So I'm back, this time with an '86

Anyone who read my old posts should be expecting the following.  The rest of you, welcome to my crazy.

A long time ago I picked up a '70 vw beetle as a project for my son and I to do.  He apparently has zero interest in doing so, so a few weeks ago I decided to sell it and put the money into another bike.  Now something you should know about me, is that I go through a lot of bikes. I don't flip them exactly, I buy them to ride.  I usually buy one that needs love, give it that love, ride it for a year, then sell it and move onto the next thing.  My '99 VFR was three bikes ago.  Nice bike but not my style, I traded it for a DL1000 which I loved but sold to buy said son a car, and used the leftover to pick up a bandit 600.  Which I hated.  A lot.  Ugh.  Sold that and bought a '07 Versys, which I've not only had for a while but just registered for 2 YEARS.  Holy crap, this bike is perfect for me.  However, it runs.  It runs well.  I did my usual upgrades, and after the first month or so it has needed zero attention.  Throttle bodies are still in sync, fuel map seems fine, I replaced the TKC80s with shinko 705s after my trip to the dragon last year.  In short, I was starting to get the itch, except that I had no desire to get rid of my Vs. 

I sold the bug, and started hitting craigslist.  My rules were many, and not particularly firm.  I didn't want an I4.  I didn't want a bike covered in plastic.  I didn't want anything larger than a 650.  Most importantly, I didn't want anything I loved.  This bike was specifically to be a second bike to me, a primary bike for said son if he ever gets his license, for my wife if she wants to ride again (she had a shadow 600 which she sold to get the money to build our deck) and a loaner bike for when my bikeless or geographically bikeless friends come over.

I immediately found every bike I've wanted since I was a young lad, most of which are dipped in plastic and I4, and way over 650 (I've loved the FJ1200 since it came out) and managed to resist buying them.  I had decided on a buell blast or a savage 650, when I noticed an '86 vfr700 for small money that had been advertised for close to a month.  Once again, I had an 85 VF700 many bikes ago that a friend gave me and I gave to another son, who took it to california and sold it to pay bills.  Life sucks, you have to do what you gotta do.  Said son now has a '2000 VFR8 and works for Tesla.  Sometimes life works out for the best.  Anyway, typical story.  Hasn't run in years, 'ran fine when parked' etc.

I email the guy, offer even less money.  He accepts.  Dangit, I just accidentally bought a bike that meets none of my qualifications.  Oh well, hopefully it's a piece of crap with no hope of running that I can turn into a table (I have a side job doing industrial art.)

I go get it, and for the love of god it wants to live.  Nice guy, not especially mechanically inclined but he honestly tried.  Zero mods to the bike other than a repaint.  He told a tale of it shutting down when it gets hot, and needing a cooldown before it would drive.  He had replaced the R/R, but not especially well.  He had cleaned the tank, and installed fuel filter, done other troubleshooting, then gave up.  We exchange money and I bring it home.

I hook it up to a battery booster and it fires on one and a half cylinders.  Dadblast it, now I have to bring it back to life.This just became a challenge.  I pull off the bodywork (painted some kind of metalflake blue with drips, runs, and overspray) and get to the evaluation phase.  After a bit of tinkering and disassembly I order:

Battery

Caliper Rebuild kits, front and rear

Front tire

Rear rotor

ABS cement

ABS sheet

Oil

Oil Filters

Coolant

Fork Seals

New slow jets

Seat cover

Spark plugs

And waited for the glory of Amazon to deliver me the goods.  Since I got the bike (last week) I've done some stuff.

Drained the 2 year old gas, installed a splash of fresh gas.  Took off, took apart, cleaned the carbs.  All four slow jets were clogged solid. Replaced with #40 jets.  All four floats were set at different heights, and chaos theory be damned none of them were the right height.  Set everything back to stock.  Heck, even the slow screw needles still had their limit caps so these carbs were pretty well unmolested.  It was encouraging.

Drained the coolant, pulled the radiator.  Refilled with engine ice, which is stupidly expensive and seriously, why the heck does honda require 2 quarts plus a tiny amount for everything?  Means you have to buy twice as much as you need.  Oh well, it's environmentally friendly and doesn't kill dogs which is important since my buddy Tank (english bulldog) is my constant barn companion and eats anything.

Replaced the plugs.  I didn't even check them for gap, but all were less tight than I wanted and one was fingertight.  Front right had a blocked drain hole so was filled with crud.  Lots of compressed air and cleaner plus some love with a wire brush got everything good.

