Member Contributer Popular Post JZH Posted December 26, 2023 Member Contributer Popular Post Share Posted December 26, 2023 Twelve and a half years ago I began to modify a CA-spec Y2k VFR800Fi: Today, under vastly different circumstances and with somewhat different goals I have begun to modify its UK cousin, a Pearl Tahitian blue '01 VFR800Fi. I actually haven't worked on or ridden bikes for several years, for various reasons which all sound like excuses now, but that ends today. It's a good place to start. I acquired this bike ca. 2016, with low miles and apparently no damage (we'll see about that...) Over the years, I also acquired a load of parts for it, such as: SP2 forks, SP1 front wheel, SP1 bottom yoke, 929 top triple clamp, Tommaselli adjustable clip-ons, 8-spoke rear wheel, SH847 reg/rec, GiVi and SW-Motech luggage, Nitron shock, VFRD headers, Harris hugger, 6th gen rear cushion bracket, Sato adjustable rearsets, 6th gen ABS rear caliper, windowed clutch cover, xenon projector headlights, etc. Sadly, no supercharger or custom underseat exhausts this time...for now. Where to begin... Mmmmm. I do love cleaning years-old chain spooge... Wish me luck! Ciao, JZH 10 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer Captain 80s Posted December 26, 2023 Member Contributer Share Posted December 26, 2023 Nice parts list. Now get going! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer Mohawk Posted December 26, 2023 Member Contributer Share Posted December 26, 2023 Onwards and upwards, come on John get the lead out 😂 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer St. Stephen Posted December 26, 2023 Member Contributer Share Posted December 26, 2023 Good luck JZH! I look forward to seeing you on the finished bike after a long and exhilarating ride. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer Duc2V4 Posted December 26, 2023 Member Contributer Share Posted December 26, 2023 Abba stand to the rescue! I bought mine a few years ago and have used it for several VFRs (My own plus a few friends) as well as my Ducati. Great kit IMO. Good luck on your rebuild, looking forward to seeing some progress and possibly some ideas. I still plan on building the VFR Lance had planned for us to build together. He too had collected a lot of parts! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer Skids Posted December 26, 2023 Member Contributer Share Posted December 26, 2023 Apart from fitting the parts you list, what else are you planning? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer Dutchy Posted December 26, 2023 Member Contributer Share Posted December 26, 2023 🤪 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer mello dude Posted December 26, 2023 Member Contributer Share Posted December 26, 2023 But what of the Yellow Peril? Is it just sitting in the garage wasting away? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer JZH Posted December 28, 2023 Author Member Contributer Share Posted December 28, 2023 On 12/26/2023 at 7:29 PM, Dutchy said: 🤪 Oops... Anyway, thanks for the words of encouragement. At this point, the idea is simply to end up with a pile of OEM parts on the floor. Later, who knows? I'm planning on moving all my US stuff to Europe next year (including the yellow bike), so once I have it back in my possession, why not take some measurements of those A&A supercharger parts? JZH 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer JZH Posted December 30, 2023 Author Member Contributer Share Posted December 30, 2023 On 12/26/2023 at 5:43 PM, Duc2V4 said: Abba stand to the rescue! I bought mine a few years ago and have used it for several VFRs (My own plus a few friends) as well as my Ducati. Great kit IMO. Good luck on your rebuild, looking forward to seeing some progress and possibly some ideas. I still plan on building the VFR Lance had planned for us to build together. He too had collected a lot of parts! This is the first time I've used my Abba Sky Lift in anger (having owned a regular Abba stand for many years before I got this one), and I am growing to like it. Especially the "wheelie" and "stoppie" positioning options. That's with the rear wheel removed (and a set of Predator headers installed at the moment, rather than my new VFRD headers). Okay, a bit of a mock-up with the SP1 triples, SP2 forks, SP1 front wheel and the beautiful 954 front fender in Pearl Tahitian blue... I've decided to start at the front of the bike, as that is a pretty self-contained section for which I have most if not all of the parts to hand. I've followed various others' 5th gen fork conversions, beginning with vfrcanuck's original write-up, but I've never done this particular fork swap myself. I began by examining the bearings and races... Ciao, JZH 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer JZH Posted December 30, 2023 Author Member Contributer Share Posted December 30, 2023 I popped the ball races out of the headstock and measured the height of the seating surface. It's about 7-8mm. This makes sense, because ball bearing races are quite thin: Then I put the inside circlip into the headstock and I became slightly concerned... Especially since I had been planning to use two of the inside spacers, instead of the combination of inside and outside that Rob had used. Yes, the race would be ultimately held into the headstock by the steering stem nut, but putting a tapered roller bearing race into that seat even with one spacer did not "sit" well with me. Certainly not two. So, veering in the other direction, I ordered more 35mm outside circlips for the steering stem. I also recalled at this point a bit of controversy about lower seals and tapered roller bearings, and how they tend to interfere with each other when installed. The same rubber sealing rings are used for both the ball bearings and the tapered rollers, but the latter sit much closer to the rubber part and actually contact it when installed. For regular VFR steering stems I used to buy the special KOYO lower bearings incorporating the seal (32006JRRS) to avoid the problem posed by interference with the separate seal. Unfortunately, the 32907 bearing is not available with an integral seal, so the only option is to use the 3-1008 seal. My solution, however, will be to sandwich the seal between two 35mm outside circlips, thus distancing the rollers from the seal rubber just enough to eliminate the interference. (Hopefully!) Alternatively, I