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VF500 as a winter hack


jeremyr62

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I bought this in Feb 2017 as a non runner project. It's now as finished as it's ever going to be. I was struggling with what to do with it. I tried to sell it in the Autumn with little interest here in Ireland. I could sell it if I priced it cheap enough and I may yet do that in the spring. However, I am in the very fortunate position of owning two very nice bikes in addition to this (one is a VF500F2). These bikes are so pristine I cannot bring myself to ride them much on wet salty roads. So I was going to sell the VF500F in the picture and buy a cheap Honda NC750S as a winter hack. However I then thought about it a bit more and realised I might as well use the VF500F as a winter hack. I have tons of spares and consumables, I know virtually everything there is to know about the 500, it is a very engaging ride, and it will be cheap to run. It may not be reliable but i doubt I will venture too far on it, initially at least. I just want to be able to hop onto it and not worry about it dissolving under me. Wish me luck!

 

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It looks better in the pictures than in real life. Plastics are a bit scabby and the engine is from a 86 spares bike. It owes me very little. I will see how it goes. I have a 4 into 1 LASER exhaust I will put on it before I take it out on the salt. The end cans on it are Marvins not OE. They rust at the mere mention of water.

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14 hours ago, jeremyr62 said:

I have a 4 into 1 LASER exhaust I will put on it before I take it out on the salt. The end cans on it are Marvins not OE. They rust at the mere mention of water.

Is it worth saving the Laser for spring so you can tidy the bike up for sale? Does it urgently need a new header? 

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Once our roads get salted I will get onto the attic. Have 2 sets of grotty oem mufflers which are "perfect" for said conditions :tongue:

 

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The LASER is in sh1te condition but solid. It is supposed to be stainless but its a type of stainless that rusts.

I have loads of OE headers and a few decent collectors. The hard to find parts are the OE silencers. I have one set of good OE silencers off my F2 and they are stored away.

The LASER will go on the F and be ridden in the winter to save the collector and the Marvin silencers (and the front headers I suppose too).

The bike is as tidy as it is going to get.

Won't sell it if I can use it in winter (see first post above).

 

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Am sure you will enjoy any winter ride (if the roads are dry) on a sunny, yet nippy day. The coffee or soup in a cafe along the way tastes a 1000% better for sure!

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And here's a vid after I took it for a ride last winter. That's how I know the Marvins end cans are made of a highly reactive element known as Italian Steel.

I realise this might all look like an for sale advertisement but it isn't. I have no desire to sell the bike now.

The engine you can hear running is one I had from a parts bike that I had had for years. I had just assumed it was a non runner but it's actually OK. Bit noisy but it had been sat for over 10 years. Will see how that holds up too.

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just about the nicest and cleanest-looking 500 i've seen on this site !

 

 my Honda's are garaged  in the  (long) winter, and i ride a trusty '86 Yam Radian 600 in cold and nasty conditions.

 

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Air cooled in line four, not as much to go wrong, makes sense. Over here that was called an XJ600. In the eighties there was a shaft driven XJ650 much beloved by dispatch riders in London.

 

The digital photos do make it look a lot better than it is. The engine looked like this before. I cleaned it up as best I could before transplanting it. Painting the clutch cover. gearbox sprocket cover and alternator cover works wonders.

 

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Fitted new EBC HH brake pads and a Scottoiler I had lying around to it today. Just have to fit the LASER exhaust now and then it''s ready for whatever winter throws at us. I'm a big fan of Scottoilers.

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This is part of the LASER exhaust I had to get repaired. I bought a complete old system on Ebay and this bit was in a very sorry state having been repaired (I use the term loosely), by someone with limited welding skills. All that had to come off and my work colleague has done a far better job fixing multiple holes caused by corrosion. If it holds up, I may get it ceramic coated. I know the LASER has a poor reputation but there are very few systems available for the VF500 now. And it does save a shed load of weight. Jetting it up will be interesting.

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LASER exhaust fitted. Typical cheap aftermarket exhaust. Doesn't fit very well so you have to take your time and mess and fiddle and bodge but you can get there in the end. I wanted to get it fitted and not leaking anywhere so I could ride it and see what it is like, hence the Holts Gun Gum bandage on the front headers. These leaked like a sieve and rattled when I first tried it. 

It now sounds OK and is not too obnoxiously loud which is good. Like most have commented before, there is a hole in the  power band at around 5K but you only really notice this in high gear. At low speeds it is fine. Quite happy with it really. When I have it fully sorted I'll probably remove the centre stand as you loose the bump stop on the left silencer. I have bodged a fix for now but the centre stand is very easy to put on and take off so I'll take the weight reduction..

 

Performance definitely takes a hit. Lost about 15km/h off top speed, but early days and top speed is irrelevant for what I am going to use it for.

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All finished now. Pleased with it. Cheap winter riding hopefully.  Had to mill some of the fins on the sump  as they were fouling the front headers. Also had to tilt the belly pan away from the headers so they wouldn't melt it. I suspect the pipe was intended for a 84/85 with the shallower sump but it does fit the deeper 86 with a bit of tweaking and use of some exhaust paste and a jubilee clip on the left header.

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Nice job!!

 

As for the (oem) headers, they are different. If you "switch" them, they will indeed push the lower fairing (on the F2) out. Thus not buttoning up properly; don't ask how I know....  😁

 

 

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OK about the headers. I did try them both ways but they only fit properly one way so I just think it’s a consequence of the deeper sump on the 86 engine I transplanted in. 

 

One thing about the bike is the front brakes are a bit weedy. They are bled OK and I have fitted new EBC HH pads but you still need a good pull to get decent braking. Nothing like as good as my F2. @Dutchy did you notice a significant change when you fitted the braided hoses? I suspect the OE hoses might be ballooning a bit. 

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Sounds like it's time for some braided lines.  The 500 discs are pretty small, but properly set up they should perform nicely on that little bike.  It also might take some time for the pads to bed in depending on the condition of the discs.

 

I never felt like I needed more on my 500 race bike.

 

I had to go to the 84/85 pan and pump on my 86 engined race bike because the 4 into 2 exhaust I ran paired the front 2 cyl and one pipe ran directly across the pan.  Obviously designed for the 84/85.  But it was worth it.

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TBH, the main motivators for getting the HEL lines were "bling" and their End Of Year promotion..... (like a 100 quid for the brake lines front and rear)

 

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I cannot say hand on heart that I could discern a difference....  But that is my memory functionality maybe

 

 

I send them my clutch line so they have the measurements for that one on file now as well.

 

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(they offered it as "1 line"but I went for that "OEM" look. With an extra possible "point of failure" but that is the price for vanity :tongue:)

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

As a final post on this, I took the bike to the UK from Ireland over the weekend. About 800 km in total. Bike managed it without any problems at all. Weather was grotty so didn't push the boat out (no pun intended) regards speed and handling. The seat didn't like the ratchet strap and the vinyl cover is in need of replacement. But that's about it re issues. A truck driver took my photo on the bike too. Never happened before and I 've done that journey hundreds of time on far more exotic/expensive machinery. He must have owned one in the past I reckon.

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