1984 Honda Sabre 700

[CUBuffs]

Hey Gents,

I've got a line on an 84 Honda Sabre with 8500 miles on it. It looks almost like showroom condition. I know looks can be deceiving so I plan on checking compression, etc. in the next couple days.

Does anyone have any experience with a Sabre. The guy is asking $1600. Comments are appreciated!

[Geezer]

The early V4 Hondas had allsorts of cam bearing problems and it isn't easily fixed.

After having worked on them for years, I wouldn’t buy one unless I was going to part it out.

Geezer

[trbig]

I hate to say it, but I agree with Geezer. Do a search in a couple bike forums, and you will run across alot of the stories about those early 80's Hondas like the Magna's and such.
On the other hand, if it runs well now and is in excellent condition, another option if you had the time and space, would be to ride it a while.... then if/ when it breaks, you could probably get your money back parting it out. There's always someone looking for the older bike parts.

Tod

[GNEPIG]

.. yeah, we had someone bring one of those to the shop i worked at in 1998. he was crying about the noise the top end was making, when the shop owner told him it was going to cost more to fix it then the bike was worth, he got pissed. but hey, it was hondas mistake Roy said. the dude went away steamin. but the next time we saw him he was on a nice lookin KZ1100 and was all smiles.
.. it's a damn shame, the saber was kind of fast and it looked kinda mean, but it handled like crap to me. there is a fix for the cam bearing problems before it happens but i dont think it's an easy one. look for it on a honda web site.

[CUBuffs]

Yah, I've been reading about the problems with the cam lobes pitting; however, some owners say they have never had a problem. Some owners say that even if the lobes do have a little pitting it's not enough to impact performance. There is an oil kit fix for them. If this were an 1100 I would probably go for it, but since it's only a 700 I'm not to sure. Plus his asking price seems pretty high at $1600.

[Geezer]

It's too band Honda discontinued their in line 4's for those crappy V4s.

To make it worse, when the V4s would fail under warranty, Honda would replace the bad parts with the same poorly designed parts. The point was to get them out of warranty and out of Honda's responsibility. The owners of the VF series bikes should have filed a class-action lawsuit against Honda… I can remember several other bad bikes that the big 4 got away with foisting off on the American public.

Honda proved they understood the problem when they released the limited edition VFR750. The cam bearings were completely resigned and it used gear driven cams. Honda should have retrofitted all the VF series bikes with those cylinder heads.

Geezer

[Geezer]

The problem isn't the cam lobes. It's how the cams are mounted and the oiling system to the head. The cam bearing is basically a hook with an open place for oil to splash on the cam to lube the bearing.

If Honda had used a full circle, pressure feed oiling system to cam bearings; the cams would have been fine. As it is once the bearings are chewed up, the cylinder head is trash.

If I were a machinist, I’d work up a way to rebuild the heads with proper bearings. I’m sure if the work could be done for a reasonable price, the market would beat a path… Also the Interceptor wasn’t all that bad handling and with the cams fixed, would be good back road stormer.

Geezer

Originally posted by CUBuffs
Yah, I've been reading about the problems with the cam lobes pitting; however, some owners say they have never had a problem.