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Impression Honda CB 500 Four
Do it again!
No, this motorcycle makes no claim to completeness or resemblance to a living, homologable Honda. It’s neither particularly beautiful nor particularly good. But – authentic. One hundred percent. Tinkered, painted and loved as before. If you get the chance to get in touch with your personal bike from the very beginning, you shouldn’t hesitate. Tighten it again, do one last lap, be 20 again.
She’s back there, between the stacks of tires and the toolbox under the dusty window. The old 500 from the Frankfurter Garagen-WG at Westerwaldstrasse 7. Strictly speaking, it didn’t belong to me, but I. Only that I. preferred to screw rather than drive and that’s why I did one round of Taunus tours with it. Because the 500 was much hotter than my 400. It must have been a hundred years ago. I carefully squeeze my way past car parts, ramps and rusty tools until I reach the green-dusty drape. Tense, I lift a corner, discover the black tank, the old, worn hump seat and the golden footrests – it really is. I. just doesn’t part with anything. A tingling sensation spreads inside me, I lift the ceiling a little further. It’s beautiful and terrible at the same time. I. had probably still had some plans in mind and not brought it to an end. Magnificent perforated double discs are on the front wheel, but the rest of the brakes up to the handlebars are missing. Likewise the four-pipe exhaust system and the rear wheel. The fuel from 20 years ago still seems to be there. Au cheek. I lower the cloth again? I’m glad it doesn’t affect me. Just the fungal carburetor battery … .
I go back to the house where I. is making coffee. We chat a little. Yes, yes the old Honda. How about Lottchen? which ran. Battery in, key around and off to the post office, that’s how it would be, for sure. I. has probably not looked under the green cloth for a long time. Together we calculate that it must have been shortly after the Frankfurt garage combo ended. Maybe 13, 14 years ago … Really? Mmm. It doesn’t matter, but the double pane is great, right? From Eckert! Even with reports. Lever and pump would have been more important to me personally. But it’s not my motorcycle. Oh, the missing stuff is all in the basement somewhere.
I’ll be back a week later. Should I give it a try …? Clear. The keys? Well the keys. There was a little leather bag against it, but where that is now … I think it wasn’t such a good idea. But I. promises to make some tea and look for it in the meantime. In the meantime, I made a pilgrimage to the garage again, pulling the tool boxes, tires and cloth aside and the Honda mercilessly into the light. It’s devastating. Like Hildegard Knef after a difficult night. She’s definitely seen better days. Cracked tires with base plates, paintwork and fittings covered in a greasy patina of oil, dust and fly dirt, the bench only hanging loosely on a hinge, the rear end completely cleared, no exhaust, no brakes, no chain, no bike. Why do I go not just to the cinema? Or visit my mother again? Probably because it is. You, with whom I not only unsafe the Taunus, but also made the first big tours. Across the Alps, to the Mediterranean, to Corsica. Moved, I discover the little Corsican head on the side cover, almost smell the diesel of the ferry and the macchia. I sink onto the wobbling hump bench, grab the slim sports handlebar – and everything is back. Everything.
I could just leave it at that for now. Spend a nice afternoon with I., gossiping about the old days, about Galibier and l ?? Iseran and the thin air up there, where the two of you could hardly get over the box, about Corsica and the unbelievable theft, in Calvi, directly from the tent path. And how we found her again, just leaning against a tree somewhere. Memories that Rosamunde Pilcher couldn’t invent more fervently … It would be beautiful and not a bit dirty. Instead, I go to the basement and check out the parts. Completely without obligation.
The cellar. Abyss or paradise, I’m not sure yet. Behind bicycles, leaf rakes, birdhouses, folding grills and flower pots I discover a whole wall of Honda parts carefully sunk into cardboard boxes. Two cubic meters of innards from an estimated three different 500s, as I know two hours and five layers of dirt later. An engine dismantled down to the rearmost gear shaft, several wheels, six side covers, twelve exhaust pipes ?? Even the legendary black four-pipe Termignoni from Italy is there, which attracted every cop in Frankfurt within ten kilometers – the individual parts of certainly four and a half braking systems, a complete moving box full of wiring harnesses, switches, indicators, fittings, alternators, a box of seals of all sizes and when I no longer want to believe in it, I even fish a carburetor battery out of a crate. Cleaned and with 105 main nozzles to change. A find that moves into the league of golden Valentine’s Day gifts. And when I. triumphantly swings a whole range of different broken and bent keys, I’m almost drunk with happiness. Everything is really still there. Even the hideous Becker porter, who couldn’t be killed at the time. And almost screwed up an entire vacation. An avalanche of anecdotes and you-know-it-yourself breaks loose. The wine boxes are within reach next to the crankshaft parts and after a few glasses the deal is in the bag: I.’s vacation is just around the corner and if I feed the cat and water the flowers during that time, I can roam around here unscrewing as long as I want. brilliant!
