Bike Build/Flip: 1985 Honda V65 Sabre Part 2

The wonder. The sound. The glory. The majesty. The feel. The sensation. All great reasons to use a bidet. Also great reasons to ride a V65 Sabre.


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Check out Part 1 here.


One of the most fun and rewarding parts of owning a motorcycle is “making it yours”. Unfortunately, this phenomenon is most commonly expressed in one of two ways:

  1. Purchasing some combination of mass-produced accessories, then bolting them to the bike, thereby making oneself stand out from the crowd…of other motorcyclists that purchase the exact same mass-produced accessories in a slightly different combination.
  2. Totally devoid of a reasonable budget for mass-produced accessories or any actual mechanical ability, tools such as an angle grinder, Sawzall, and can of flat black spray paint (more recently superseded by the can of Plasti Dip) are used to reduce the motorcycle’s function until the motorcyclist has run out of grinding wheels, paint, or the motorcycle has ceased to work at all. These are called “Bobbers,” and their primary function is no longer efficient, fast, comfortable, enjoyable transportation, but instead to “turn heads”. Unfortunately, judging merit based on the “turns heads” metric would also favor traffic accidents or a bum peeing on a building.

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Also this abomination.

I’m not sure why “turns heads” is considered a positive thing, but it is a thing.

Anyway, I wanted to focus my modifications on enhancing functionality, especially considering how much I hated riding the last bike I built where I focused on looks over function.


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But it turned heads!1!!


The first thing to do, then, was enhance looks. The Rifle Nightflight fairing looked good, but the color scheme didn’t go with the rest of the bike. I masked it off and hit it with some Ford Medium Charcoal Metallic, then red pinstripes. It turned out really well.

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My pride in the foreground, my shame in the background.

With that taken care of, I rode it for the rest of the season like that, then parked it at my in-law’s place for the winter.

Come spring, I decided this was the bike that I would ride to the yearly Nighthawk Forums rally in North Carolina. It would be 1000 miles of interstate riding, followed by 1000 miles of curvy mountain road riding, capped off by 1000 miles of interstate riding to get back home. Not a bad way to spend 7 days, right?

I kicked it off with a carb rebuild. The V4 carb rack is notoriously hard to get to, then also hard to disassemble and reassemble without losing any small parts or your mind. Overall I found it more involved than an inline-4, but not impossible.

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Carbs disassembled, complete with jpg corruption.

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Back together

And reinstalled in the bike. Forgive the terrible quality photos, these photos were taken with a Blackberry. My only excuse for Blackberry ownership is that it was 2011 and I was one month away from upgrading to a Galaxy.

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Remember in my first post when I mentioned that the test ride disappointed me? I would have described the Sabre’s power delivery as “smooth” and “adequate.” After doing a proper valve adjustment and thorough carb cleaning, I described the feeling of whacking the throttle wide open as, “HOLY CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP!” I bet I gained 15-20 horsepower right there. During my test ride after reinstalling the carbs, I pulled away from the first red light, got up to 5000rpm in 1st, and as I have done many times before, whacked the throttle wide open. This time it lofted the front tire in the air, and on the shift to second the tire came right back up. I laughed maniacally for about three miles after that. It was fast. Like…the car that was next to me at the stoplight wasn’t through the intersection yet and I was already three stoplights ahead.

With more power than any human reasonably needs, it was time to focus on the rest of the chassis to make sure it was capable of backing up that straight line performance. Off with…everything!

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I grabbed the rear shock from a CBR600 F3 from eBay for $30. I then had to mock up a weldment to adapt it to the Sabre’s chassis. I made a fixture to put the attachment points in the right locations.

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Then added material to get the two ends connected.

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Old and busted Sabre shock up top, new hotness CBR shock down below.

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And installed:

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Bonus points for color matching the spring!

Next up was the front suspension. The Sabre originally came with simple damper-rod forks equipped with Honda’s TRAC anti-dive setup. I decided to adapt a set of RaceTech Gold Valve Cartridge Emulators – these would allow full adjustability and tuning of high and low speed compression damping independently of one another. This means the suspension can be compliant over bumps in the road, but firm under braking and more stable when hitting bumps mid-corner.

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The emulators sit on top of the stock damping rod and under the fork spring. Fork oil is directed through the passageways in the emulator, allowing all suspension tuning to be done via the emulator.

I have surprisingly few photos of the installation process, but here I am drilling out the damping rods to bypass their effect and leave all suspension behavior up to the emulators.

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Here’s the fork set up for assembly, including emulators, new fork seals, Progressive springs, and fresh fluid.

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While I was in the front end, I pulled the stock steering head ball bearings out and replaced them with new tapered bearings.

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I checked the old brake pads and found this:

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So those got replaced, and I went ahead and rebuilt the calipers with all new dust and piston seals.

The tires the came on the bike were old and weathered, so I replaced them with Metzler Lasertecs. Replaced the wheels bearings as well.

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With all of that done, I could reassemble the bike.

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And with that I took it for nice long shakedown run.

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When we wrap this up in the next installation, I’ll cover my 3000 mile trip to North Carolina and the eventual sale.


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1985 V65 Sabre Part 3

One thought to “Bike Build/Flip: 1985 Honda V65 Sabre Part 2”

  1. Mikael, I also have an 85 Sabre in pristine condition until yesterday when I dropped it and creased the tank.I am heartbroken. Any ideas on finding someone who may be able to sell a replacement gas tank?

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