VFR750 - Rolling Resto

[Easy-X]

Yeah... that's a load of work with a wooden toothpick (I'd actually use something larger like wot you'd have for corn-on-the-cob or kebabs.)

On the image front (for imgur) I usually resize the pictures after upload to 800x600 or 1024x768.
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Husqvarna Vitpilen 401, Yamaha XSR700, Honda Rebel, Yamaha DT175, Suzuki SV650 (loan) Fazer 600, Keeway Superlight 125, 50cc turd scooter

[Zen Dog]

Next stage, I've got the upper fairing apart, removed the radiator, and taken the clocks off.

Resizing images on Imgur isn't working (it allows me to edit and save them, says it's worked, but when you click on them, they're still the same size ) so it's links again.

https://i.imgur.com/wgRXEiL.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/VXBBet0.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/F5Jn6Ym.jpg

The oil cooler looks good, I've straightened a couple of the fins but other than that, I don't think anything is needed there. I am tempted to get new oil lines as they're pretty corroded a la Stinkwheel's bike, but it'll have to wait as I'm pretty strapped at the moment, and there's other work needed.

The upper fairing, especially on the left hand side is pretty bad where it's been over a couple of times over the years, so this is where most of the fairing repairs are needed. Time to break out the acetone slurry and have a go there.

The radiator I think is beyond redemption, besides all the smooshed fins, the bracket on the bottom has snapped off, and there's corrosion all over the main structure of the rad. Will be on the lookout for a decent one on ebay.

And finally the clocks. I actually did some clock repairs on the VFR800 recently when the digital fuel/temp/trip display stopped working, but this one is much worse. There's no continuity to the 2 screws I assume are powering the temp gauge, but the tracks look ok so I'm assuming it's just the rust on the screws/washers and can probably be cleaned up. But looking at the rest of the tracks, one repair has already been done by someone a long time ago, but there are a load of tracks that are clearly going to become a problem (though they currently have continuity), so I'm going to try to get them all sorted before it's an issue. There's at least 6 of those needed, so that'll be fun.
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Current - '94 VFR750FR (Dead), '00 VFR800FI, 2011 CBF125 Previous - '10 Street Triple R, '92 MZ ETZ301, '05 TTR250, NSR125R, KMX125, "Honda" Win (chinese copy of an old Honda design with a C90 engine)
My bike trip around S.E. Asia 2010/2011

[stinkwheel]

A mate of mine sent his VFR800 clocks to a place in Aberdeen who did an absolutely fantastic job of repairing the flexi PCB for a reasonable price with a fast turnaround. They cleaned it all up, soldered new tracks on and treated it with some sort of laquer to stop it happening again. I'll message him and ask who it was for you.

Gon on ebay and search for "Radiator comb" for a cheap tool that's the right shape to reset those fins. Not sayng it's saveable but good used ones are like rocking horse poo and your other option is re-coring or buying a chinese or eastern european replica.

EDIT: Can't find the PCB guy anywhere, i think he must have closed down.
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“Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles.

[Easy-X]

If the original image is:

[stinkwheel]

For what it's worth, I sat down with a circuit diagram and rewired my clocks with LEDs.

I would do it much neater now but it all works other than one bulb vide infra. If I was doing it again, I'd take all the wires in from one side as a bundle then route them vertically up to the individual terminals. That's just abotu cosmetics though.

Two things I'd do differently. One is use coloured LEDS for the coloured lamps because white ones overwhelm the coloured plastic. I had to put black paint on the ends of the white LEDs to tone them down a bit. Also the low fuel light relies on steadily decreasing resistance as the sensor drops until enough current flows to light the bulb so an LED stays lit all the time. You'd want a filament bulb here (or a hefty resistor).
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“Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles.

[Zen Dog]

[stinkwheel]

You could try one of those PCB track "pens" too. Not sure how well they work, never tried one.

https://www.chemtronics.com/content/images/thumbs/0002180_repair-and-prototype-tools.jpeg

Remember to drill stop-holes on your cracked plastics, wasting your time otherwise.
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“Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles.

