If you've been wondering what keeps me busy, the list is long. I've mentioned the VFR previously, always wanted one. The whole idea was to limit myself to a couple of bikes, make life simpler and have two fun bikes. A little back story, over the last 5 years I have become friends with a lovely mid-30's girl, helped her through some very troubled times... recently, as she was leaving, she said "You're the uncle I never had". True her Dad had passed away some years ago (she misses him) and he doesn't have any brothers. We've just evolved into the perfectly imperfect friendship, and a couple of months ago, she upped the ante, and called me her Best Friend. Long story for another day, but I was quite happy to be Uncle, now the pressure's on, LOL.
I showed her a pic of a yellow VFR for sale where the PO had put a couple of wide stripes on it... she called it Bumble Bee, and we're going to work on a similar graphics scheme one day... I want her to be part of all that.
Here is a pic that prompted it, that bike is still for sale here locally. I picked up mine for basically toy money because it is "high mileage", LOL, with 65K miles/109k kms. It is a 21 year old girl, 1999 Gen5 with the gear driven cams (VTEC and chain driven cams came 2002+). Nothing like that unique sound of that V4, and there is a loyal following of all Honda V4's from early 80's to now, lots of restoration projects going on in VFR world.
fontanaman, CollingsBob, bigjohnsd and 5 others loved this
Keep yer stick on the ice........... (Red Green)
Duct tape can't fix stupid, but it can sure muffle the sound.
Before I go further, I'm going to skip way ahead to something I mentioned elsewhere... I had removed the battery soon after I got it, so it's been a while (I'm using that as an excuse for what follows). The battery is under the rider seat, and to preserve real estate, they laid it down on an angle, you slide the battery into a plastic box, can't really see well in there, a large flap blocking clear view. When closed it allows storage under the front part of the seat, fuse boxes are right there too. The day came when I was going to fire it up, I slid the battery in, all seemed to line up where the cables should come out, all seemed to be a natural fit. I had just installed a brand new mofset voltage regulator (same one used on later FJR's), new harness, old harness had melted connectors, a known issue. This regulator would solve all that, using modern connectors. The regulator is connected direct to battery, isn't really doing anything until the engine is running to get stator output.
As I was doing up the battery cables, then the regulator lead, I hear a faint pop as if a fuse had blown... hmmm, a teeny spark, so something happened. Checked all fuses, none blown, no further sparkies of any kind, I proceed to finish installing the battery cables. Key thing here, I did not turn on the key!
Checking the regulator, it's getting warm and warmer as the minutes pass... WTF, I unplugged it. Checked for resistance between the direct 12V input and ground, we have a significant resistance, thus the heat when power connected. I had a spare FJR regulator I bought for my other bike, it had no such resistance. Would seem obvious there was no internal diode to prevent this.... prevent what you say.........
Apparently the dork who handed me the battery had it upside down, positive battery post on the right, ground on the left. I had not checked which way it should slide in, blah blah blah..... all hooked up, directly feeding the regulator reverse polarity. Instantly fried whatever inside it, the housing is rather robust and sealed, so the smoke is still trapped inside it.
Now, I will tell you that if you attempt this on an FJR, you're gonna blow the main 60 amp fuse, so take heart. No such blowing of the 30 amp main fuse on the VFR... hmmmm, did I fry her brains too, I thought damned likely so, kicking my ass for such a stupid dumshit move and my dork friend had vanished into thin air. Couldn't do much because I wasn't close to being able to install the new fuel tank, and lots to do before then (valve check, etc.). Found a used ECU in British Columbia at a good price, ordered it so it would be here for fuel tank time.
Skipping ahead to that, got fuel tank on, with existing ECU, battery hooked up properly, turned the key... all lit up including a very bright constantly on FI light, fuel pump did not run. Had a minor fuel leak, I had re-used a gasket and shoulda thought to order a new one long ago... dumshit. Had to get the tank off, but realized I had left the kill switch off, quickly flipped it on, fuel pump runs, hit Start button briefly to see it works, it does. FI light shining brightly, should be flashing if there's error codes, could not access. Got fuel tank off. Her brain is likely fried somewhere.
As I was waiting for new brain, worked on other stuff, one day saw in the FSM that there are checks for FI at the ECU connectors.... checked wiring diagram, had an epiphany that if no wire had voltage to the ECU with key off........ NONE! With key on, two wires have voltage to the ECU. I think I am saved, but I have two ECU's now..... I'd know if I had actually proceeded to crank and start the bike... another dumshit moment. So we wait.....
