Honda-SOHC
SOHC.co.uk Forums => CB350/400 => Topic started by: Laverda Dave on May 25, 2024, 09:36:55 AM
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This month's CBG has an 11 page feature on the CB400/4 to celebrate its 50th Year.
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Problem is Dave ..there are SO many articles on the 400F it's like old hat now .. regurgitating the same old content from other magazines previous issues..
I think they should just reprint my mate Graham Curtis's 400F restoration project he did for Classic Motorcycle Mechanics back in the mid '90's and perhaps bring it back up to date again with extra features. Like listing sources of the best resto stuff not available back then. Like Diego (pikis) Decals for the tank etc. and also telling prospective buyers that, to date and as far as I am aware, nobody sells repro double-skinned exhaust headers ...unless you count the exclusive run done by Sankei this year but as far as I know not being sold by the likes of Yamiya, DS or CMS etc. They could also seek out the girls in the publicity shots to add a bit more glamour to the occasion. May be knocking on a bit now though.
They would also, for a 50th year celebration, have been better doing a feature on the UK Press Bike JGC 606N , owned by a member on here IMHO. But perhaps that may be in the pipeline for another magazine, who knows.
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Here is the link to the resto articles.
This link will self-destruct by this evening so grab it while you can.
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/n10azjpxm2fe498f5bmqe/honda-400-4-restoration.pdf?rlkey=la5ubzje3kkk1q42cc8hpmc2v&st=h6kaaadd&dl=0
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I do agree with you Ash, the articles are always a rehash of what has been said many times before with the same old issues being highlighted of cam chain wear and sticky tensioners etc.
What does grate a bit is every time a magazine writes a feature about a CB400/4 (or any other sohc) they always go to the expert, David Silver for spares advice and of course he's going to plug his own company in the article and state what is available to buy from his company. Don't get me wrong as no doubt without DSS a great deal of spares would be unavailable and I know he is in business to make money but it would be a nice gesture if he gave a discount to VJMC or forum members especially considering all the free publicity he recieves from the articles and the people who restore the bikes using his parts! Maybe a 10% sale of parts in January when we are all busy getting on with our restorations, just something would be nice (and I don't mean free P&P!). There are other people who can supply parts, Nurse Julie for starters and then theres all the invaluable advice and help given on this forum without which most restorations would be impossible or very difficult to complete, its a shame the magazines fail to mention the other alternative suppliers and just stick to the same old people such as DSS and CMSNL. CBG have however spoken to the owners of the three bikes in the feature (all three bikes have stayed in the same family) and this does give the article some real life perspective.
Thanks for posting the restoration articles, I'll be reading those :)
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I know he is in business to make money but it would be a nice gesture if he gave a discount to VJMC or forum members especially considering all the free publicity he receives from the articles and the people who restore the bikes using his parts! Maybe a 10% sale of parts in January when we are all busy getting on with our restorations, just something would be nice (and I don't mean free P&P!).
UKPete on this forum summed it up succinctly "basically, he wouldn't give you the steam of his own p*ss" Bit harsh I know but I think club discount would be a great gesture...in Grahams write-up Tippets of Surbiton gave him a 10% club discount.
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I'll have to get a look at that issue Dave, should be interesting. It is one of classic representation of production engineering from that era I feel, the 400 Four that is.
Thanks for the scans Ash, read through then as got up too early this morning :)
Mr Curtis gives correctly the name of "wet OR dry" abrasive paper, I note :) A friend working in sales for 3M years ago always corrected the mention of "wet & dry" through gritted teeth, as it can't be both at the same time ;D
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"basically, he wouldn't give you the steam of his own p*ss"
I dare say I wouldn't actually want it! ;D
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Mr Curtis gives correctly the name of "wet OR dry" abrasive paper, I note :) A friend working in sales for 3M years ago always corrected the mention of "wet & dry" through gritted teeth, as it can't be both at the same time ;D
Gritted teeth ...love it ... presume 80 grade Nigel.