[Easy-X]

I'd vote for just soldering a jumper wire to bypass a cracked/missing/lifted track.
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Husqvarna Vitpilen 401, Yamaha XSR700, Honda Rebel, Yamaha DT175, Suzuki SV650 (loan) Fazer 600, Keeway Superlight 125, 50cc turd scooter

[Zen Dog]

[stinkwheel]

Meh, the original ones on my 750 were worse. I had it held together with rivetted on copper plates by the end.

I can't stress enough how strong a repair epoxy and bias weave fibreglass cloth makes. Clean the area, briefly flame it with a blue blowlamp flame (not even enough to slightly melt it, it's a chemical reaction thing) then lay a piece of cloth on and scrape epoxy over it with a plastic card until it's wetted out. Then add another piece of cloth at 90 degrees to it and wet that out too. Trim the edges with a knife once it's gone off.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/AL9nZEWt5l_AMXMvp7O370lyblFcER1sccbpPxlwO16O_axroIgYvU9ymZYjEwuq5nm-WQ3amrH5WRJS8MkuCNPT5y_7ZpRe31gzWGXchEV9e3B9Tuk5RozwlSxZN7FhmDFwNbEmElV_yprxiQuon-SXV0Um=w1576-h886-no

You could even put it on the outside if cosmetics aren't too much of an issue, it sets totally clear (but textured).
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“Rule one: Always stick around for one more drink. That's when things happen. That's when you find out everything you want to know.”
I did the 2010 Round Britain Rally on my 350 Bullet. 89 landmarks, 3 months, 9,500 miles.

[blurredman]

I would also prefer wires, but have used conductive tape semi successfully (along with that conductive paint for repairing rear windows defroster tracks) on keyboards in the past.
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CBT: 12/06/10, Theory: 22/09/10, Module 1: 09/11/10, Module 2: 19/01/11
Past: 1991 Honda CG125BR-J, 1992 (1980) Honda XL125S, 1996 Kawasaki GPZ500S, 1979 MZ TS150.
Current: 1973 MZ ES250/2 - 18k, 1979 Suzuki TS185ER - 10k, 1981 Honda CX500B - 91k, 1987 MZ ETZ250 (295cc) - 39k, 1989 MZ ETZ251 - 50k.

[Zen Dog]

New radiator fitted and coolant system refilled. Haven't started the bike yet as the clocks are still with the friendly solderer, so will need to check for airlocks, that the rad and pipework is actually watertight, and test if the temp gauge is now working once I've got that back.

Fairing repairs are continuing. I'm really impressed with the strength of this ABS slurry once it's gone off. One of the tabs on the headlight had snapped and I'd tried to repair it multiple times in the past with no success due to the awkward shape and the forces acting on it, but I'm pretty confident it's going to hold this time. I'm trying not to get carried away with these repairs, but I also want it to be definitely better than when I started, so I'm still deciding how far to go.
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Current - '94 VFR750FR (Dead), '00 VFR800FI, 2011 CBF125 Previous - '10 Street Triple R, '92 MZ ETZ301, '05 TTR250, NSR125R, KMX125, "Honda" Win (chinese copy of an old Honda design with a C90 engine)
My bike trip around S.E. Asia 2010/2011

[Zen Dog]

Clocks - Got them back off the friendly solderer. The temp gauge I actually fixed myself (it only needed the screws and contact pads cleaning) but there were a whole load of corroded tracks behind the speedo and I was pretty amazed they were still working to be honest, so I got him to put in some bypass wires. Then I slapped a load of stuff on the back (some Polish stuff called "Lakier PVB 60") over all the screws and the soldered joins and any tracks that looked dodgy (and a load that didn't). No idea if that will help but we'll see. Refitted them and they're all working. I haven't bothered even looking at the LCD clock, it just didn't seem worth the effort.

