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78 honda cx500 CR....

9K views 48 replies 17 participants last post by  Geeto67 
#1 ·
hello. i am wondering if 2000$ is a fair price for this bike. seller says it runs great w/no problems and has a clean title.



thanks!!!
 
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#2 ·
2K seems a little steep to me. I think this particular bike is a little cosmetically challenged with the flat black paint and no fenders. The hammerhead shocks are way cool and I like the general look. Personally, I would get the bike especially, if the price was a little lower, but if 2K is managable for you then go for it. You don't see too many cafe CX500s around. I wonder if a CX650 motor would just bolt in?
Ken

AHRMA 412
Vintage racing - old guys on old bikes
 
#3 ·
yeah...i'm a little new to this stuff...but i believe i have a keen eye and thought the same thing cosmetically. thanks for the advice. i may send the guy an email asking if he will take 250$ or so off. but just like you said....the overall "look" of the bike...is pretty nice.

thanks again!!!!
cheers!!!!
 
#4 ·
I think the price is quite high for a stripped down CX500, maybe pay $1200 for it. I think these bikes don't bring big money as they kind of look like air-compressors on wheels and they can be picked up fairly cheaply. The 650 was the one that had some grunt. BUT!!, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, if you like it and are happy paying that, then go for it. I can't say that I've never overpaid for something I fancied at the time.

Dgy
 
#5 ·
im with dgy, the turbo was the hotrod. the cxs have thier own bunch of issues. i think they run rich usually so they run too cold. thats a cool looking one though. i think maybe a bit hi too. but then again, if thats what you want, you couldnt build it for that much. personally, i think it looks like a guzzi.

jc
 
#7 ·
that's a good question Kenessex. i would love to hear if someone has successfully installed a 650....or if they know it's a no problem type of deal. i'm going to do a bit more research....see if the guy will get to 1500. if so, you may be seeing a bit more of me here. also, this is my first post here so....i'm keith. living in chicago. i appreciate the advice so far.

cheers
 
#8 ·
I agree with everyone here i would give 1000 maybe
I nice stock 650 turbo is a bad bike i ride with a few guys that have them very cool 80s machine
I dont think the CX was flat tracked i could be wrong But i think it was the VT 500 or Ascot

84 FJ110
77 CB50 Cafe bike now
76 parts bike
74 Suzuki t500 soon to be on the road
 
#9 ·
The CX was used as a flat tracker. Honda turned it sideways and converted it to a chain drive. Then they stuck it in a C&J frame. I don,t remember who they had race it.
As far as the pictured CX goes, I think it is a good starting point and the seat and shocks are way cool. If it were me I would start shopping e-gay for more cool bits. I would look for carbs off a cx650, wheels off a CX turbo, some cool fenders and a front end off a VF500 interceptor (dual discs). I would then look at making or finding an exhaust that would look cool, maybe a dual high exit system that comes out under the tail section. and a fly screen on the front cowl.

Of course that is just my opinion and I might be wrong.
Ken


AHRMA 412
Vintage racing - old guys on old bikes
 
#10 ·
I like the look, but there are way better bikes than the cx500 for 2K (ahem..cb750..ahem...gs750...cough...ahem).

The cx500 is a heavy lump. Top heavy to boot. Cool for the oddness factor but unless you weigh 150lbs or less you aren't going to be giving hell to anything else on the street.
 
#12 ·
I heard these bikes had reliability issues. The only person I know who had one seemed to bear this out, his was always breaking down.
I think you'd be way better off looking for a stock one that still has decent paint, and finding your own Cafe seat...but that's just me. $2K seems WAAAY to much.....they weren't exactly highly sought bikes, so you should be able to find a stocker for about 1/3 of that, leaving plenty of $$ to make it truly yours.

But hey, if you like it & the price doesn't faze you, have at it!
 
#13 ·
quote:
I heard these bikes had reliability issues. The only person I know who had one seemed to bear this out, his was always breaking down.
I think you'd be way better off looking for a stock one that still has decent paint, and finding your own Cafe seat...but that's just me. $2K seems WAAAY to much.....they weren't exactly highly sought bikes, so you should be able to find a stocker for about 1/3 of that, leaving plenty of $$ to make it truly yours.

But hey, if you like it & the price doesn't faze you, have at it!
I'm with you on this, way too much money (it is a 500cc four stroke that weighs a ton afterall) and not every cx500 is a gem. For some reason I have heard of cx500s being the most unreliable bike and others being able to do 100,000 miles, I think the earlier ones are the most troubled. People who own them love them for some stupid reason - I've ridden them and I can't figure out why. They did make a turbo cx500 and although they also have their issues it would probably be the only cx500 I would consider owning just for the cache of owning a turbo factory bike.

oh, and the shaft drive jacking is so bad on some of them that I think they handle funny.

