1995 HONDA
CR500R - "Back in the Saddle"
I have really enjoyed every CR500 I've ever had. The last one was my 1990, which I sold back in "Aught-Six" to finance the new Husqvarna TE510. The 1990 was a beautiful bike, and I wish I could have kept it AND bought the Husky. However, here it is, only 16 short months later, and now I have the TE510 AND a newer CR500. Yeah!
I had really enjoyed the TE510 until I rode a friends XR650R, which he had gotten plated and street legal. I knew the Husky was twice the dirt bike, but Oh! That Grunt! That Torque!
There was a definite "Open Class" feel to the big XR that the (relatively) nimble Husky just didn't seem to have.
Think about it, if the new class of high revving four stroke 450's are designed to compete against 250cc two strokes, then my 510 fits in at about equal to a 300cc two stroke. Even if you say "Well the 450 four strokes have much more power than a 250cc two stroke...", OK, but they're still in the same class. So quit nit-picking. Where does that put the TRUE open class monsters like the mighty 500cc two stroke? I figured I'd need to get something like a Husaberg F650E if I wanted a four stroke with the "Ooomph" that my previous CR500 had had.
So I set out to find one, and found a couple great deals on 'Bergs from a few dealers. When I came home and told my darling wife I was about to spend another $9,000.00 on yet another motorcycle, she very nearly castrated me.
Which was fine (the spousal objection, not the castration), as I looked like a hero when I next announced that I could go out and spend a paltry $1500 on another CR500R, which is exactly what I really wanted to do in the first place.
So I did.
As Bought:
Here's the bike as soon as I brought it home. For my $1550, I got a good, solid CR with a couple known issues. It wasn't as good a deal as I had gotten with the 1990 CR, and in fact, the clean exterior held a few surprises for me. Still, it's a '95 for $1550. Every other CR I'd seen lately had either been a late '80's model, or somewhere between $2500-$3500 dollars. This one was priced right.
When I bought it, the previous owner had mentioned the clutch "dragged a little, but could be adjusted". I've been around dirt bikes long enough to recognize it would be a bit more than that, but I figured for the price of a few new clutch plates, it wasn't a deal breaker.
I bought a new set of plates and tore into the engine. What I found nearly made me do a back flip. It wasn't the plates. It was the basket. With more sharp teeth than Tyrannosaurus Rex.
"Right", I thought in retrospect, "Slip=plates, Drag=Basket". OK, so I flunked DIRTBIKE CLUTCH: 101. I must have been drunk that day.
Big deal. Leave me alone.
I decided to fix things with A Hinson Racing billet aluminum unit. Very nice!
The hardest part (quite easy, but it had me spooked when I read the instructions), was removing the gear from the old unit and installing it in the new Hinson unit. First you grind the rivets off the back of the stock basket and remove the plate and rubber bushings. Then you bake the new basket in an oven for a specified time at a certain temperature, while chilling the stock gear in the freezer. It's wonderful when SHOP meets KITCHEN. The wife didn't mind, because she never found out.
The temperature difference makes the gear drop effortlessly into the new basket without a press or any hammering at all. Then it's just a matter of using plenty of Red Loctite, and peening the bolts to make sure they don't catastrophically back out...turned out to be real easy. It was a lot harder just getting the clutch side cover off. Had to take half the bike apart just to get at it!
Another issue I discovered, is that all the paint had been worn off of the sub-frame by the steel staples Yo'Bob had used when re-covering the seat sometime over the last 12 years. Definitely a need for some restoration work here. Hmmm. Paint, or Powder-coat? The age old question...
Years of abuse have left their marks here. That's rust. Lots of it. Not too deep, but definitely icky looking. The rest of the frame is in pretty good shape. Maybe the frame down restoration can wait 'til next summer.
Other than that, the bikes pretty good. The bearings are all tight, the frame, bars and levers are all excellent. No oil leaks. I didn't like the colors "dude" had on it, so I ordered up some replacement plastic. The good folks at UFO provided me with white number plates and fork sliders, and red fenders and radiator covers.
With the new white number plates:
Here is the bike as it is now, with new fenders, seat cover, Pro Circuit "Factory Sound" 304 silencer, radiator covers, andnew, custom made, ultra cool reproduction '88 CR500 tank stickers. I always thought that years logo was the coolest, and was damned sure I didn't want any valve-heads to think my 500 was a mere 250.
I still haven't mounted the new fork slider plastic, which is white, nor put on my numbers. There's a small dent in the front rim, so I'm thinking about nifty new gold rims front and rear...along with that would come new tires - IRC M5B for the back. My favorite! Tires are a must-have, rims are still on the options block.
I found a nasty crack in the FMF Gnarly and welded it up at the same time I put in the VForce reed cage and added the Pro Circuit 304 silencer. That was a mistake, as I got a HUMONGEOUS increase in mid-range power. Yippee! Hit the jack pot! The problem is, I can't properly ascertain which of these three things brought the power band to life. It could have been any of the three, but the big hit is back, and that's good. It must have been the seat cover...
I had been a little disappointed with the power delivery on this bike since I got it. There was lots of it, sure, but it was just too damned linear, like a four stroke. I am much happier now. Twist the throttle and HANG ON! Yippee! Like a rocket ship. Like a ride at the fair. This is about fun, right? Right. Stark terror is commonly found right next to the fun department. Bah-WAAAAAP!
The last time I had it out, I spent some time finally dialing the suspension in "just so", and with the brawling kick the current pipe/silencer combo put on it, I'm really loving this bike right now. It took a while to get it to where my '90 CR500 was, but now that the mid-range "hit" is back, and the suspension is right, it's truly a force to be reckoned with. The new graphics and colors help give it that "new bike" feel too, which also is pretty cool for a bike that's now 12 years old. I'm happy.
Here we are doing what it does best -
Roto-tilling:
...and flying:
CR500R
...everything else is for pussies!