New to me

[whodat90]

Ok, I've been riding for a bzillion years. Then I stopped. Not quite sure exactly what caused the stopping (maybe wrapping the DL650 around a tree?) Was using an XR400R bored to 416 and legalized for commuting on and off. Finally my baddish back and the high compression kickstart thumper conspired against me, and it's been nearly a year since I rode regularly. A bit ago my wife kind of mentions in passing that I should get another DL650. I hear "you have full authority and permission to purchase a motorcycle" so I start searching. The DLs were out of my price range. I wanted almost anything but a cruiser or sportbike (been there, done that) or KLR. FZ1 had too much power for me (sold mine because of that) so I finally had it narrowed down to a Ducati ST2, ST1100, or a VFR8. The duc was nice, but much more sporting than sport touring, and maintenance intensive. The ST1100s in my price range were pretty much beat, with 60-80K hard miles. Finally found my current (running) motorcycle, my red '99 VFR8. Guy bought it new, rode it fairly hard for a couple years (it's been to the dragon among other places if the stickers I pulled off had any truth) then went overseas for his job. Drains the tank, puts it into storage. Fast forward, he comes home and buys a goldwing and the VFR stays in storage. 9 years later, he decides to sell it. He wants $X, I offer $X-, he accepts. Bring it home in the trailer the next day, with the bike, a full set of Givis, an autocom system, heated grips, couple of farkles, scott oiler, new battery and all needed fluids and filters.

I immediately stripped the bike down of all plastics, change the oil and filter, bleed the clutch (which was totally empty, and required wire brushing/polishing the slave cylinder to get past all the gunk and corrosion) and pop the new battery in. Turn the key, lights work, starter works, but bike doesn't start. Turns out he siphoned most of the gas out of the tank, but not all of it and he didn't run the rails dry. I am now going blind on instinct and things that I think I know about the vfr, plus help from this site. I read somewhere that this bike has 4 hole injectors, and the later model has 12 holes. I find the post on injector cleaning in an ultrasonic cleaner. I read the helpful posts on how to get the injectors out. Unfortunately they all pertain to the 6th gen. In actuality, the injectors on this bike are single pintle style, and the fuel rail is held in with SHCS from the bottom of the throttle bodies so the whole TB assembly has to come out. I pull them, pull the rails, pull the injectors, and indeed they seem to be stuck. Not having an ultrasonic cleaner handy (although walmart has them cheap, and I've been meaning to pick one up for some time) I decide to macguyver it. First I soak the tips in carb cleaner, then fill the bodies with carb cleaner, and let them sit for a while. Once they've soaked I manually pushed the pintle in to open, and let carb cleaner dribble through. Once I had them that far, I rigged up a set of wires with speaker connectors to my battery box so I could manually activate the injectors. I drilled a hole in the pointy end of a sharpie cap. The big end is just the right size to fit over the fuel rail side of the injectors. I put the injector into the sharpie cap, filled the cap with the carb cleaner through the hole I drilled, hooked it to the battery to manually cycle the injector, then hooked my air hose to the hole in the injector and let fly. Don't try this with more than about 50psi. Worked my way through all 4 injectors, reassembled everything with plenty of assembly lube, synthetic grease, antisieze and locktite, and the bike fired up within seconds. Completed the reassembly, took it for it's first ride.

The bike ran beautifully, and I gently worked through the gears till I was going comfortably faster than the speed limit when

Nothing. No engine, no gauges, nothing. I called the wife for a pickup and started troubleshooting. Turns out the main fuse next to the starter solenoid blew. Replaced it and went on home. A bit closer look at the possible causes led to some consternation. The PO was quite the self styled electrician. Some of his gems included scraping insulation off the ignition wire just under the key switch, wrapping his horn relay wire and heated grips wire around it, and putting a spot of electrical tape over it. Turns out that there weren't actually heated grips on it, just the controller and some bare wires. I found quite a few examples of 'wiring' done like this, so I tore it down again and removed/repaired everything the PO did electrically. Anyone want an autocom intercom system?