They also have to be the most abandoned bike in the city. This year alone I have counted four abandoned cx500s. In 2004 there were five abandoned near my work, for a total of eight I saw the NYC parking disposed of.

Anybody need a cx500 rear drive? (the part that the shaf attaches to un the rear wheel). A buddy of mine gave me a good one when I helped him clean out his garage.

I hear a lot of people refer to this bike as the poor man's moto guzzi. And to a certain extent it does ride like one (that tractor like pull down low), but for $2000 you can actually own a motoguzzi and they are bigger displacement and ride much better.

Edited by - Geeto67 on Dec 20 2006 6:59:20 PM
 
#14 ·
Well, we can agree to disagree.
The problems these bikes had are these two:
1). Stator / Control unit
2). water pump seals.

There was a factory problem with the cam chain guard that got taken care off by Honda, recalling the bikes and installing new remodeled cam chains.( pre 81 bikes)

The stator problem happened because the stator which charges the control unit would get excesively hot due to the location of the stator over the hot motor.

CX's made after 82 as well as the GL 500 and the 650 have improved control units and stators that have no problems.

The problem with the water pump seals was caused mainly by the use of a wrong kind of coolant. The other reason is a bike that seats for years w/no use.

This can be avoided by using the recommended coolant.

I believe there is a great deal of misunderstanding about this bike. There must be a reason why there is so many CX clubs all over the world, mainly in Europe, Germany, France, Denmark,Sweden....and in the US as well as in Japan.
I always liked rotary engines, and had several Mazda cars with rotary engines. Ask any piston engine mechanic, ( 95% of mechanics know nothing about a rotary engine )about Mazda rotary cars, and they will tell you in no time," Those engines are trash".

The rotary engines are the smoothest engines, with great power and performance, and with about less than half the number of enguine parts a piston engine has. But, I heard that all the time.
I am sure the rotary engines failed to make inroads in the US mainly because of piston engine mechanics that would talk bad about the aformentioned motor, rather than accept the fact they did not understand it. I can see a car ownwer, pulling into a garage in the hearthland of america, to be told that his engine was crap.

If I would had listened to those anti rotary engined guys, instead of hanging in with the rotary enthusiasts, and learning about the engines, the excentric shaft, the rotors, seals, peripheral ports,bridge ports... etc...then I would be saying today....rotary engines suck.

But, one thing is true, we live in democracy and freedom of expresion, we are free to think and say what we want. We agree on that!

:)

Cafe racer DOHC CB750F

http://cardomain.com/id/jaimesix

Edited by - jaimesix on Dec 21 2006 02:41:19 AM

Edited by - jaimesix on Dec 21 2006 02:42:22 AM
 
#15 ·
What is all this fucking crap about rotary engines? The CX500 is a piston V-twin.

You want a rotary go buy a Suzuki RE-5 (yeah there is a combination for success a 500cc single rotaty mill in a 500+ lbs motorcycle - note the sarcasm). I like rotary engines, I think they are an under utilized design, but in order for the world to embrace a rotary motorcycle they have to do something better than stick an underpowered lump in an overly heavy (but good looking) motorcycle. I don;t think you give enough mechanics credit about rotarys - most of the ones I know and have worked with like the engine. The only reason they refer to them as trash is the only time they see them is when there is a catastrophic problem (most of which are caused by abuse anyway).

All 1979-1981 hondas seem to have electrical problems in general. The cb750s had ignition controller problems, starter problems, etc. You buy an early 80's honda electrical issues are something you expect on every bike. Same with the came chain and/or tensioner. The reason you see so few DOHC CBs these days is that half of them cut their engines in half when the chain let go. CBs and CXs may seem common for a 20 year old bike now but back then those bikes were everywhere. I remember being able to count 5 cb1100fs in Queens alone and now the only one I know of is in yonkers. Those CXs were everywhere too, used to be every motorcycle shop had one or two in for service.Now I see them a lot less frequent.

the CX500 and 650 were built at a time when the motorcycle community was embracing transposed v-twins. The engines themselves are farm equipment engines, and as such they have tractor like ride quality. The old musclecar like pull from idle that makes you think you are going fast, it is a good thing for a roadster to have but I wouldn't label it a performance motorcycle. The bike is different, and people love different motorcycles. In my world of motorcycles I would probably give it a "not that bad" or "pretty good" compared to some of the other viciously appling lumps out there (Suzuki Tempter anyone?)

