I worked on a neighbors Magna that had been sitting for years and needed the fuel system and carbs cleaned - he gave me the bike for free just to get it out of his garage.

The first time I took the carbs off for cleaning took 4 hours as I discovered how to take things apart.   It is a real puzzle, and the metal coolant lines needed to come off in the process, and one screw that holds the pipe to the cylinder was a real bugger to access.  I finally discovered that I needed to use a 1/4" drive socket, a flex drive, and a 2' long extension and snake the whole affair down past the top tube and wiring harness - as you could not get any kind of wrench on it.  The CV slide diaphragms needed to be replaced and the factory no longer makes them, thankfully there was an aftermarket source.  I got the bike back together with a couple full days work to clean the 4 carbs and install the diaphragms, and it ran fine - but one of the O-rings on the steel coolant lines was leaking.

The second time I took it apart went much faster as I just had to repeat the parts removal without as much thinking....I believe it took 2 hours to get it apart and 3 to get it back together.  I replaced the O-rings on both ends of the 2 steel coolant lines.  It ran fine and there were no coolant leaks - but one of the plastic tubes that runs fuel between the carbs had developed a leak.

The 3rd time I took it apart was painful......I was just getting tired of working on this dang bike.  The 4 carbs all bolt together - the back two are in a normal horizontal orientation and the front two are steeply sloped forward) - and there are plastic pipes with O-rings that pass the fuel between them.  The O-rings or pipes are no longer available from Honda.....thankfully somebody makes new ones from metal and I was able to take the carbs apart again and install them.

Once back together the bike ran fine, and was smooth and pretty darn quick (750cc version).  I had worked on it for hours and hours and hours over a period of a month while I waited for parts to arrive - and since the bike was 30 years old I wondered what would break next?  I put it on Craigslist and sold it.......and I kept half the money and gave half to my neighbor.

So.......I just want to make you aware that this bike is a real pain to work on, and most of the parts are no longer available from Honda.    

I've been seriously looking at this low-mileage (14k miles) 1988 Super Magna . . .

Serowbot wrote on 07/13/19 at 09:04:54:


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I didn't notice that.  

Not my house.  Not my bike.

A guy I used to work with bought on a couple of year ago. One thing he found out was that if you wanted to keep the stock tire sizes, the only one for the front was a Dunlop D401 (which is a Harley tire  )

One of my brothers had a V-65 , is that the same motor ?   Well , he just loved his , but he got tired of those 4-carbs needing so much attention and now rides a  old 1200 Sportster with a single carb. .  

The V45 (750 cc) and V65 (1100 cc) were two different engines but of almost the exact same design:  90 degree V-4s, transverse mounted in the frame.

The V45 was also the basis of Honda's road racing bikes of that era.

Worked on a few of the V-4 Honda cruisers back then. Akin to tattooing your own hemmeroids. Someone begged me to work on one a while ago. Told him there wasn't enough money in the world.