A week later I quartered myself with a rice bag, rust remover and Sheba cat nibbles. Almost as nice as a beach holiday on Fuerteventura. Instead of sun oil there is WD 40, instead of Henning Mankell Ernst Leverkus. And one of the most beautiful weeks of summer begins. Guarded by Lilli the cat and withering pansies, I put the old machine back together like a puzzle, piece by piece, reconstructing the once familiar work processes. What we did back then with these Hondas. How set, what tuned, where filed, tinkered, sprayed, and rebuilt. It is getting better every hour, the hands find the right turn as if by themselves, the bolts their nuts, the wheels their axles, the brakes between the saddles, the chains on the sprockets, the screws in their torque – at some point everything is up. I can hardly believe it. Only the fender is missing. It is definitely not to be found in the basement. We’d probably saw it off anyway. Rat short and absolutely ABE-free. Certainly. That‘s how you wore it. Just like Magura M-handlebars, hump bench and the ignition lock tinkered up between the fittings. At the bottom of the engine it was definitely too uncool! And the frame: in VW “sun red” and golden “Moto Italia” aluminum pegs on it. Italian ambience … Heaven, we really haven’t missed any possible embellishment. Soichiro Honda can be happy to have been on the other side of the globe. But we thought it was super spicy. A motorcycle had to look like this and not otherwise.
As with the dance lesson ball, I’m excited for the first turn. Click ?? after hours of rust remover, one of the keys actually managed to penetrate the completely corroded lock ?? the red and green lamps in the small handlebar panel glow. She lives! The control instruments of a heart operation couldn’t be more tingly. Umpf, Umpf, a few kicks, then a try with the electric starter. Whereupon the spring button on the rear wall of the garage immediately says goodbye like a catapult, acrid smoke creeps out from under the bench and a hissing short circuit arrows through the cable framework. Out. Good opportunity to consider where the fuses are actually located. Under the side cover, exactly. Filigree glass tubes like from a chemistry laboratory.
Noh Now just kicking. Nothing. Funny actually. Then it occurs to me, the magical little knurled wheel on the carburetor linkage. In normal life, it is responsible for the valve position and correct idling, and it helps half-liter Hondas with a cold start reliably on the jumps. What would an old 500 be without this adjusting wheel? Nothing. Probably dead. And then it happens. The unbelievable. She starts rattling, with all cylinders, no ifs or buts, no rumbling, no swallowing, just runs as if she were still in the garage at Westerwaldstrasse seven. As if the season just started again and we headed into the Taunus. What a motorcycle! Grumbling, she picks up speed, and I quickly jump onto the familiar space between the M-handlebars and the hump, as if I’d never done anything else. 20 years time leap. A trial lap, then out onto the country road. She actually drives. Shaky and tough like an old Hanomag Henschel, and probably only 30 of 48 horses on the harness, but we move. It’s more than I hoped for. Since it hardly brakes, it fits again anyway. Place-name sign after place-name sign appears and disappears, we drive and drive, it feels like back then, all dreams come back to the starting point. Be 20 again, have endless fantasies and almost no answers. I accelerate a little, try the first lean angles on the rock-hard tires, switch around, try all the levers. The fear that something overlooked could suddenly become important, that the brakes would fall off or the engine would crumble, gradually recedes, and I begin to enjoy the few hours that now remain for me. This much too short period of time until it becomes indisputable that an old Honda will never make the world tremble again despite Roland Eckert, Moto-Italia and Giulliari-Hocker. That Hildegard Knef is no longer 30 and that even the 105 main jets no longer tear it out. But until then it will be wonderful. To France and back, 130 kilometers, it could just work out.
Technical data – Honda CB 500 Four
Engine: air-cooled four-cylinder four-stroke in-line engine, bore x stroke 56 x 50.6 mm displacement 499 cm³, one overhead camshaft, two valves per cylinder, 48 hp at 9000 rpm, four Keihin carburettors, o 22 mm. Chassis: double loop frame made of tubular steel, telescopic fork at the front, o xx mm, two spring struts at the rear, hydraulically operated disc brake at the front, o xxx mm (retrofitted: perforated Eckert double disc), drum brake at the rear, 0 xxx mm. Measured values (1974): top speed 178 km / h, acceleration 0-100 km / h 5.7 km / h, weight 183 kg dry. Construction time: 1971 ?? 1978, price (1971): 5595 marks.
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