All shaft drive bikes are going to have some form of jacking. BMW has made great strides in almost eliminating it from their bikes but you aren't going to find that on a 20 year old honda. All opposed engines are going to torque you over when you rev at idle, it is inherent in the engine. These are things you have to live with owning a v-twin whose cylinders touch your knees.

At least moto guzzi's are 750, 850 and 1000.

As for problems, every bike has its own problems. Until you live with a bike you can't just say these are the only problems you are going to have. My buddy went through three drive units, a transmission, two ignition modules, a stator, a cylinder head and a god knows how many plugs, cylinder head gaskets, and carb rebuild kits.

The turbos were fond of having their own type of problems too, namely head gaskets and cylinder rings (from owners trying to increase the boost).

The Edsel has a great following too...just not when it was new.



Edited by - Geeto67 on Dec 21 2006 12:29:17 PM
 
#16 ·
The CX500 had a few more problems besides the water pump issue and the stator. They also are prone to wearing out the cam and lifers, which had a tendency to take out the bottom end rod bearings. If the CX has a deep in engine knock suspect the bottom end. They also would tend to leak at the waterpump mechanical seal. That seal is replaceble, but not easy to install properly so it doesn't get distorted and leak. The rubber o-rings on the coolant pipes also tend to leak. I would suspect that most of the abandoned ones have bum motors.
The good news is that the engine is easy to pull out of the frame and not too bad to rebuild if you need to. The CX650 was pretty well sorted out but only came as the custom style. It might be fun to get a 500 and a 650 and combine the best of both to make a cool Cafe.

Ken

AHRMA 412
Vintage racing - old guys on old bikes
 
#17 ·
About the rotary engine reference , it is you who made a fucking crap remark about it . In my response, I made reference to the common misunderstanding the regular piston engine mechanics ( and I am talking about cars, not rotary bikes, I am not a dork to imply the the CX is a rotary bike, I never said that...) have about rotary engines. I wrote , in very readable print, "MAZDA".

If you can not take a response w/o retorting , that is your problem.


Cool off dude....your liver must be burning...if not already gone from so much hostility.

Cafe racer DOHC CB750F

http://cardomain.com/id/jaimesix
 
#18 ·
i never would have thought about building a cafe racer out of my cx500, i've had it out in the shed for 6 years now with a tarp over it. maybe i ought to think about doing something with it now.........

some people are like slinkies, basically useless but they still make me smile when i push them down the stairs
 
#19 ·
quote:
About the rotary engine reference , it is you who made a fucking crap remark about it . In my response, I made reference to the common misunderstanding the regular piston engine mechanics ( and I am talking about cars, not rotary bikes, I am not a dork to imply the the CX is a rotary bike, I never said that...) have about rotary engines. I wrote , in very readable print, "MAZDA".

If you can not take a response w/o retorting , that is your problem.


Cool off dude....your liver must be burning...if not already gone from so much hostility.

Cafe racer DOHC CB750F

http://cardomain.com/id/jaimesix
Dude,

I come here to use fowl language. It is one of the few boards I can get away with doing it on. I don't really care about offending people, but I am not really upset or hostile about anything. I just like to cuss.

and this agree to disagree bullcrap is a pantload. Be a man and just disagree, stop worring about who you are going to offend. I rarely get offended at things (unless your branson - then I do it on principle) so just state your opinion (hopefully built on expirence and research and not what the cx owners message board says).

Jesus himself did not ride the cx500 over here, it is just a slightly better than medicore bike because it is weird. Just because someone asks a lot of money for one doesn't mean the bike is valuable.

Sure you can do something cool with it but something cool can be done with anything if you are willing to do the work.
 
#21 ·
quote:

Sure you can do something cool with it but something cool can be done with anything if you are willing to do the work.
Amen.

And a CX500 is not an underappreciated milestone (RE500) cool but misunderstood bike (Ascot) sporty but forgotten (SOHC CB750F) or really anything else cool.

I have a bad association with CX500s because the only guys I've ever met that have one are kinda sleazy broke guys with a bad attitude and and a drug problem. Apartment complex parking lots in the bad part of town are full of 'em for some reason, or at least were 10 years ago.

For $500, sure, $1000 even, but $2000 for a CX with a flat black paint job? No Freakin' way.
 
#20 ·
quote:

Sure you can do something cool with it but something cool can be done with anything if you are willing to do the work.
Amen.

And a CX500 is not an underappreciated milestone (RE500) cool but misunderstood bike (Ascot) sporty but forgotten (SOHC CB750F) or really anything else cool.