Adjusted the valves.  Every valve was tight, some were at or near zero clearance.  For those who don't know, valves wear in, not out, so the clearances get tighter not looser.  When you set the valves you go for the loose end of the spec, not the tight.  The springs pull on one end of the stem, the valve seat bangs on the other, and they stretch slightly faster than the valves wear into the seats.  As things heat up they expand.  Hmm, doesn't run when it gets hot, maybe because the valves start staying open and killing your compression?

Took apart the brake calipers, since they were all dragging.  Fronts are at half wear on the pads, rear pads are new but rear rotor is totally shot.  Again, hmm.  drive at speed with sticky rotors, causing drag which causes heat which causes fluid expansion which causes more drag, which makes the bike hard to ride when hot?  New rotor on order, still waiting on my caliper rebuild kits.

Clutch was inop.  Pulled slave cylinder took apart, lots of nasty gunk and grossness.  Cleaned everything out, cleaned the piston and cylinder in an ultrasonic cleaner, hit the piston with some 2000 grit.  Chucked the cylinder into the lathe and trued it up a bit and hit it with 1000 then 2000 grit.  Reassembled everything with new fluid and the clutch is working great.

Bodywork:  Tank is in good shape, but painted poorly.  Headlight fairing is the same.  Front sides had lots of cracks, which some PO had tried to fix with a skim coat of bondo.  Protip, bondo is a filler, not a repair tool.  Side panels were in good shape, rear had a crack running from the taillight to the cowl mount slot, cowl had a 4" crack.  I ground off all the bondo, cut some 1/8" ABS sheet into filler pieces/braces and applied them with ABS cement.  Not glorious looking (yet) but much better than it was.  I hate doing paint but I can tell that I'll be learning bodywork so I can shoot this thing back to it's original white.

Today's job, the kickstand.  Kickstand was, as you would expect, worn out.  Floppy at best, resting on the exhaust when up.  I took it off, sandblasted it so I could see what was up with it, then got to work.  Normal problems, wear on the metal mostly.  I grabbed a grinder and ground the mounting tab flush with it's lowest point of wear, then welded a washer onto it to build it back up to the right thickness, and gave it some grinder love to true it up.  Redrilled the hole.  Welded the worn edges of the kickstand itself, then once again grinder and file action to true it all up.  Finally I chucked the pivot bolt into the lathe and filed off a couple thousandths from the shoulder.  As designed, the shoulder contacts one half of the kickstand right as the bottom of the head seats against the other, meaning that you can't tighten the bolt to get any clamping pressure.  By grinding off a tiny bit of the shoulder, it allows you to tighten it and cause actual clamping pressure pulling the kickstand tighter.  Then I put a couple fat tacks on the back side of the pivot as a stop so the kickstand didn't retract quite so high, painted and greased, then reinstalled it.  Much mo betta.

So that's where I am right now.  I know, pics or it didn't happen but there's two things going on.  One, the pics I do have are on my phone, and it's a pain to transfer them to this.  Two, when I'm in the barn I use my phone for music, so I don't take too many pics.  I'll get some up tomorrow.

Ta-da.

Oh yeah, right now I'm at under $900.  Including the bike.

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Ok, that was as I bought it.  It still looks like that.  So far all changes have been substantive, not decorative.

Great write up! It appears that you have a mechanical aptitude so I think the bike is in good hands. When I came to this thread, the first thing I saw was the picture and thought, that's not stock paint. Then I read your initial post, makes sense now.

Looking forward to seeing your progress and more pics too. Good luck with your restore.

Well that's a pain in the tookus. My new battery arrived without acid, so I have to go get some of that. I went to rebuild the calipers, and it mostly went fine but some of the rubber bits not included in the kits were shot so I had to order those. Then I take a close look at the pads and find (once I clean all the fork oil off them ((Protip: badly leaking fork seals pouring ATF on your brake pads may slightly decrease your braking effectiveness)) find that the pads are worn unevenly, one mounting ear is bent, etc. so much for cheaping out on the brakes. Ordered new pads all the way around. So now with all the new parts ordered I'm up to $925, and delayed by a week or so. On the good side I also received my new front tire (which Tank immediately decided was a cool new chew toy) and fork seals, so tire mounting and/or fork rebuilding will be tomorrow's time in the barn. Plus finding acid. Seriously, who sells batteries without acid? Without acid it's not a battery, it's a plastic box filled with lead. Imagine you ordered a bunch of AA batteries and they arrived without any carbon or zinc? Grr.

