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Newbie with new mods!


Jonah

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Hi everyone, I hope you're all well and in good spirits. I got my 'beast' just under a year ago and she was broken, battered and neglected. There was no MOT, the chain and sprockets were rusty, chain adjuster was seized, the oil was jet black and there was massive hole in the cat. But to be fair... it was quite clean:

 

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I got it in the middle of winter for a very reasonable price, so I then embarked upon a journey to restore her to her former glory! The list includes:

-2 new Michelin Road Pilot 4 tyres
-new D.I.D chain and sprockets
-new tapered steering stem bearings
-new front brake discs and pads
-new battery

-fitted an independent hazard light kit wired straight to the battery with blinker relay and diodes
-powder coated wheels and nose cone bracket in gloss black
-puig double bubble screen
-side exhaust conversion (yoshi can)
-pillion foot pegs and grab rails removed and honda blanks fitted
-new rear wheel bearings (including needle and sprocket carrier bearings), all replaced with genuine Honda parts
-eccentric hub cleaned and re-greased, chain adjuster is now free to move
-new oil and filter, new coolant, coolant reservoir also cleaned
-new spark plugs
-K&N air filter
-removed chain guard and sprocket cover and cleaned out years worth of grease and dirt
-exhaust studs and nuts all replaced with stainless steel
 

This is what she looks now:

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As it was coming up to winter, I thought the stock headlights could do with an upgrade, so I fitted these:

 

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I'll stop rambling for now, but I'm very pleased to be a part of the VFRd community! :)

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Woah! Well done.

 

I especially like the projector upgrade. Restored to life, is what i’d call this post. I’m restoring mine to former glory right now, and the parts cost is adding up quickly. Gotta be careful not to spend too much :). 

 

To clean and oil the chain adjusting bit, does the hub have to be removed?

 

thanks,

urbane

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  • Member Contributer

Welcome to VFRD from across the North Sea :beer:

 

 

she "buffed out nicely" for sure!!!

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4 hours ago, Urbanengineer said:

I think this clear turn signal cover would set it apart, if allowed in your country! Get a nice set of led 7443 bulbs to put in and a nice led flasher relay. 

 

https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F162635922800

Looks like this is already done, have a look at the projector pics. 

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Thanks for the comments guys, @Urbanengineer yes you need to remove the hub to clean and grease it properly. They get slightly corroded if they've been sat for a while and get seized together. That's when I took the opportunity to replace all the bearings as it was all apart anyway. I have a reminder on my phone to move it once a month now. And yes I've already fitted the clear lenses :) I just replaced the lenses themselves and painted the inside of the housings silver, the other ones didn't quite line up with the bulb sockets.

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Yea I took out both stock reflectors and made up some brackets out of 2mm aluminium that fit the same space. So I'm still able to adjust them using the stock adjustment screw. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Love the all blue color!  

 

Your bike caught me off a bit...it's a 6th gen with a low slung single exhaust.  Never seen that done before.

 

I have both LED headlight on one bike, and standard halogens on my VFR.  I also have HID in my truck.  The one thing that makes a noticeable difference in night visibility is the color of the light and the areas of the road the reflector illuminates.  If the headlight has good reflectors, even a lower brightness light helps.  So even when you have a brighter, whiter light, if the reflector doesn't send that light where you want it, the visibility still sucks.

 

Luckily for us VFR owners from 5th Gen on up, we have good reflectors.  It sure does help having TWO lights on rather than just one like on my other bike!  So even with just replacing the existing bulbs for a slightly brighter halogens makes a noticeable difference that allows you to see further down the road and on the sides.  An added bonus would be a whiter light that makes color more accurate but it's not a must-have compared to having the existing light output projected correctly.

 

I like the look of those reflector style bulbs.  Looks brighter & whiter too.

 

 

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@Rogue_Biker thanks! Turns out that all the 5th gen exhausts fit the stock cat perfectly. I just fabricated a fibreglass bracket to attach it using the pillion foot peg holes. I'm working on a custom foot peg bracket that will allow me to keep the exhaust where it is.

