i recently became a 2001 vfr 800 owner. But today i came face to face with a clutch that is not working (all of a sudden). The lever seems to be very very soft.
Any suggections? Help needed, thank you in advance.
Welcome to this asylum. You have great taste in motorcycles. Sorry I cannot help with the clutch issue. The factory service manual, available for download from this site, is highly recommended. Good luck.
I know this seems really basic and I do not mean to offend, but have you checked the fluid level. Last year when I took my wife's bike out of storage the clutch was really soft and I knew I had cleaned and re-filled and bled the clutch the year before because it had felt spongy. When I took it out of storage first thing I did was check the fluid level by looking through the glass and it looked fine, or so I thought. Turns out that really clean fluid at top of the reservoir looks nearly the same as an empty reservoir. The seal on my clutch slave cylinder was leaking badly enough that over the winter all the fluid had leaked out. Since the bike was on the center stand and thus tilted slightly forward, the fluid had leaked inside the lower cowl and none had dripped on the floor. Had I not popped the cap off the top of the reservoir, I might not have ever noticed. Felt like such a dope for not removing the lid in the first place.
Maybe check the slave cylinder. I ordered a completely new slave cylinder for my wife's bike from Partzilla as the cost of the part from a local dealer was nearly 5 times the price. You can buy rebuild kits for the slave cylinder as well, but In my particular case the rebuild kit in Canada cost me more than the new OEM part from Partzilla including shipping. First things first though, refill the reservoir and check for leaks. When I checked my wife's bike I removed the lower cowls and found all the fluid I still wasn't sure where everything was coming from so I refilled the reservoir and put the bike on the center stand with some cardboard under the engine. That way when it started to leak there would be a spot below where it dripped from. On my wife's bike I noticed that the leak appeared to be coming from behind the front drive sprocket cover. With the help of a number of the members here, and the service manual I knew the slave cylinder bolts to the sprocket cover and when I removed it the leak was definitely apparent.
One thing to caution is to remove the lower cowls on your bike and check to make sure there is no brake fluid on the plastic. The brake fluid will eat through the paint really fast. Not sure if the lower cowl wraps around and under the engine in quite the same way as my wife's bike but would be good to check.
Hope things go well and you find the problem quickly.