Also wow, it's nice finally having a blast cabinet. Need to seriously upsize my air compressor, but shazam! It makes parts cleaning/inspection/paint prep easier, and using crushed glass it leaves a very nice surface finish. Next step: powdercoating. Maybe next month. Have to buy an oven.

So tonight's jobs were either to rebuild the forks, or spoon the new tire on.  Figured I'd start with the tire since it had to come off to do the forks anyway.  That was the single easiest tire I've ever spooned off and on a motorcycle rim, ever.  I figured being a 16" would make it harder since there was less area to work with, but the VFR has a very deep center groove.  20 minutes, start to finish.  It even balanced easily using only the single 1/8oz weight I took off.  Kickass.

Since that went so fast, I figured I'd do the forks.  Left fork leg had three layers of inspection stickers between the lower and upper clamps, so there was much scraping to get them off so I could slide the leg out.  Once I got it out I was able to zip the fork apart very easily, clean everything, and install the new seals.  Went to fill it, and what's this?  I have half a bottle of 7wt suspension fluid, and zero ATF?  Unpossible.  Oh well, have to grab some ATF tomorrow.  Since I can't finish that leg, I pull the other one off and disassemble it.  Also easy.  Only exciting part is a big ding in the chrome on the upper, just above the seal.  Ruh roh Shaggy.  I grabbed a super flat sanding block (old CPU heat sink) and some 400, 1000, 2000 grit sandpaper.  Used that to knock the high spots down, then grabbed a carbide burr and chewed the edges of the ding sharper.  Mixed up some steel putty (kind of like JB weld but in a stick) and mashed it into the dings, covered it with some cellophane and threw a screw clamp around it to force it in.  Since I had to wait for it to set I figured I'd go ahead and fill the potential battery with acid and charge it.  Holy crap I've been using maintenance free sealed batteries for so long I forgot how much they boil and bubble (toil and trouble) and spew sulfuric acid gas when they first fire off.  Put it out back on the charger while I cleaned the barn up, then installed and verified that it works fine.  So that's where we leave our intrepid explorer tonight, one fork leg in a padded vise, one on an inexplicable glass topped coffee table next to the lathe, bike up on the craftsman bike jack.  I don't wanna jinx it, but I have to say this has been going well and easily so far.

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As she sits right now. Vs. in the background.

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And with my son's VFR8 in the background.

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14 hours ago, whodat90

So tonight's jobs were either to rebuild the forks, or spoon the new tire on.  Figured I'd start with the tire since it had to come off to do the forks anyway.  That was the single easiest tire I've ever spooned off and on a motorcycle rim, ever.  I figured being a 16" would make it harder since there was less area to work with, but the VFR has a very deep center groove.  20 minutes, start to finish.  It even balanced easily using only the single 1/8oz weight I took off.  Kickass.

Since that went so fast, I figured I'd do the forks.  Left fork leg had three layers of inspection stickers between the lower and upper clamps, so there was much scraping to get them off so I could slide the leg out.  Once I got it out I was able to zip the fork apart very easily, clean everything, and install the new seals.  Went to fill it, and what's this?  I have half a bottle of 7wt suspension fluid, and zero ATF?  Unpossible.  Oh well, have to grab some ATF tomorrow.  Since I can't finish that leg, I pull the other one off and disassemble it.  Also easy.  Only exciting part is a big ding in the chrome on the upper, just above the seal.  Ruh roh Shaggy.  I grabbed a super flat sanding block (old CPU heat sink) and some 400, 1000, 2000 grit sandpaper.  Used that to knock the high spots down, then grabbed a carbide burr and chewed the edges of the ding sharper.  Mixed up some steel putty (kind of like JB weld but in a stick) and mashed it into the dings, covered it with some cellophane and threw a screw clamp around it to force it in.  Since I had to wait for it to set I figured I'd go ahead and fill the potential battery with acid and charge it.  Holy crap I've been using maintenance free sealed batteries for so long I forgot how much they boil and bubble (toil and trouble) and spew sulfuric acid gas when they first fire off.  Put it out back on the charger while I cleaned the barn up, then installed and verified that it works fine.  So that's where we leave our intrepid explorer tonight, one fork leg in a padded vise, one on an inexplicable glass topped coffee table next to the lathe, bike up on the craftsman bike jack.  I don't wanna jinx it, but I have to say this has been going well and easily so far.

