper cruisers.

Now they don't make 'em any more at all.

--
Jack

[k***@hotmail.com]

Post by Jeff Mayner
I know the V65 had cam problems. I wasn't aware of the V45 having them as
well.

I've heard of this but never had any problems with the V65s I had
years ago (2 Magnas & a Sabre) Maybe cuz I wound the snot outa them?
Those bikes were cruise missiles...