Fuel pump gasket is on backorder in Canada until end of April, ordered one from Michigan, it's taking the long way to get here via Kentucky to go through USPS's "Global Shipping Center".... can't track, got notification from Canada Post.... I should be able to find it in the mailbox on Monday.
fontanaman, CollingsBob, and wheatonFJR loved this
Keep yer stick on the ice........... (Red Green)
Duct tape can't fix stupid, but it can sure muffle the sound.
Back to last Dec. 28, I brought Bumble Bee home, washed her up, fully intended it not to be a full restoration, but more of a thorough cleaning up, ensure all the maintenance items done..... proceed to strip her clothes off, made a list that was quite lengthy and started working on some of it. Meanwhile, as I went, ordered parts and accessories in January, to be here for February, just plodded along slowly, no rush, no need to go anywhere before April. Didn't take long to get her skirts off and naked.
Got her bra and headlights off......
Meanwhile, little red Honda needs a little attention, now renamed Raspberry by my friend (her car is Blueberry), and we are going to Bee good, mostest bestest niece ever, and one of the biggest success stories ever for all she's accomplished. On the lift is another obligation I had promised as part of the deal in selling my buddy Dean my Root Beer FJR... really, just a cleanup and maintenance prepping his FJR1300 for an early spring sale... 2007 ST1300, 200k kms on it, now looking like showroom, sorta kinda. Takes a certain buyer for high milers, and it did sell over two weeks ago.
Meanwhile, another project had rolled in there somewhere in all this, but I'll let him tell that story if he wants to.......
fontanaman, CollingsBob, and wheatonFJR loved this
Keep yer stick on the ice........... (Red Green)
Duct tape can't fix stupid, but it can sure muffle the sound.
Melting a voltage regulator is nothing, cost me $100 to blow a brand new part, and $40 for a used one. Had I turned the key on, can you imagine all the relays and sensors getting power in the wrong direction.... the main fuse is always powered as well, but since the main feed didn't have to feed anything, the day was saved, and why it didn't blow. Still waiting for my fuel tank gasket, and once I have that, we will have a Moment of Truth. Figured out the FI light being on... just like an FJR, it comes on until you start the bike, it likely didn't flash because there are no codes, which all makes sense now. The light should go off once the bike fires up.
This bike had one big issue right from the start, the PO has owned this bike since 1999, first owner was a older guy that had a low speed drop on the right side and traded it back in to the dealer shortly after. PO fixed up the cosmetic bits, all it needed was a right side fairing and new nose (cracked at the signal light).. didn't take much to make it new. I have the old parts, you can't get these any more, can fix/repaint if ever needed.
Something I can't fix is the fuel tank... PO had somehow kinked the vent line (I can see how), fuel pump sucked it in on both sides and forward of the fuel filler, two cracks at the back which split and leaky fuelly, could not fill more than 2/3. I scoured the world for a decent tank, always something to repair or wrong colour, some junk ones from crashed bikes. Brand new tank is over C$G-Note, but unobtainium. Found a decent one I could maybe buff out/touch up, U$300... put that on the back burner for a bit, kept looking. This is the old tank... left side same, top caved in a bit.
Removed the fuel pump module and sending unit, no way I'm putting this tank back on the bike. Ordered new fuel filter and O-ring for the fuel sender.
fontanaman, Hppants, Niehart and 1 others loved this
Keep yer stick on the ice........... (Red Green)
Duct tape can't fix stupid, but it can sure muffle the sound.
I'll be jumping around a little bit, it's not like I had a list and followed it in order... multitasking with the other projects, just left the VFR until those were done. Meanwhile accumulating parts for the list....... when I first rolled it in, the exhaust was looking like faded aluminum, but I knew it was stainless underneath... an older Two Brothers, first thing I did was shine up a bit of it to see what I was up against..... first bit took 20 minutes. Maybe spent double that on it and away we go... on to stripping the skirts off etc.
Initially, I think it's a bit louder than I want, later TB's have db killers, somebody had an extra set so bought them. Don't fit, so I'll rig something up. Well, actually I haven't ridden anywhere, once I'm in the Great Wide Open (Tom Petty song), we'll see if anything needed, but one thing about this bike is one should not overpower the sound of those sweet gear driven cams.
All shined up....... ain't gonna be perfect, it's got some character scratches, stainless hard to get those out of without going to extremes... I am not worried about it at all. People will be looking at other parts of the bike, besides you can't see them at 30 mph!
fontanaman and Niehart loved this
Keep yer stick on the ice........... (Red Green)
Duct tape can't fix stupid, but it can sure muffle the sound.