By chance did you take pics of the fork mending you did? I'm interested in seeing how that turned out and/or how the process works.

Still in process, so I can take pics as I go.  General gist is that the forks are not by any means structurally damaged, just dinged.  Most dings cause both a raised area and a depressed area, and this borks the seal as it continuously rubs up and down it.  Take a flat sanding block/knife sharpening stone and gently knock down all the high spots.  If the damage is small enough, you then just use fine sandpaper to smooth the transition into and out of the ding, and you're done.  Mine was larger than that (looks like someone used a non-padded vise to hold it) so I had to sharpen and deepen up the edges enough to provide a physical bite for the epoxy.  Once it's set (which it is now, just haven't gotten back to it yet) I'll go over the area again with the same sandpaper until the epoxy is exactly level with the surface of the fork, filling the depression and making a smooth surface for the seal to slide over.

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hose clamp/ziplock smashing the metal set into the damage

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Hose clamp removed

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After 400 grit

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3 minutes ago, whodat90

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Hose clamp removed

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After 400 grit

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That's what I was envisioning and makes sense when you see it.

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After thousand grit sanding

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2000 grit sanding.

Ended up almost dead level and very smooth, nowhere near enough to catch a fingernail. Should be fine, we'll see once I pressurize the forks and whale on it for a bit. Alas, delayed at least a week due to the brakes snafu. Btw, anyone have a center stand for this for sale? Just found out that if you run it at 11k rpm for a while on the craftsman bike stand, the exhaust pipes resting on the rubber pads cause small amounts of unrequested conflagration.

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So the VFR build just took a turn.

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It popped up for small money and I couldn't resist. Unfortunately that puts me above my notional maximum 'me' bike quota, so the VFR may have to go once I'm done with it.

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1 hour ago, whodat90

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It popped up for small money and I couldn't resist. Unfortunately that puts me above my notional maximum 'me' bike quota, so the VFR may have to go once I'm done with it.

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Well since you rescued it, that's good enough for me! A good friend of mine had that same FJ, it was his second bike if I remember correctly. Hope you can at least enjoy the VFR for a little while. Have fun with your new rides!

A friend had one in '90, pretty awesome, man could he ride too! At night did a doughnut both feet on pegs, then straight out onto back wheel and changed to second then third down the road...never forget it.

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It's the last of the air cooled supersports, and was the awesome when it first came out.  Unfortunately for it, Kawasaki came out with liquid cooled sport bikes immediately after and took all it's sporting credentials away.  Yamaha realized that it was bulletproof and still a great sport-tourer, so they continued it with very few changes for nearly 10 years.  Lots to be said for an air-cooled engine that makes 130hp, and only revs to 9K.  That story is pretty parallel to the VFR, by the way.  When it came out it was honda's supersport, and pretty well kicked everybody else's ass on the track for a while, then when manufacturers realized that the weight savings of one head, cam set, water jacket, cylinder bank, etc. overshadowed the narrowness and lack of vibration for the V4, they pretty much all switched to liquid cooled I4 and relegated the VFR series to being an awesome streetbike.

Honestly the only change in my plans for the VFR is that I'm no longer going to contemplate a repaint, as that's truly a labor of love for me and 98% chance the next owner wouldn't care whether it was original white or this metalflake blue.  I'm still in the process of rebuilding the brakes, recovering the seat, and putting miles on it.  I'll probably put it up for sale at some point, but will more likely try to find someone to trade with instead.  I'm sure there's someone out there with a beginner bike or a smallish cruiser looking to swap for a sportbike.

So I put it up for sale/trade, but that doesn't mean I've stopped working on it. I took off the volts gauge which was wired by mashing wired into the fuses and carefully and neatly hooked it to the dash lights. Getting it connected showed me that the battery wasn't charging when it ran. The stator/RR connector was crap so I bypassed it and ran the wires direct. No change. I pulled the connector at the start solenoid and find more melted wires/plugs. Cut everything off, crimp new connectors on. Still no change. Grab the service manual, check the stator again. Good. Check the RR, seems weird. Compare it to a spare from one of the goldwings, totally different. I grab a spare RR that came with the bike (much larger, heavier gauge wires) and it also doesn't match. I declare victory, claim the RR is bad and scab in the big spare. Start the bike, volts go from 12 right up to 14, so I shut everything down and properly install the new RR using heat shrink adhesive lined crimps, etc. I've gotten to the point that everything electrical is done with these weathertight crimps, or weatherpak connectors. One exception is that I didn't have a weatherpak for the volts gauge so I used a deans connector, which is rated for a comfortable thousand or so times as many amps as the volts gauge will draw.