https://i.imgur.com/o5Ro7XUl.jpg?1

Cooling System - Now refilled and working with no leaks. Temp Gauge now works! Haven't actually checked that the fan kicks in as it took about 15 minutes to get fully up to temperature and there's not that much fuel in it at the moment. I did have to briefly drop the rad again because I'd routed the clutch hose incorrectly, but it's better I noticed now rather than later.

https://i.imgur.com/FJMXccjl.jpg

Video should you wish to see the hideous mess running -
https://i.imgur.com/WgAtZvx.mp4

Carb Balancing - I thought this job wouldn't be too bad as I did it not that long ago on the 800. But, well, it turns out this is one area where the 800 definitely does it better. On the 800, the carb adjusters are on the right hand side of the engine just inside the frame rail. They are a bit awkward to get to, but you can get a spanner on them. On the 750, they're in between the carbs in the vee between the cylinders. Which would be fine if they didn't need adjusting, but the Carbtune says that they do. I can just about see them with a torch, and I can get a fingertip to them, but there's no way I can get even a stubby screwdriver to them. I can just about slip a 7mm socket head over them, but even my tiny ratchet won't fit in the space. But getting the little socket on there has shown me that I can't just turn them with finger pressure, so I'm going to need to buy a tool I think. I could try to bodge it with a screwdriver bit in a set of mole grips or something but I'm just going to end up chewing it up.

I'm pretty sure this is exactly the right tool for the job - https://www.moorespeedracing.co.uk/category-2798/110-degree-angle-carb-screwdriver.html

The only problem is, I really can't see me using it for anything other than this one job. By the time I need to do it again, I'll probably have forgotten where I put it. Whereas if I bought something like the below, I could probably use it for other things. But I'm not confident it'll actually do the job I'm buying it for. But I made this mistake with the leakdown tester. Got something I wasn't sure would do the job, and it turned out to be useless.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/363688954902
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/325283144525

P.S. In relation to my image sizing troubles, I'm not the only one having problems resizing on Imgur. But I realised I don't need to. If you add an extension letter to the image name, you can change the size of image displayed. Details from "Catija" here - https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/314028/the-stack-imgur-service-is-no-longer-resizing-images-correctly
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Current - '94 VFR750FR (Dead), '00 VFR800FI, 2011 CBF125 Previous - '10 Street Triple R, '92 MZ ETZ301, '05 TTR250, NSR125R, KMX125, "Honda" Win (chinese copy of an old Honda design with a C90 engine)
My bike trip around S.E. Asia 2010/2011

[Zen Dog]

Carb Balancing - COMPLETED. Bought the proper tool and it did the job. It's still a fiddle though, as aside from everything else, you cant put any upward pressure on the screwdriver because it operates the throttle and revs the bike. Pickup when you blip the throttle is slightly but noticeably better.

Forgot to take a before vid, but this is afterwards, think that's good enough.
https://i.imgur.com/Do5Dlhx.mp4

As far as the other jobs, the upper fairing repairs are progressing well, I've test fitted them all together and the ABS repairs are all really strong. The upper left fairing has had a load of coats of black smooth hammerite. The real original colour looks black but it's actually a very dark grey metallic with even some purple in certain lighting. But it's been getting touched up with black hammerite for about 15 years now so that's going to continue. I've used this hammerite for all kinds of stuff over the years and the finish is probably crap by pro standards but it's tough as hell. I'm trying the rattle can this time and it's coming out pretty well by my standards. And finally, I've got the bike in a position I can leave it for a week or two, and taken the rear wheel off.
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Current - '94 VFR750FR (Dead), '00 VFR800FI, 2011 CBF125 Previous - '10 Street Triple R, '92 MZ ETZ301, '05 TTR250, NSR125R, KMX125, "Honda" Win (chinese copy of an old Honda design with a C90 engine)
My bike trip around S.E. Asia 2010/2011