The only thing better than following a gear driven cam'd Viffer in the Appalachian twisties is RIDING a gear driven cam'd Viffer in the Appalachian twisties! DAMHIK!!
raYzerman and bigjohnsd loved this
"I guess it comes down to a simple choice, really. Get busy living. Or get busy dying."
- Andy Dufresne, Shawshank Redemption
Oh yeah, there will be some Appalacian twisty riding fer sure!! As I took the plastic parts off, they got a preliminary cleaning to get accumulated grime off them, then put it all in storage, they'll get the final shine before they go back on. Parts were rolling in from "global sourcing", Britain, Germany, Belgium, China, Japan, Budapest, Canada, etc. Certain jobs have to be done before others, but lots of in-betweeners too. Very experienced and knowledgeable bunch on the VFR forums, many have had project bikes and there's a very loyal following of V4 Hondas.... I just spent a few hours puttering away at it in the shop every day, nothing was urgent, it's February and as it turns out, spring is a bit later this year anyway.
Drained the oil and removed clutch cover to repair the minor road rash (after the fairings touch down, that's the next thing to hit). Found a near match Rustoleum paint in a can that has a great spray nozzle, three coats and into a 200 deg. EZ-Bake oven for an hour, turned out perfect. Painted the adjacent cover as well just because I'm anal. Cursory inspection of clutch plates, it was working just fine before, nothing to be concerned about. I thought the little chain that drives the oil pump could use replacing, but the boys all tell me nothing to worry about... I'll put that on the next winter list. There is a low oil pressure switch, no worries. I took the opportunity to brush off the 4-in-one headers and hit them with a very high heat gray paint using Dollar Store tin foil as masking paper... you never see them much with all the plastic on but what the heck... looks good to me.
Clutch cover all painted up, new gasket from England, metal panel painted and back on. Shop is getting messy....
Took the rear single-sided swingarm drive axle apart, cleaned, checked bearings, re-greased, reassembled.... fancy new brake rotor as some bling.
In keeping with the Bumble Bee theme, there will be contrasting yellow and black as we go...... new black rear sprockie..... that big nut right there holds the drive axle/shaft parts all together, torque spec is 140 ft. lbs.... got a 46mm impact socket on the way from England, C$22 to my door.
fontanaman, Niehart, escapefjrtist and 1 others loved this
Keep yer stick on the ice........... (Red Green)
Duct tape can't fix stupid, but it can sure muffle the sound.
The existing chain and sprockets are in decent shape, however, when removing front drive sprocket, found a coupla chain O-rings in there, thought what the heck.... so new chain came from Washington state. Got it on, new link rivetted, new front rubber damped sprockie.... Can you say Bling one more time? Get used to it!
Lotsa cleaning up on the swingarm, I really should have taken it off, but got all the obvious stuff off, you ain't gonna look in there anyway.... has some strange streaking in the finish from something (chain lube or high powered solvent???), the runs in the powder coating aren't dirty, but superclean.... I attempted supercleaning the rest with Toluene, but not much effect.... not bugging me that much, maybe one day that swingarm will come off and have some nice new powder coat, maybe some Bumble Bee inspired stuff. I have seen where guys did them up in black, but.... kinda like the original silver as well. On the next winter list.... maybe... if I care.
Another previous pic where you can see the new-to-me Penske shock I scored from a friend, reservoir mounted at the back with a homemade bracket. Also installed a brand new mofset voltage regulator with it's robust wire harness. The originals were non-mofset and just adequate capacity, stator output is 470 watts vs. FJR's 590 watts, so same mofset will have more than adequate capacity.
Typical of some older bikes is a connector with spade terminals that is prone to overheating with these older regulators, can result in shorts and frying a stator as well. I know the regulator was replaced previously, had to snip off a good portion of the three yellow wires to get to good wire. The dumshit part of this is wires from the stator are 16ga., the new wiring is 12ga., I would have thought stator wires should be at least 14ga. Oh well, carry on... despite the frying, stator checked out OK, removed cover to inspect just in case... not going to replace it unless it fails.
All cleaned up for new gasket and reassembly.
Another piece of the stator/reg puzzle is to ensure the connection at the starter relay is clean and good, since it is the regulator power source normally. Lucky me, looking good. New reg. gets power feed directly from battery to bypass OEM wiring of a lighter gauge. That there 30 amp fuse is the main fuse... I replaced all the fuses to ensure no corrosion,etc., carefully applied contact paste to connector terminals in some cases.
My new girl needed some new shoes, front one has obviously seen some track days... PO asked me if I would reassemble his Triumph Speed Triple he uses as his track bike, he had replaced the engine... mostly cosmetics and wiring, but would take a lot of hours, and he lives 2 hours away... he was quite willing to pay me..... Um, yeah, I'll think about it, um, yeah, like I've got lots of spare time, um, not. Way on the backburner, hope I forget.