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I also installed a new seat cover, custom two-tone bought off eBay for medium money. Black center, charcoal gray sides. Turns out the sides were just regular gray. Oh well, took a couple tries to get it to fit decently but it's not bad now. Hopefully some time in the sun will help.

I also rebuilt the back brakes (again, don't remember if I mentioned them yet) because one of the dust seals had twisted when I installed the piston. So the front brakes got new seals, rubber slide boots, pads, fluid, and copper washers, plus a complete tear down and washing. Rear got all the same plus a new rotor. One PO or another had (as previously mentioned) done a lot of bondo 'repair' and the front fender had a crack running down the fpcenter which of course failed. The repair done after that was to put a strip of duct tape over it. I repaired the crack from the back like I did the rest of the bodywork, with an ABS panel bonded to the back. Still left the duct tape residue though. To get it off I pulled the silver part of the tape off leaving only the adhesive. I cut a strip of paper towel to the same width as the tape, and laid it on top. Then I soaked the paper towel in goof-off and wrapped it all with Saran Wrap to hold the paper towel against the glue. Came back 20 minutes later, and everything wiped off with very minor effort.

Another sore spot was the windscreen, which had faded to a nice foggy texture rather than the clear tint. I gave it some love with polish and a headlight polish kit I bought for a past vehicle, and it came as clean and clear as you could hope for from a bike this old.

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I also pressurized the forks to 15psi each, grabbed a plate off my son's VFR8 and ran up and down the road a bit. Forks hold pressure, no leaking. Brakes need bedded in, and new front lines wouldn't hurt. Forgot how much fun these are. It went to speed X in gear Y no problem, carbureted cleanly, turned and stopped as appropriate. Feels much lighter than its specs say, but that's compared to my regular ride which is a Versys, which is basically a redneck ninja 650 with a lift kit and mud tires. I don't want to get rid of the VFR, but it would be a phenomenally bad idea to let my 17 year old son loose on it, he's not getting he vs. and holy crap the FJ is just not the ideal beginner bike.

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So lately I took the side panels off and bedlined the insides, pulled the carbs again because one of the idle air screws wasn't doing anything, synced the carbs again, and rode it around for 25 or so miles. Runs sweet, but may have a stumble at 7k. It may also just be me, so who knows. I'll keep riding it, and push some seafoam through the carbs in the gas to see if it gets better. I honestly think that's what this bike needs more than anything else right now, just some time on the road.

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Did the bedliner make a difference in noise or anything?

Stumble at 7k it should be on the much harder to clog jets, and the sync is less of an issue up top too. Keep riding it i say, give it the old italian tune up.

I've been riding it daily, and it gets better every day. I'm guessing it was one or more sticky slides that is slowly working its way back to awesomeness. I still want to trade it for something smaller, but man this thing feels tiny and fun. Forgot how much I like the v4 engine. Rode it into work today. Only issue for me is the mirrors are totally useless.

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Sorry, forgot. The bedliner was purely because the inside of the panels were white, and the abs panels I used for repair were black so they stuck out. Painting it all black blended them in. I may get some heat barrier though.

Agreed on the worthless mirrors, i'm going to see what is an easy swap that sticks out a bit more... Interesting reg stickers on the front forks, never seen that before.

Made my own adoppters to use regular mirrors as I had a 1987.

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Whoa looks good Kenny. Any info or more pics on the adapters? I've seen pics of guys that make spacers that sit just above the fairing and then use 01-03 gsxr mirrors or similar. Call me a nerd, but i'd love to have mirrors with blinkers on em as well.

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Nice Eifel switchback Keny!!!

atx, ‎25‎.‎5‎.‎2016 at 8:08 AM

Whoa looks good Kenny. Any info or more pics on the adapters? I've seen pics of guys that make spacers that sit just above the fairing and then use 01-03 gsxr mirrors or similar. Call me a nerd, but i'd love to have mirrors with blinkers on em as well.

I have no mesurment, but they where made of alloy, as high as the oem holders + thinner part thro the faring. then has tread made thro them sam as the mirros use and a bolt from the bottom whit same tread to hold the spacer in Place.

23 hours ago, Dutchy

Nice Eifel switchback Keny!!!

Back from 2008, ride whit V4Rosso Monday after you did ride home from the WSBK race.

I miss that bike a lot!