So far I've ordered:

New tires (pilot power 3s)

new brake pads

oil filter

new pegs (PO had some pretty pink anodized ones on that just don't go with my shoes)

couple of well nuts

Delkevik 18" stainless exhaust

single LED voltage indicator

new fairing stay to replace the one the PO bent

various and sundry bits.

cbr600 fuse box

I've cleaned, tightened, and dielectric greased every electrical connection I can get to (bend the tabs down on the female part of the connector to tighten the fit, then spray carb cleaner/electrical contact cleaner on it, and connect/disconnect repeatedly to remove any corrosion, add dielectric grease and reconnect) I've tightened every bolt, I've pulled the bodywork off and washed/clayed/rubbed/polished/waxed each one to remove scratches and generally renew the body work. Honestly the paint is in great shape since it spent most of it's life inside, but when it was used it was used hard so there were scratches, dings, chips.

Plans right now are mostly to ride it. I plan to redo much of the electrical system. This partially includes the addition of the CBR600 fuse box, which will be placed next to the stocker. Some number of it's circuits will be hot all the time (battery tender connector, at least one powerlet) and some will be switched. I'm going to redo some of the wires on the bike, to include running a nice fat 8ga wire to the front to power the headlights, and modification of the wiring so that high beam will run both high and low beams. Also wiring in my GPS, a couple of powerlets, and maybe a legacy cig lighter plug just in case. Also plan to have a manual switch for the fan, plus an indicator on the dash (same size LED as the volts indicator, just a different color) wired with the fan so I'll know when it comes on. Also plan to add a stout, server class low profile computer fan in behind the RR to help prolong it's life.

I'm sure there's more, but I'm tired and it's time for me to go to bed. Just wanted to say hi, thanks for the info I've already received, and the info I will dig out in the future. Hope to offer my help and knowledge/nicely equipped shop in the future. Oh yeah, I've had V4s before; previous bikes include a '95 Magna, and my son currently has an '85 interceptor 700.

whodat

Edit: it also included helibars, a color matched bagster tank cover and black bagster, and the rear seat cowl, cut to allow use with the givis. Didn't come with the stock grab bars though.

[RollinAgain]

I have a magical unicorn but nobody believes me because I never posted pics.

Regardless, congrats on your "alleged" puchase LOL! Welcome to the funny farm!

Rollin

[Chuckster]

Welcome to VFRD. I was just up in Virginia. Beautiful place to ride.

Chuck

[timmythecop]

Purcellville VA? Lets meet up and go to Summit Point one weekend. That is if this magical bike exists.

[Monk]

Welcome......... I had a '99 before this one great bike.

[MaxSwell]

What a nice story. Brought tears to my eyes. You may even get a nomination for best FICTION. We demand pics!

[whodat90]

alleged indeed.

[whodat90]

bagged

[Dutchy]

Welcome to VFRD from across the pond

I was reading your story and also thought "where are the pics?" (we shake all new ones like this, but we are a nice lot deep down inside )

PS Timmy is a fun guy but be wary of his flat black theory....... it is flawed......... Red bikes are the fastest!!!

[whodat90]

Af far as which is fastest, there's a coupla ways to look at it. Red light has a wavelength of ~700nm, yellow is only about 600nm. Therefore red is clearly faster than yellow. On the other hand, black is black because it absorbs all colors, which clearly makes it heavier, and we all know that heavy=slow. Add to that the fact that flat paint is flat because of the surface texture that scatters reflected light every which way, not only do you have the additional aerodynic drag of the non-smooth surface but you have the additional drag of all that reflected light scattering every which way. So I can't say that red is the fastest color, but I can say with authority that it's faster than the 100nm slower yellow, and clearly faster than the much heavier black.

[whodat90]

Ok, just ordered some heated grips; Oxford Heaterz. The 'z' makes them cool, or hip, or whatever the term is nowadays. Nowadayz. (see what I did there?) The fuse panel shipped yesterday, once I get back from an upcoming trip I'll be able to add all my electrical goods. The fuse panel has 7 fuses available, so it'll be highbeams, lowbeams, heated grips, GPS, horns, powerlet, and cig lighter. GPS may just tap of of something else, it has such low draw.

