Thanks. It's clean but not pristine. Runs great with 22,000 miles. We bought it from a guy who thought he had a blown head gasket. He said it smoked, but was was vague about whether it was burning oil or coolant. He had removed the front head and had the parts rattling around in a box, so we couldn't diagnose the issue with a leak-down test or see the engine run. (Backyard Mechanic Lesson No. 1 - if you don't know what you are doing, don't start tearing the engine down.)
The heads and valves and gaskets looked fine. Hell, everything looked fine! After replacing the head gaskets the bike ran great - no smoke, good compression. It's a mystery why the engine was smoking in the first place. Maybe it was a failed head gasket. Maybe the prior owner had overfilled the crankcase. Who knows?
Always makes my heart glad to see a VF500 in good care in a happy home... Before Mr.RC45 I had a
love affair with my 86 VF500F Interceptor bought new from Golden Gate Cycles... I made this into
famous Belt-0-Ceptor... I racked up 98,000 trouble free miles... I sold it to my Air Force buddy up in
White City Oregon...
[image: BeltCloseUp.jpg]
Custom dash... [image: gallery_3131_51_36605.jpg]
Sometimes being the littlest bike in a group of big bad Motors of Death can be a recipe for bruised egos... [image: BannedLetter.jpg]
Alaskan
We bought it from a guy who thought he had a blown head gasket. He said it smoked, but was was vague about whether it was burning oil or coolant.
If an engine is burning oil the piston will be black whereas if the coolant is mixing into the combustion the steam will clean the piston bright aluminum...
Always makes my heart glad to see a VF500 in good care in a happy home... Before Mr.RC45 I had a
love affair with my 86 VF500F Interceptor bought new from Golden Gate Cycles... I made this into
famous Belt-0-Ceptor... I racked up 98,000 trouble free miles... I sold it to my Air Force buddy up in
White City Oregon...
[image: BeltCloseUp.jpg]
Custom dash...
[image: gallery_3131_51_36605.jpg]
Sometimes being the littlest bike in a group of big bad Motors of
Death can be a recipe for bruised egos...
[image: BannedLetter.jpg]
Alaskan
We bought it from a guy who thought he had a blown head gasket. He said it smoked, but was was vague about whether it was burning oil or coolant.
If an engine is burning oil the piston will be black whereas if the coolant is mixing into the combustion the piston will be steam cleaned bright aluminum...
We didn't see any evidence either way. Weird.
The belt drive is very cool, btw.
Edited May 24, 2013 by Alaskan
End of thread · 13 posts recoveredWayback Machine snapshot 6 Jul 2017