So we have Angel GT I had in my stash, always wanted to try it given the good testimonials, put a Shinko Raven 009 up front because it impressed me on the Raspberry Honda last year.
bungie4, fontanaman, Niehart and 1 others loved this
Keep yer stick on the ice........... (Red Green)
Duct tape can't fix stupid, but it can sure muffle the sound.
Not sure if you knew that they have a location in the states now and not terribly far from me in PA. If you ever need anything picked up and delivered to an event like EOM or something or it might be a good place to stop on your way to or from an event if you're attending. I've gotten some stuff from them for my CB400F.
Last edited by BkerChuck on Tue Apr 21, 2020 10:28 am, edited 1 time in total.
I know that stator problems are an occasional issue with this bike. At least it's not like the ST1300, where I think you have to get to it deep within the "v" of the engine....
"I guess it comes down to a simple choice, really. Get busy living. Or get busy dying."
- Andy Dufresne, Shawshank Redemption
Thanks Chuck, I'm familiar with David Silver Spares from the ST days, good for OEM and other stuff for Hondas. While this did not affect me too much, better prices importing where I could have it shipped directly to me rather than my usual "ship it to a US friend".... I have this wonderful set of stainless brake lines sitting in NY... just didn't make the cut when the border restrictions came in.. OK so it's gonna cost me some postage if I want it now, but it's not needed right now at all...
There's other things in the V, Pants..... stay tuned. But thankfully alternator is not there... thermostat is though, jeez why!! Viffers have occasional thermostat issues, but nowhere near what the ST had. Thankfully I never had to go into the V on an ST.
Keep yer stick on the ice........... (Red Green)
Duct tape can't fix stupid, but it can sure muffle the sound.
At Andy's Tech Day I told you that you were like the Uncle I never had and you hit me with a wrench and threw a cigar at me.
Understandably, I am not lovely nor mid-30's.
The Viffer's stator is just fine, on other forums I have seen far worse and still functioning fine, but I'd be putting a new one in if there was any question. The shade of "brown" is the key, the non-uniform colouring is key... stator has 3 sections, one bad one will show up first, but Alan was turning on the smoker to prep spare ribs, best have a nice even heat for that. I most likely would have left his original in, but I don't know the background...
From all I've read, Electrosport's were iffy, wound with smaller gauge wire perhaps trying to squeeze more blood out of the stone as they did claim higher outputs.
Meanwhile, my FJR type mofset will allow a higher voltage to pass through, doesn't have to do as much work, should prevent the stator from going into BBQ mode. The shunt excess to ground is old tech, relies on a good grounding of the casing, etc.
Honda had a recall on stators for my other Honda, design flaw apparently did not allow enough or a uniform oil splash to keep the darn things cooled down... they have a mofset I believe, albeit a previous generation, but I'm debating to just replace it with the higher capacity FJR type.
Keep yer stick on the ice........... (Red Green)
Duct tape can't fix stupid, but it can sure muffle the sound.
As I went along, I was just going at things I could easily put my hands on, the big one ultimately would be pulling the throttle bodies to get into the depths of the V. You may have noticed one of the first pics showed the coolant reservoir bone dry, I knew the PO has replaced the thermostat some time ago (mileage unknown) and I was going to put in a new one anyway while I'm in there. You may have noticed a blue hose in a pic also... So, I had been waiting for this........ a set of silicone coolant hoses and there are 13 of them all told. These are very robust. Also needed new O-rings for all the coolant joints where hose fittings bolt onto the engine. Fun job I spread out over a couple of days..
Meanwhile, valve check time... rear is easily accessible, front is accessed from the front, oil cooler drops down with two screws removed. YOu can see the cam gears on the right side, cams are held in rather robustly as well...
Valve covers back on, new sparkies installed, PAIR system being removed and plates will go on over the orange gaskets.
Somewhere in here we are going into the V.... First you have to get the throttle bodies off, and one VFR guy mentioned he used a skyhook to pull up on them while you pry at each corner... worked like a charm.
With the throttle bodies out of the way, now we're down in the V where the thermostat housing is, a couple of coolant couplings and 6 of the coolant hoses (I had removed the overflow hose which goes over all of them from the right rad to the coolant reservoir on the left side). Lots of hose clamps, got the coolant couplings off and replaced the O-rings... new thermostat of course.
So this is what it looked like after while......
fontanaman, Festus, and escapefjrtist loved this
Keep yer stick on the ice........... (Red Green)
Duct tape can't fix stupid, but it can sure muffle the sound.