[Zen Dog]

Rear Wheel Powder Coating - COMPLETED. Took the risk on a local car wheel powder coater because the rear wheel on the VFR doesn't have disk mounts or bearing seats, the only bits that needed masking are where it sits against the hub, same as a car. And the job looks pretty good to be fair, though how well it'll hold up over time we'll see. He removed and refitted the tyre for me too (he even put it on in the right direction!), the only thing he couldn't do is get it balanced, so I'll get that done tomorrow. It's so strange for me though, the wheel didn't look this good when I bought the bike in 2005.

https://i.imgur.com/gelZr33l.jpghttps://i.imgur.com/A4Dt0apl.jpg

Fairing Repairs - COMPLETED. Finished painting the left upper fairing. I wanted to get a really shiny finish, but even with 4 coats of paint, and 3 of Plasticote clear sealer, it still looks a bit satiny, not sure why. But it's already looking incongruously nice compared to the rest of the tatty scratched fairings, so it'll do fine and it's time to get them back on the bike. It was all going back together nicely, till I got to fitting the new screen, and in typical fashion, it doesn't quite fit. I'd blame slightly bent fairing mounts, but honestly it always seems to be this way with aftermarket screens, they're never quite right. It's only a case of widening one of the holes with a dremel by a few mm in any case, so no big deal. At this rate, I might be able to MOT it at the weekend. Still a good few jobs to do, but then at least it'll fit the "rolling" part of being a "rolling resto".

https://i.imgur.com/X4nV8OLl.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/iNRAunOl.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/CuO7vnWl.jpg

It's beginning to look more like my bike again.
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Current - '94 VFR750FR (Dead), '00 VFR800FI, 2011 CBF125 Previous - '10 Street Triple R, '92 MZ ETZ301, '05 TTR250, NSR125R, KMX125, "Honda" Win (chinese copy of an old Honda design with a C90 engine)
My bike trip around S.E. Asia 2010/2011

[Zen Dog]

Think this might be a problem... and my local bike shop says they can't balance it either. This is more hassle than I was expecting.

https://i.imgur.com/3b34Gopl.jpg
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Current - '94 VFR750FR (Dead), '00 VFR800FI, 2011 CBF125 Previous - '10 Street Triple R, '92 MZ ETZ301, '05 TTR250, NSR125R, KMX125, "Honda" Win (chinese copy of an old Honda design with a C90 engine)
My bike trip around S.E. Asia 2010/2011

[Zen Dog]

Rear Wheel - STILL NOT READY. Tried my best to get this wheel balanced and the valve replaced yesterday. No point pissing about, and no-one answers the bloody phone on the weekend, so I just started driving round the bike shops in my area. 8 of them altogether. Of those, only 2 said they could balance an SSSA Wheel, and both of those said they didn't do workshop services on the weekend.

Clutch Slave Service - COMPLETED. The clutch slave started leaking randomly while I was putting the bike back together. Thankfully I'd bought all the parts when I was having a problem with the 800s clutch, and they're all the same, so 3/4 of an hour with a little brass brush cleaning the crap off the walls of the cylinder, generous application of red rubber grease on the seal, and a fill and bleed seems to have sorted it.

https://i.imgur.com/3XOGINVl.jpg

Fairings - COMPLETED. Put everything back together so all it's missing now is the rear wheel. The only thing I've had a problem with is the fastener by the riders right foot. Unlike every other fitting on the bike, this one uses a little blind ended brass insert in the frame. At some point I've clearly used a little too much force over the last 15 years, and it's gradually rounded. Because it's blind, I can't even put a zip tie or anything through it temporarily. It's ridable but it's going to be flapping about a bit. Not sure what the proper solution for this would be (who can replace a little brass insert for me?), so my initial thought is to try recutting the thread, and if that doesn't work cut a slightly larger thread and make up a bolt and some washers to do the job. It'll look shit but hopefully should do the job. I'll take some pictures later but if anyone has any suggestions...