[MaxSwell]

Af far as which is fastest, there's a coupla ways to look at it. Red light has a wavelength of ~700nm, yellow is only about 600nm. Therefore red is clearly faster than yellow. On the other hand, black is black because it absorbs all colors, which clearly makes it heavier, and we all know that heavy=slow. Add to that the fact that flat paint is flat because of the surface texture that scatters reflected light every which way, not only do you have the additional aerodynamic drag of the non-smooth surface but you have the additional drag of all that reflected light scattering every which way. So I can't say that red is the fastest color, but I can say with authority that it's faster than the 100nm slower yellow, and clearly faster than the much heavier black.

From the above dissertation, I'd say you will be one of brightest stars on this site and have nothing to fear from Timmy or any other Let's-Intimidate-The-New-Guy types that predominate here. I just pity the next new guy than comes in for your intimidation. You are damm creative with your logic. I salute you.

[Bren]

From the above disertation, I'd say you will be one of brightest stars on this site and have nothing to fear from Timmy or any other Let's-Intimidate-The-New-Guy types that predominate here. I just pity the next new guy than comes in for your intimedation. You are damm creative with your logic. I salute you.

Do you need a little cuddle precious?

[MaxSwell]

I don't think so. I need all my cuddle preciouses to be large. No little s. BTW: what is a cuddle precious ? The last I heard precious was the name of Gollum's ring.

[whodat90]

Just bought a windscreen off ebay for ~$20. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Racing-Windscreen-Windshield-HONDA-VFR800-98-01-/370594381432#ht_4533wt_1185 I'm sure it's crap, but I've been reading about the different windscreen options and I'm sure I'll end up cutting either the stocker or this one down to experiment, so all things considered I'd rather cut up a $20 windscreen than a $100 givi or other brand name.

[Veefer800Canuck]

I think those ones are the GIANT double bubbles where the screen pops up so much it's ridiculous. Someone posted one here earlier and the side profile looked a little cartoonish.

Zero gravity has an outlet store where they sell slightly imperfect screens for much less. I got one and it has a few tiny bubbles in the creases of the screen that you can't see unless you remove it and hold it up to the light.

[cybershade69]

Af far as which is fastest, there's a coupla ways to look at it. Red light has a wavelength of ~700nm, yellow is only about 600nm. Therefore red is clearly faster than yellow. On the other hand, black is black because it absorbs all colors, which clearly makes it heavier, and we all know that heavy=slow. Add to that the fact that flat paint is flat because of the surface texture that scatters reflected light every which way, not only do you have the additional aerodynic drag of the non-smooth surface but you have the additional drag of all that reflected light scattering every which way. So I can't say that red is the fastest color, but I can say with authority that it's faster than the 100nm slower yellow, and clearly faster than the much heavier black.

All that means is the cops see you first! :lol:

[whodat90]

Just got my bar ends, voltage indicator, and fuse panel. Bar ends are bar ends, a bit dinged up from the total lack of packaging but they're bar ends, I'm not that worried about it. The voltage indicator is very nice, played around with it with some of my spare batteries and it's definitely an attention getter when it changes from one color to another. The fuse panel is larger than I expected, and uses standard blade fuses rather than mini so I may not use it. It is set up perfectly for the intended use though, as it has 7 circuits, 5 of which are fed from one wire and the other two are independently powered. I grabbed my multimeter and made a quick pinout diagram just to verify what goes where.

[whodat90]

All that means is the cops see you first! :lol:

Probably true, but since I'm old, fat and slow I'm not worried. It does hopefully mean that the brain dead cell phone junkie texters driving their cars on very important missions to go very important places see mee too. Fat chance, but I'm ever hopeful.