could put both spacers between the bearing and the seal? One remaining concern is that the 3-1008 seal is 55mm OD, which is exactly the same as the ID for the bearing race--but the sealing surface (beyond the lip shown in the pics) is slightly larger than 55mm (maybe 56mm?), which may mean no matter what I do, the seal won't be doing much sealing! Anyway, I hope to have the circlips today or Monday, after which I shall report how it went... Ciao, JZH Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer JZH Posted December 30, 2023 Author Member Contributer Share Posted December 30, 2023 I might be changing course here slightly... This picture shows the OEM lower triple clamp sitting on top of a 929/954 lower triple clamp. It is not a gull design, but is otherwise similar to the RC51/SP1 lower triples--apart from one other thing: it uses the exact same bearings as the VFR. When I test-fit the SP1 triples the top two clamping bolts contact the inner fairing at what would probably be the end of travel (if the steering stops were functional--see the picture below). But is does appear that the flat 929 triples would not present any clearance issues at all. So, why am I using SP1 triples? With the 929 triples I could use the VFR bearings, and because the new VFR bearings are the same size as the old VFR bearings, there is no need to mess around with snap rings. I would have to shave off the 929 triple's steering stops to clear the VFR headstock--same as with the SP1 triples. But, unlike the SP1 triples, the 929 triples' top surface is flat, which would make fitting new steering stops in the correct place an absolute doddle. I could use the 32006JRRS2 lower bearing with the integral seal... Sounds good to me so far, but what could scupper the idea for good would be if, once the forks' height is adjusted correctly, the flat 929 lower triples do not clamp the SP2 forks in the 50mm machined area (this is only an issue with SP2 forks--SP1 forks have a continuous 50mm clamping area). It's complicated to measure everything in advance, so I may have to suck it and see, potentially wasting some lower bearing sets, but that's probably a risk worth taking. Stay tuned... Ciao, JZH 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer vfrcapn Posted December 31, 2023 Member Contributer Share Posted December 31, 2023 Looks like a good start. BTW, if you want to leave the yellow peril behind in California and not mess with importing it, I’d be happy to take it off your hands. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer mello dude Posted December 31, 2023 Member Contributer Share Posted December 31, 2023 45 minutes ago, vfrcapn said: Looks like a good start. BTW, if you want to leave the yellow peril behind in California and not mess with importing it, I’d be happy to take it off your hands. Auction? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer Dutchy Posted January 1 Member Contributer Share Posted January 1 Vultures!!! I'll have a VFR400R please 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer JZH Posted January 3 Author Member Contributer Share Posted January 3 The 929 lower triple is less beefy than the SP1 lower triple--that's obvious. But, this VFR isn't going to be visiting many racetracks in its pampered life so I think I can probably get away with it... I ordered a new sealed lower VFR bearing for the 929 triple. I had one in storage that I had collected years ago, but when I tested it I was unimpressed with the interference caused by the integral seal--it may have been even more than with the ill-fitting seprarate metal disc seal! Basically, when the bearing was compressed into the outer race, even by hand, I could then not rotate the inner race at all. The leverage from the handlebars would have overcome that, but it didn't seem like that "solution" was much better than the problem I was attempting to solve! But then I noticed that there is another version of the KOYO sealed bearing available, so I ordered that one off eBay, and it does work much better in my opinion. The JRRS-2 version (now called "JTEKT" for some reason, but still a "KOYO brand", made in Japan) has a thinner seal lip, but otherwise appears to be the same as the JRRS version. More importantly, testing reveals that there is much less friction between the seal and the bearing race, so I will be happy to install this version. My ghetto-modified 929 lower triple clamp is nearly ready to go back together, but I have run out of time in London, so the next chapter will have to wait until I get back in a week or two or three... I'm keen to press in the stem, and press on the lower bearing and test the clearances with the SP2 forks, 929 top clamp and my choice of Tommaselli adjustable or 929 Heli bars. If everything works well, I will probably make the steering stops out of 15-20mm alloy round bar through-bolted to the top of the clamp--maybe drilled off-center to allow for fine tuning? Ciao, JZH 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Contributer JZH Posted March 3 Author Member Contributer Share Posted March 3 Obligatory Dutch biking pic from yesterday's ride: So, "two or three weeks" turned into a few more, and then when I finally got back to London I was too busy to touch the (motor)bike. Typical! From the previous post in this thread, it appears that I will need to press the steering stem back into the triple clamp and sort out the steering stops. Drilling the clamp would be easier without the stem in place, but I can't locate the holes correctly without it. But, I do have my own press, so in the stem will go, and commence the measuring I will. If I can't drill the holes with the stem in place, out again it will come! (An hour, tops?) Beyond getting the forks in place, it occurs to me that I might need to order or make brake lines. Grrr. (I hate making brake lines. Stainless steel hates me!) I'll see what I've got in boxes that might work--I'm sure I've got something that will work, if only temporarily. Alternatively, I may have some bulk, clear-coated -3 line, but the question is always re the stainless steel hose ends, which I generally only buy with specific projects in mind. I'd really like to avoid having to measure and then wait for the hoses/hose ends to be delivered, but we'll see... Ciao, JZH 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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