EDIT - Recut the thread and I think it'll be fine for a while if I'm gentle with it. I never quite understand why recutting a thread to the same size it already is, seems to repair it, but it does, I've done it a few times now. But it's not a brass insert (it just had copper grease on it, and it's not blind (it just had crap blocking the end of it).
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Current - '94 VFR750FR (Dead), '00 VFR800FI, 2011 CBF125 Previous - '10 Street Triple R, '92 MZ ETZ301, '05 TTR250, NSR125R, KMX125, "Honda" Win (chinese copy of an old Honda design with a C90 engine)
My bike trip around S.E. Asia 2010/2011

[Honda434]

Getting real close to riding it.
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Honda434

[Irezumi]

[Zen Dog]

[Zen Dog]

Now officially a rolling resto.

https://i.imgur.com/Mz8reaD.mp4

Just a quick basic function test up and down the street before I book it in for MOT.

But I have now officially finished the list of "first jobs" to get out of the way, and I've flown through them in a mere...7 months. I've also done a couple of other jobs from the "later ongoing" list to be fair, as well as attempting to have a life, and getting in plenty of riding on the 800 (and the Striple when I had it). So I'm not bothered that it's taken me so long. I've done almost all of it myself, and I've tried to do everything as well as I could, so if it blows up next week, I know I gave it my best shot. And it's been really satisfying to do. Partially because working on cars and bikes is satisfying anyway, and partially because I pushed myself a bit, but mainly because giving this bike a new lease of life is something that's really important to me.

This is not A bike. Loads of people chop and change their bikes all the time, and I've had a few different bikes. But since I bought this one, they've always been "as well as" the VFR750, never "instead of". It's the bike I wanted when I was a teenager (I didn't want a 'Blade, I wanted a red VFR), and when I got a bit older I was gratified to find out how highly they were rated. I was smitten from the first ride on this, the only one I could afford on my £1500 budget, tatty, in the wrong colour, and with bald tyres. It's not a bike. This is MY BIKE. So I'm going to continue fighting for small victories over the forces of entropy on this one, as long as I can, and amateurish as my efforts may be. As such, presuming it passes the MOT (despite the visual state of it, it's got a fantastic record on MOT passes), I'll be moving on to other jobs -

Front End - Found a breaker via ebay, who seemed both reasonable and knowledgeable enough, and got him to sell me all of the following- VTR1000 Firestorm forks, front wheel spindle and spacers, complete front brake setup, and the mudguard. The mudguard is even black. It's not arriving till friday, and they looked ok in pictures, but god knows what I'll get really. It's all going to get a minor service at the very least, but I'm expecting to need to do more than that before I stick them on the bike. Even once they're in decent condition, they might be a straight swop onto the bike, but do I need to get them resprung? I have no idea.
Rear Brake - The rear brake on this bike has always been awful, no feel and lots of force required. I actually kind of like it that way, it means you can be really ham fisted with it during slow speed riding and it won't lock or otherwise upset the bike. But I'm going to try to get it better. The rear disk is fine, it's got a HEL braided line, and bleeding makes no difference so I need to look at the rear caliper, and the master and rear brake lever. I think play in the lever is actually the major cause but we'll see.
Fairings (again) - I realised one of the side fairings and the tail unit are cracked in a couple of places when I was putting it back together. I reckon I can sort them out with ABS now (cheers Ayrton!). I'll probably do that when the weather gets too cold for riding though.