[whodat90]

Just installed the new footpegs and Delkevic exhaust. Footpegs are more of an aesthetic thing, since I just wasn't grooving on the pink aluminum, but the rubber pads on the stockers do transmit somewhat less vibration. The delk is nicely made, with very nice welds and good quality clamps. The mounting strap didn't come with the rubber sleeve so I just cut a strip of rubber and used that for now. I have to turn the forward clamp since it hits the centerstand, but that's no big deal. With the quiet baffle installed it's only slightly louder than stock, without the baffle it's just about perfect. Has a nice low growl below 5500rpm, and gets a bit raspy above that. Since I never plan to be above 5500rpm anywhere that noise will be an issue, I think I'll probably leave the baffle out. Honestly though, even without the baffle it's still pretty dang quiet. Now it's time to go flush and bleed the brakes, change the oil and filter again (70 or so miles since first re-start) and spoon on the new tires, then start the electrical work.

[whodat90]

Change of plans. First a change in the exhaust review: The pipe is still pretty nice, but the s-pipe is a bit of a pain. The bottom section which attaches to the stock exhaust had a couple of burrs in it, which didn't allow it to slip on far enough. I grabbed the dremel and cleaned up the inside of the flange, the outside of the stock exhaust, and generally everything I could get near. Once I did that the s-pipe slipped on a bit easier, but still required some serious wiggling to get it to seat far enough down that the center stand would hit the rubber bumper. Oh and the lower clamp bolt broke; stainless in stainless galls pretty easy. I replaced it with a stainless socket head cap screw and used lots of anti-sieze on it. I also put the anti-seize on the inside of the flange to make it go on easier. I also trimmed the top of the strap so it didn't stick up so far above the passenger peg bracket.

Flushed and bled the brakes, what a pain. Took a bottle and a half of brake fluid to complete, but now I have nice new clean fluid throughout. Replaced the rear pads while I was in there, turns out I need fronts too. Oh well.

Finally, the electrical. In order to simplify somewhat, I decided not to use the cbr fuse panel yet. Instead I grabbed a switched signal from the tail light, and use that to activate a relay connected to the battery with a 30a fuse. The output from that relay goes to a pair of 10ga wires, techflexed and ziptied along the stock harness on the clutch side of the frame and follows the stock harness to the inside of the fairing. One of the two goes to a relay for the better horns the bike came with; that relay is activated by the stock horn wires. The other one will be spade lug connected to the heated grips, GPS, and signal dynamics volts indicator each of which are independently fused. The volt light is put in the clutch side of the instrument panel trim, high and left. In line of sight enough that it'll get my attention when it flashes. Need to find a matching LED for the other side to wire to the fan so I know when it comes on. Their wire harnesses will be bundled up under the instrument panel as neatly as possible. It just seemed silly to run three separate power leads to the rear of the bike instead of one to the front. The control panel for the grips is mounted to it's included bracket, on the clutch perch. I painted the bracket black. I hooked the grips up to a battery box for testing, and they got nice and toasty. I still don't think they're all that great (the wind on your knuckles is what makes your hands cold, not the grips) but it should be nice for those days when you hit a cold snap and only have your regular gloves. Oh forgot whether or not I mentioned, the GPS is a zumo 550 I've had for years. It was on the bike I totaled, never even came loose from it's mount. I'll add a separate +12v constant lead for heated clothing/charger (I'll never be using heated clothing and a battery tender at the same time, so no need for two separate plugs, and I'll never use the heated gear when the bike is off so no need for it to be switched.) This way I only need one powerlet outlet. Simpler is better.

Edit: The oxfords are stupidly designed. The wire exits the grip in a giant flange which puts the wire out perpendicular to the grip, an inch down and an inch forward of centerline. On the clutch side this isn't a big issue, but on the throttle side it makes positioning a bitch. You have to put it so that it doesn't hit the brake lever, but also has enough freedom of movement for the throttle to move cleanly, without having a huge loop of wire hanging down. The vfr has a 1/4 turn throttle, so you have to have 90* of free movement available. It's fairly obvious that they made these for ATVs and JetSkis first, then just changed the tube diameter for motorcycles. It'd be better if the wire either didn't come out so freaking far, or had a slip fitting, or just about anything other than what they did.