I have a bad association with CX500s because the only guys I've ever met that have one are kinda sleazy broke guys with a bad attitude and and a drug problem. Apartment complex parking lots in the bad part of town are full of 'em for some reason, or at least were 10 years ago.

For $500, sure, $1000 even, but $2000 for a CX with a flat black paint job? No Freakin' way.
 
#22 ·
quote:

Dude,

I come here to use fowl language. It is one of the few boards I can get away with doing it on. I don't really care about offending people, but I am not really upset or hostile about anything. I just like to cuss.

and this agree to disagree bullcrap is a pantload. Be a man and just disagree, stop worring about who you are going to offend. I rarely get offended at things (unless your branson - then I do it on principle) so just state your opinion (hopefully built on expirence and research and not what the cx owners message board says).

Jesus himself did not ride the cx500 over here, it is just a slightly better than medicore bike because it is weird. Just because someone asks a lot of money for one doesn't mean the bike is valuable.

Sure you can do something cool with it but something cool can be done with anything if you are willing to do the work.
I see, it is about "being a man". You are "The man" because you swear and cuss , so according to you I need to become a man because I should not think about offending others.
Clever manipulation, but not this time.
My argument is based not on your choice of words, but on the content of your message.
The hostility and animosity come together with your style of writing, swear words and unbutressed remarks look very hostile.
I never implied anything about the CX being a rotary engine. Then you try to twist it again and make it seem like the point of the argument is your choice of words.
Respect for other people is not the aquivalent of " not being a man".
You have some serious issues.....but according to you, you are a man because you swear, you attribute false statements to others, a man is a conflicting borish person.

Not in my world.

Have a nice evening..... cool off.....do not try so hard to be a man!

Cafe racer DOHC CB750F

http://cardomain.com/id/jaimesix
 
#23 ·
quote:

Dude,

I come here to use fowl language. It is one of the few boards I can get away with doing it on. I don't really care about offending people, but I am not really upset or hostile about anything. I just like to cuss.

and this agree to disagree bullcrap is a pantload. Be a man and just disagree, stop worring about who you are going to offend. I rarely get offended at things (unless your branson - then I do it on principle) so just state your opinion (hopefully built on expirence and research and not what the cx owners message board says).

Jesus himself did not ride the cx500 over here, it is just a slightly better than medicore bike because it is weird. Just because someone asks a lot of money for one doesn't mean the bike is valuable.

Sure you can do something cool with it but something cool can be done with anything if you are willing to do the work.
I see, it is about "being a man". You are "The man" because you swear and cuss , so according to you I need to become a man because I should not think about offending others.
Clever manipulation, but not this time.
My argument is based not on your choice of words, but on the content of your message.
The hostility and animosity come together with your style of writing, swear words and unbutressed remarks look very hostile.
I never implied anything about the CX being a rotary engine. Then you try to twist it again and make it seem like the point of the argument is your choice of words.
Respect for other people is not the aquivalent of " not being a man".
You have some serious issues.....but according to you, you are a man because you swear, you attribute false statements to others, a man is a conflicting borish person.

Not in my world.

Have a nice evening..... cool off.....do not try so hard to be a man!

Cafe racer DOHC CB750F

http://cardomain.com/id/jaimesix
 
#27 ·
quote:
quote:

Dude,


and this agree to disagree bullcrap is a pantload. Be a man and just disagree, stop worring about who you are going to offend. I rarely get offended at things (unless your branson - then I do it on principle) so just state your opinion (hopefully built on expirence and research and not what the cx owners message board says).
I see, it is about "being a man". You are "The man" because you swear and cuss , so according to you I need to become a man because I should not think about offending others.
Clever manipulation, but not this time.
My argument is based not on your choice of words, but on the content of your message.
The hostility and animosity come together with your style of writing, swear words and unbutressed remarks look very hostile.
I never implied anything about the CX being a rotary engine. Then you try to twist it again and make it seem like the point of the argument is your choice of words.
Respect for other people is not the aquivalent of " not being a man".
You have some serious issues.....but according to you, you are a man because you swear, you attribute false statements to others, a man is a conflicting borish person.

Not in my world.

Have a nice evening..... cool off.....do not try so hard to be a man!

Cafe racer DOHC CB750F

http://cardomain.com/id/jaimesix
No, I am saying "be a man" because you don't say what you mean - you qualify everything with some trap door statement beforehand so if need be you can abandon your position. This is the internet, no matter what someobody is going to disagree with you and tell you your wrong anyway so saying "hey let's just agree to disagree" is bullshit.
 
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