Have you ever had a motorcycle that you just loved? That you trusted your life with and that you've bled for? Well for me it's my V65 Sabre. This bike has been faithful to me for about 400000 miles. It's used up 4 engines and is sporting a, new to it, 35000mile 5th engine as we speak.

A V65 owning friend of mine (he's my age, 81) had bought an engine to put in his Sabre that was popping out of 2nd gear. Time got to him a year ago and he realized he was never going to put it in his bike so he gave it to me for my bike as Mine was burning to much oil. My friend has since passed on to the land of endless twisties and free gasoline but part of him is living on in my Sabre now.

But let me tell you about my bike. I Bought it with 7000 miles on it in '94 after not riding since '57. There was some sketchy riding for a couple years until I got comfortable with the power of a big Honda V4.

That's when I started touring on the bike. This bike has preformed 13 Ironbutt SS1000s, 4 Coast to Coast in 50s and one BBG 1500. It's also taken me from the East coast of Canada up to the James Bay and on to Canada's west coast. It's also made the trip as far north as Prudhoe Bay Alaska and far south as La Paz Baja. I did most of that riding with it's origina engine.

We camped on the North road on the way to Raddison at James Bay, Canada.

Here I am at Atigun Pass on the way to Prudhoe Bay Alaska

That engine was still running strong when I got a leak in the radiator in Baja, and eventually lost the head gasket and cooked the engine at 170000 miles. Rather than fix the old engine I put in a good used engine that had popping out of gear problems right from the git go.

So then (number 3) I got a 21000 mile engine. I did about 20000 miles pulling the above trailer hauling my DR350 all over the Southwest. Here it is at the Moki Dugway. I even did an Ironbutt SS1000 pulling my trailer back from Co when I rode the Continental Divide Trail ride form the Mexican border to the Canaduan border.

Nobody knows just exactly why some of these V4s start popping out of gear but most of them don't. It was along about then that my Sabre started popping out of 5th gear. When your towing 500 lbs you need 5th gear. I suspect that pulling extra hard in 5th on some long climbs like the Baker grade caused this 5th gear issuse.

I had been scrapping out V65 engines and had a several engines in pieces so I put an engine together from 3 parts engines. I even used the trans out of that first 170000 mile motor. That didn't work out so well as that engine used a lot of oil.

It was only a few thousand miles on that motor when I started a speed run to Daytona Bike week. I had packed some of my kit where I couldn't see my oil warning light. I was running pretty hard and had gotten almost to Ft Stockton Tex when I ran it out of oil and spun a crankshaft bearing. I earned one of my many 'Dumbass Awards' that day That's a story all by itself, but the upshot is that I bought a full sized '72 Dodge van in ABQ and brought the bike home with me.

I bought another engine off of Ebay and rode that for a bunch of years. It started burning oil pretty badly, and at 5 bucks a qt that was annoying me, which brings me to the Engine from my friend that I installed in 2021. I've recently installed a heel shifter on my bike, after this last engine install, because my shifting foot can't lift the gear shifter. Anyway, that's no fun riding that way since I have to think about shifting, so I've concluded that it's time to give up riding.