[whodat90]

A couple other things that occurred to me just now. To get the delkevik as high as I wanted it, I had to trim the bottom of the passenger footpeg bracket a bit with the dremel. Nothing major, just knocking off sharp corners and smoothing it out a bit. Doing that allowed me to get it an extra 1/4" higher at the mount, which equates to over an inch higher at the outlet. That's why I had to trim the top of the strap; it's slotted to allow for adjustment, and I'm now at the bottom of the slot. I do think it should have come with a nice thick stainless washer to spread the load on the back rather than just use the nut's surface area. I'll be adding one as soon as I find one.

Also I decided to skip the headlight wiring upgrade. The headlight run is pretty short, and has negligible voltage drop, plus I don't think there's enough spare amps to run all 4 filaments at the same time and give the bike any kind of useful reserve. The stock stator puts out what, 450w or so? A pair of 55w lows and another pair of 55w highs is a total of 220w right there. Haven't had a chance yet to throw an ammeter on the main to see how much the bike draws on it's own, but it's fairly old and the injection and fuel pump can't be terribly efficient. I'll just keep an eye on the volts with my sdc meter for now to see if there's any real problem.

[whodat90]

Mostly finished with the electrical doo dads. There were minor packaging issues with all the stuff I put in the front cowl, but it all fit. I ran the two 10ga wires from the rear mounted relay to the front, terminated each one in a female spade lug. One connects directly to the horns relay, one goes to 4 orange cables with female spade lugs. I ran a new ground from the front cowl lower frame mount bolt, cleaned of paint, and ran a green wire up next to the power wires and broke it out into 4 green wires with spade lugs. Everything was tech-flexed and heat shrunk, with red heat shrink on + and black on -. The GPS and grips each had their own fuse, so I just crimped lugs on and plugged them in. The sdc volt meter had no fuse, so I crimped on a pair of mini-spade lugs and installed a 10a mini fuse inline, everything neatly heat shrunk and electrical taped. The 4th power and ground are for possible future use, rather do the work now than have to tear it all apart and redo in the future. Everything was neatly bundled and zip tied, with all the connections and fuses being in one harness on the clutch side next to the headlight. Everything is accesible if you take the clutch side fairing off. I cut a piece of inner tube and slid it over the bundle, and put a zip tie through the front to act as somewhat of a dust cover. While I was in there doing everything else, I figured why not add a fan to the RR unit. I've seen others do the fan bit before, but I don't like how it was done. Most others I've seen use a 4" or so fan directly on the unit. My problems with this is that there is a dead spot in the center where no real airflow happens, and it seems like the center is what needs the cooling the most. In addition, if the fan dies the fan compromises the stock airflow for less cooling. Also, I noticed that the stator wires get comfortably warm, and could probably use a bit of cooling. I put in a fan from one of my old Dell servers, it's a low profile thick fan with very high airspeed. I zip tied it's original mount to the frame behind the RR, then popped the fan in using the included rubber mounting lugs. The fan blows forward over the RR and it's wires. It just fits inside the rear cowling, and since it's not directly connected to the RR if it dies for whatever reason then the RR still has just as much cooling ability as it did stock. Right now it's grabbing power from the tail light, but it's not independently fuses so I need to get a couple mini fuse holders and 5a fuses. Worth mentioning is that I disconnected pretty much every electrical connection I could get to on the bike and added dielectric grease, and did the same for each of my connections. I don't expect (who does?) to ever have electrical problems with this bike. Pics tomorrow when I'm at work and have better than satellite internet.

Took it for a test ride, the volt meter was plenty bright and the bike seems to make it happy and green unless I turn the grip heaters on and let it idle for a while. The grip heaters get quite warm, and will be a pleasant addition for cooler weather riding. The lights on the control panel are pretty much unreadable in direct sunlight though. Glad I hooked it to switched power rather than direct to the battery like the directions want. It must have power to turn on, but it also remembers it's state when power is removed, so if it was on when I turn the bike off it's still on when I turn the bike back on.

[Guest]

Please post some pics of the windshield you orderd from ebay. Would like to see how it looks.

Does anyone else have some shots?

[whodat90]

Haven't gotten it yet, but I plan to cut it down no matter what.