I'm sure other things will need doing, or I'll have buggered something up and I'll have to fix it. I'm still at the "shakedown" stage really. But mainly, for a while, hopefully I'm just going to ride my bike.

https://i.imgur.com/h9vlSZj.mp4
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Current - '94 VFR750FR (Dead), '00 VFR800FI, 2011 CBF125 Previous - '10 Street Triple R, '92 MZ ETZ301, '05 TTR250, NSR125R, KMX125, "Honda" Win (chinese copy of an old Honda design with a C90 engine)
My bike trip around S.E. Asia 2010/2011

[trevor saxe-coburg-gotha]

How does the spec of the VTR forks compare to the OEM? I assume the storm's forks are cartridge against just damper rods on the OEM? If so, that's a little bit disappointing. The VFR has got a bit of a rose-tinted reputation now - e.g. how Honda never made any profit on them because they threw everything at it to regain respect following the failure of the case-hardening, etc., on the VF750/1000 bikes. You'd think they'd have fitted a better front end with some decent adjustment for damping and rebound etc.
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"Life is a sexually transmitted disease and the mortality rate is one hundred percent."

Mobylette Type 50 ---> Raleigh Grifter ---> Neval Minsk 125

[Zen Dog]

[trevor saxe-coburg-gotha]

Interesting - it didn't occur to me that it might be about the brakes.
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"Life is a sexually transmitted disease and the mortality rate is one hundred percent."

Mobylette Type 50 ---> Raleigh Grifter ---> Neval Minsk 125

[Zen Dog]

Rev Counter - FIXED - Bad earth on one side of the PCB feeding the dial was the culprit in the end. Had to strip all the fairings and spend an hour with the friendly solderer playing with multimeters and crocodile clips to find it though.

Thermostat - So the second shakedown ride has confirmed the engine never gets fully up to temperature even riding only in town and letting it idle for minutes (though I'm sure it would eventually at idle). Also the pipe into the top of the thermostat housing (from the rad) is getting warm immediately after startup. This may have been going on for years to be honest (I only recently fixed the temp gauge) but I think it's relatively recent. Anyway, I'll have a look at it when I get it out, but I'm not going to mess about, if I'm having it apart I'm going to fix it, thermostat and new O-ring are on order.

Front Brakes - MOT guy advised me that the brakes were binding a bit. But that's not it. The brakes work and aren't binding, but there's not a lot of power and the lever is extremely stiff. It's possible I've overfilled the reservoir, or maybe it's something else, but I need to have a look as they're not going to be good enough in an emergency, and I don't want to rush the real solution, which is...

Firestorm Bits - All need a good clean but are remarkably uncorroded. Fork legs are straightish at least (I've only compared them against a table), with no pitting and no leaks. Mudguard is uncracked and only needs the stickers removed. The brakes came with a set of goodridge hoses still attached. He even sent me all the bolts. The only thing which was missing was, for some reason, the brake lever. I have the master cylinder, which looks ok but the rubber boot has perished (they all do that sir, including the VFR), so I've ordered a service kit and a pattern lever for it. Overall, I think that's a win. I'm not going to rush fitting it all though. I just want to get the existing brakes working again and ride it some more before the weather goes crap.

https://i.imgur.com/pkzkKpSl.jpg

Exhaust - Testing the intermittent rev counter problem has I'm sure been testing the patience of the neighbours. The high-level race can does sound fantastic when you're riding behind it, and it's got a pop and crackle on the overrun that defies the reputation of the VFR as being sensible. But it's also deeply, offensively loud. The can itself is empty, it's basically an echo chamber. And while I've very much enjoyed having it, it's wearing a bit thin now. Plus it's probably buggering the fuelling from lack of backpressure (hence the popping and crackling). So I'd like something that's at least slightly muted. Problem is, people want crazy money and there's not as many options about any more, even tatty original end cans (which weigh a ton) are like £80. I think I'm going to have to wait, and accept a normal level exhaust if the right one comes up.

https://i.imgur.com/qXRupKMl.jpg
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Current - '94 VFR750FR (Dead), '00 VFR800FI, 2011 CBF125 Previous - '10 Street Triple R, '92 MZ ETZ301, '05 TTR250, NSR125R, KMX125, "Honda" Win (chinese copy of an old Honda design with a C90 engine)
My bike trip around S.E. Asia 2010/2011