Graham is a top bloke and really good friend of mine. Evidently Classic & Motorcycle Mechanics paid pretty well for his articles ..he also did a CB250K2 restoration that had been owned by John Nutting and had been acquired by Bob Berry but he never did anything with it ..... so Graham restored it for the magazine.
Reading those articles it seems he got a set of tank transfers from Skellerns of Worcester ('HONDA Super Sport' ..... not the stripes) ... I got mine in 1986 from Fowlers and there was definitely a part number them. But all of the 'experts' ... mainly on F.B. ::) suggest I am talking nonsense and they were never available as a separate Honda part. I remember that I copied all of the part numbers I got from Fowlers into my 1986 work diary ...one of these days I will find it in the loft somewhere and prove 'em all wrong. Unless somebody here has the part numbers of course. I must have phoned a dozen main dealers before I found some at Fowlers and then the bloke in the spares dept. (very knowledgeable as I remember) told me it was the last set they had. At the time there were also some genuine Honda stripes to bling up the somewhat bare tank of the CJ250/360. I guess they may have been from the USA model which did have stripes on the later model that we never got here in the UK.
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I wondered if that was a bit subtle in humour Ash.
Decals etc, I know from a friend working on land fill site in 1980s tbat alot of stock, including many of these decals, went to that operation as they cleared warehouse excess from central distribution. A man from Honda accompanied the skip to ensure content was buried, only for site "totter" to pull all the metal out again afterwards :) all sort of casting, tanks, and general components in there regularly.
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I wondered if that was a bit subtle in humour Ash.
Decals etc, I know from a friend working on land fill site in 1980s that a lot of stock, including many of these decals, went to that operation as they cleared warehouse excess from central distribution. A man from Honda accompanied the skip to ensure content was buried, only for site "totter" to pull all the metal out again afterwards :) all sort of casting, tanks, and general components in there regularly.
But those dumped parts would have originally all had Honda part numbers I guess Nigel. I have never seen a Honda parts book with those tank decals in..but the part number given to me by a dealer meant I could call all of the big Honda dealers to find some ...and it was deffo the standard Honda part number format. I guess Honda must have been pressurised to provide them for customers who didnt want to buy a new tank.
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I know DSS buys most of his stock from dealers getting rid of their old or slow moving stock (or he used to, I guess the retro market has picked up a lot since the 80's & 90's and the stock is now in demand by people like us). Where did DSS buy his initial stock from to get started, was it Honda UK although Nigel's post would make that seem impossible if Honda themselves sent it to landfill?
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Dave .. AFAIK .. which may be b*llo5ks ... a load of stock froma Belgium Hinda warehouse was offered to Sondels where he worked. They didnt want it so he saw an opportunity and bought it to sell on to breakers etc.
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I would guess that sounds right Ash. I know he buys his stock from all over the world; it must be pretty interesting as I would guess it would be between him and CMSNL as to who can get to the spares stash first and claim it!
Got to hand it to DSS though, without him how many of us would be in a position to have restored one of our old bikes back in the 90's. Just wish he would give a deal to the VJMC and SOHC Forum members though and he would probably benefit from it in the long run as more people would restore more bikes and thus order more parts from him.
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The original tank (red) on my 750F1 leaked in the mid eighties probaly 85 or so, I saw an ad in MCN for Honda parts (David Silver spares) and bought a new CB750F2 tank and seat never realising that Silvers would one day grow into such an empire.
In those days they were cheap as chips as well.
Cheers
Dennis
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Went to Debyshire .. near Bakewell at BIL's cottage for the weekend ...stopped on the way at M1 services to get a copy... 'cos nobody seems to stock magazines like that in Bakewell any more since the closing of W.H.Smith there. So picked on up at W.H.S. in Leek on Sunday. Wish I had saved my money... 'cos, as predicted, it was the same old , same old, and less in fact than some of the previous features.
Did you know that D.S. sells lots of 400F parts ;D and is his best seller ... not a lot of people know that ... apart from everyone who owns one and 99% of other Honda owners.
