VFR later life failures

[MBrane]

 Valve checks are kinda dependent on how hard you beat on the bike. I ride mine moderately hard, and check every 20K. They usually only need a couple shims on the exhaust side.

 

 My first VFR was a '98 CA model purchased in 2009 with 19K on the clock. It seemed fine at the time, and I enjoyed it for many miles until April 2014 approx. 70K I lost 3rd gear. I pulled the oil pan, and found 3 gear dogs. The ones that broke off 6th gear, and fortunately ended up in the pan not in the transmission gears. Bought a '94 with 120K on it to ride in the meantime. Rode that bike to Colorado from CA via Wyoming with no issues. Replaced 6th, and 3rd gears in the '98. Everything else inside looked great. Rode it for another year or so until it started to gradually lose coolant. Couldn't find any leaks. No coolant in the oil. No steam from the exhaust. Pulled the heads off, and replaced the gaskets again thinking maybe I screwed that up somehow. No change. Still gradually losing coolant. Must be those handfull of times the bike got really hot (245℉). At this point I no longer trusted the bike for the long trips I was doing at the time so I bought another 48 state bike as a replacement, and the CA bike became a track bike. The bike from Ohio was kind of an epiphany. Much better throttle response, pulled harder, shifted better etc. Eventually my GF decided that her CA '99 was too much bike for her aging body, and sold it to me. It is now my play/track bike, and my original CA '98 is now a parts donor. I know the bottom end is good. Sold the '94 with 139K on it. Only real problem I had with it was the starter clutch being iffy sometimes. Not surprising on a bike with that many miles. Great bike. Miss it sometimes, but just wasn't riding it enough to justify keeping it with my limited garage space.

 

 The moral is you never know what you are getting when you buy a used bike, but I think it's still better to let someone else take the depreciation hit with the new bike purchase. VFRs are pretty rock solid reliable overall once you sort the electrical issues which are well documented.

 

 Unfortunately the age of the gear driven cams is over as far as mother Honda is concerned. I will ride these until I can no longer do so wether by age or lack of parts. It will probably end up being the latter or so I hope....

[raYzerman]

The fuel pump itself is fortunately one that is used in lots of applications.  ST owners have replaced them with units from China (I'd bet they are all made there anyway), with success.  Last one I bought was $26 to my door and looked like a quality piece.  It's in a '07 ST1300 with 200k kms.  Fuel filters, some have dissected them and other than a bit of grit, they aren't clogged at all, worry not about that so much, but if you got the fuel pump out of the tank, why not replace it.  If  you're worried about a fuel pump, just get one an keep it on the shelf for that rainy day.  If  you're still concerned about that, buy two, they're cheap.