Honda-SOHC

Fairly sure I’ve seen 750s which are G reg so pre August 69, which claim to be genuine UK bikes Ash, not that they interest me at all but the links go up on this site and I do tend to read all the posts etc that go up. AFAIK only one of the Brighton bikes still exist, the other was broken? Correct?

What strikes me as odd about this discussion is that if you’re right that only 2 750s were officially imported which were sandcast, which I believe is a misnomer as they were low pressure die cast but looked like a sandcast finish so the name stuck, yet when the same is done on the 500s where only 3 were imported no one seems to think that could have happened and keeps claiming it can’t be true.

I thought the 750 was a world wide launch in 69, are you saying the US got them in 68? Or that we didn’t get them till 70?

I’d see Hondas logic in selling a bike first in the US, toe in the water, so to speak, does it sell, yes, then sell it everywhere etc but Europe got the K0 in large numbers, as did lots of other markets, the UK must have been seen in comparison as a piddling little sales market compared to them, plus we had requirements the other markets didn’t like headlamps dipping to the other side etc.

I think we have to take that review in context Ash, they may be praising the switch as it was so much superior to what the British bikes were offering at the time, I seem to recall they had a switch on the headlight bowl which meant you needed to remove a hand off the bars in order to switch them on, plus it was before the 500 reviews came out and as we know it's defect was pointed out then. As you say though, we won't know for sure until someone who was there says the real reason.

I wonder if an enquiry to one of the magazines of the day, like MotorCycle Mechanics or Bike or any that's still going to see if they know. I'd love to know which magazine wrote one off.

What year did the 750k1 come out though Ash? Was it before the 500k0? I’d imagine it may have been as the 750 came out in 69 and Honda never seem to hang about with a new version so probably 70?

I recall vividly the press slating the 500 for its switchgear, you remember me saying one was written off whilst being tested, what if that’s why it got written off? The press rider claims it left him with no lights on a dark road, he goes off the road and hits something, this may or may not be true, he could have claimed this was the reason for the crash when in fact he was drunk, doesn’t matter, Honda can’t afford to take the chance, if they know about it and someone else has an off or worse gets killed they are liable and completely exposed. So what does Honda do? It removes the offending switch and fits a separate one for on/off. They wouldn’t do this without a damned good reason, it’s expensive to change the production line, expensive to have a completely new switch made and tbh it did spoil the look of the handlebar layout with something that clearly looked to be an afterthought. Just looked at the parts book for the 750 and the light switch is a 750 part number and to me it looks like it wasn’t introduced till 71, it shows on the K0/1 parts lists but there is no part number shown so it may have been an addition to the book added later, pics of one taken at the time don’t show one fitted. So not only did Honda change the 500 specs it also changed the 750 specs and that switch is changed for the 550 for a completely different one.
The gearbox fault wasn’t really well known about at the time for that to have been the reason, Honda did know early enough to change the later engines to avoid the problem but that’s info they would have kept secret in order to not damage sales or reputation of the brand.

These are all just theories, until we know for certain it’s all conjecture

Any further with the adjuster blocks John?

A side by side or a one sat on top of the other would be ideal, I know that's asking a lot but there's a really good reason behind it which may also benefit other members and maybe even yourself.

I’d have asked him why the 500 wasn’t imported at all, only the press bikes were imported as far as I can make out. It’s a brand new model, the 2nd in line four and HondaUK act like it didn’t exist, something wrong there.

I did the same with a Vauxhall Astra Mk4 2002 model Ted, took off all the door skins from new, waxoyl inside the doors and in the sills where possible. Sold the car last year after it had been sat on my drive for 13 years and never moved. It was quite modified and he wanted to keep it for when he passed his test, eventually he just bought a sport car and said he didn't want it anymore, made me mad as I could have sold it in 2009 when I took it off the road for a good amount due to all the mods on it.

13 years of standing and the doors and sills were immaculate, no rust at all. Sold it to a scrap dealer in the end who said it was far too good to scrap and put it back on the road, he sold it for £2500 after spending around £1000 on fixing the problems it had.

Parts are getting harder to source Ted, and a lot more expensive when you can, seems to me that we must all try and make the present parts last as long as possible, my 500 will get passed down in the family so it will outlast me and probably whoever inherits it.