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I agree Ash. There is a hell of a lot of 'recycling' going on of articles in all bike mags these days but I guess that because modern day stuff just doesn't do it unless it's expensive Ducati's and suchlike. What is refreshing to see though is the classic bike magazines are now beginning to focus on 80' bikes and not the previous staple diet of Goldies and Bonnie's from the 50's & 60’s . They obviously have to chase the shifting demographic. But yes, as usual DSS is asked about vintage Honda spares and it's a blatant plug. What a shame there was no mention of any other specialists in the article!
What do you think about the bikes featured, the Read Titan was a bit different although apart from the fairing and colour it was stock. The blue and yellow bikes are both very nice as well.
I'm a bit confused now though about the finish on the quadrant of the clutch housing, both the blue and yellow bikes are supposed to be 100% stock but the quadrant is polished whereas the rest of the case is painted, do you know in your experience if the quadrant is painted or polished?
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Y'know, I have to admit that I am slightly biased re. DSS. I purchased my 400 in 1988, so I am just about getting used to it now. Within a short period, due to my poor storage conditions, it needed a new camchain, new camshaft, and a few rockers. My local dealer in Dagenham at the time did not hold much hope of getting the parts through the official channels. He gave me the phone number of a chap that had set up a business of buying new/old stock from Hinda dealers. A quick phone call resulted in me receiving what I needed using the good old fashioned COD method, Remember that??? This man eventually set up a large warehouse in Suffolk, and 22 years ago I moved house to Suffolk, meaning that he is just a 25 minute ride away along some marvellous roads. For my sins, over the past few years, I have played with a couple of obscure Hondas, an American import CL160, along with a 500cc Bacterian Camel, known as an XBR500. During this period, I had the chance to see inside the warehouse, and the amount of stuff carried is bloody ginormous, and for a vast array of Honda models, not just our beloved 400's. I would imagine, that much of this stuff is not very fast moving off the shelf, and remember, if it's on the shelf, then it ain't in the bank. I remember working in a motor parts distribution warehouse, and seeing the look of glee on a customer's face when he realised that you stocked a very rare part, and the subject of discount was not even mentioned. In a moment of madness, 2 years ago I bought a GB250 Japanese domestic market only model, some of the bits are common to other models so DSS have been able to help out. I needed an air filter, the only place that had one was Megazip in Japan, now, if you want ultra expensive along with unbelievable postage costs, that's the place to go. Regarding magazine articles, I'm old enough to remember the theatrical claims that were published some years ago, so, lots of stuff is re-gurgitated to make column-inches. This is why we need good forums such as this one. The rain is getting warmer, so it must be summer, stay safe everyone. Mike.
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Y'know, I have to admit that I am slightly biased re. DSS.
I think possibly everyone here (but Trigger will deny it outright ;D) owes a lot to DS ... I bought from him in 1986 when he was first advertising in Motor Cycle News and frankly a lot of the rare NOS parts I have had have come from him directly or indirectly ... i.e. time after time you buy NOS parts and it turns out their last source was from DS years ago. He's also a nice bloke if you meet him in person. I just wish he would give a club discount and review his postage charge policy though. You jump suddenly from a reasonable postage charge about 3 quid plus VAT to £7.50 plus VAT for often a tiny jiffy bag of parts with the goods themselves being less than £25. I also think that the imported bikes DS sells are very reasonably priced and some of them are in pretty amazing original condition ... without rare parts being robbed from them like the likes of DK do.
The problem with those articles though is they mostly don't mention sources of parts other than DS or CMS. For instance ..how about Yamiya in Japan or Julie on here. My best advice if you are restoring a 750 or 400 is get yourself a friend in Japan. ..that's what I did yonks ago. Some of the stuff on Yahoo Japan is amazingly rare and sometimes goes for a bargain price. If you want to access Yahoo.jp directly though (instead of a 3rd party company like Jauce) then you have to use a VPN and set your location to Tokyo, Japan.