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On 11/24/2017 at 12:05 PM, Rogue_Biker said:

I like the look of those reflector style bulbs.  Looks brighter & whiter too.

It's an HID projector. I ended up buying a set of HID projectors for the VFR, but used some high quality aftermarket ones... No Chinese garbage here, I'll have to post about the output. It looks like OP got a nice ebay set, its rare to get some so nice here in the states!

 

Rogue, don't put LEDs in headlights, especially reflectors. The only smart choice is dedicated LED projectors like : http://www.morimotohid.com/projectors/bi-led-morimoto-m-led-headlight-projectors.html

 

With drop in LED bulbs you end up seeing less down the road, and more glare in places you shouldn't. Despite what all the marketing says, the hype is REAL!

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Nah I have no plans to put LED's on mine at this time.  I just upgraded to brighter Sylvania Silverstar Ultra's for a simple plug and play improvement for all four lights for under $100.  My VFR is also my daily driver so I need one that is OEM reliable.  

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@Urbanengineer I ended up removing the stock reflectors all together, I used cardboard to make a rough template of where the original holes were then made up some brackets out of 2mm aluminium plate. I used the 4 small holes around the projector to screw them to the brackets (after cutting out the hole obviously). A jigsaw with a metal blade worked wonders for this.

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I did something similar, but never actually finished the project...er:

P1000948x.thumb.jpg.b77834bae7bf332578f033a61c720ede.jpg

 

Ciao,

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The Jonah thread take over, VFR retrofit edition. 

 

Thabks for showing pics of your retro :). 

 

Got the housing cut out today, plan to mount it using the nut and bolt method this evening. These H1’s fit so well I may re use the stock rubber rear cover! The VFR duals were pretty alright before, but I’ll be damned if projectors don’t modernize it and give it a major lighting upgrade.

 

Jonah, did you use the stock housing rubber covers on the back to seal it up? If not, please drop a pic here to help us in the thread!

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Hi guys, sorry for the late reply, been off the 'beast' recently due to bad weather, shame cause a day on 4 wheels is a day wasted! Anyway, @Urbanengineer here is a pic of the back of the headlight:

 

20171206_073140.thumb.jpg.7cc92f6e9aef105b05a3710e06891e50.jpg

 

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Not sure how well you can see those, but I used some 'domed' rubber covers I got off amazon, 80mm is the size:

 

image.png.2fca766e693535d8849b90e8418c9af9.png

 

Amazon link is here but you may be able to get them elsewhere: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07121W86N/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

I just tie wrapped them to the back of the headlight and it works quite well. What I didn't show before was the plan for the main beam, I got some LED projectors and put them where the original main beam was. To be honest it's not really necessary because the bi-xenon projectors on full beam are super bright anyway. I just liked the idea of other drivers being able to clearly see when my full beams are on. The projectors come with LED rings so the plan is to wire them up to the side lights. When I have the lights out again (which is inevitable really), I'll take some more detailed pics. I had to use a hole saw to trim just a little bit of the fairing off for the wire connectors to fit. There are no clearance issues when cornering with this setup:

 

20171206_073204.thumb.jpg.dc377d186855f03c20f84b6aecaf4864.jpg

 

Any Q's let me know!

 

 

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Ooh, that Honda logo is a nice touch. The US-Spec bike doesn't have that DRL that yours does in the bottom right (of the right side of the bike headlight).

 

Those Cap boobies are great, they seal out all the dust and water and stuff. I'll have to use me some of those. I didn't realize we had that much space behind the headlights. Thank you Honda for giving us that kind of space!

 

I think I'm going to end up mounting LED spotlights as cornering lights. I'm more of a form/function kind of guy, and they cornering lights would give vision through the corner while the bike is leaned over. It pretty much points up and to the sky. The H1's fit with no trouble though. I'm glad you replied... not enough people do the projector upgrade. Your's was very cleanly done :).

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