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Back on my 2002, nine years later!


ShipFixer

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Did some further test riding last night, lots of steady RPM riding at different speeds.  Makes a difference on my bike for sure, and means I don't feel the need to go buy a Power Commander or Rapid Bike unit right away.  I'm mostly annoyed because I wish I'd known this might be a fix ten years ago when I was routinely doing big rides on long highway stretches.

 

Other good news, after doing no more than fiddling with the cables my brake lever light switch works again.  I have a replacement coming in though.

 

Aaaaaaand new plastic starts arriving today 😄

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So of course...electrical problems.  It was fine for a week or so but the battery was showing signs of weakness.  Today it was making some odd noises after I left home, so I tried a shutdown/restart and...not enough amps to crank.  This is after a night of riding with my old heated jacket (the only thing I kept from the good old 2000's!) that should not have left the bike drained or something.  I got to practice bump starting the bike to get home on the slightest of inclines that just barely got me going fast enough.  And after a fifteen minute blast on the highway home, it was able to restart in the garage on its own.  New battery, but I am leery of whatever else might be going on in there.  I never replaced anything electrical while I had it, but the last owner did the ignition wire fix.

 

Voltmeter says the old battery and charging system are fine...in my garage.  But I am a fan of fixing everything at once so I have a VFRness and new R/R coming in to go with the new battery.

 

In other news, 20 years of grime in the intake side of the radiators and the oil cleaner was holding it back on cooling.  Some A/C coil cleaner and a fresh water rinse have made it a lot happier sitting in traffic... 

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Back to cosmetics.  I received my Sargent saddle in the mail, but everyone kinda knows what that looks like already.  The old one was way, way past its service life and the last owner had fixed a couple spots with black duct tape.

 

I haven't received any of my new plastic pieces yet, but I did get several eBay parts.  Two pieces of plastic are unavailable anywhere in R157 Italian red, the front fender and upper left "meter cover" which is the plastic piece to the left of the gauge console.  I got a couple rear cowlings and one of the left meter covers from eBay...none are as solid as the pieces I have (lots of light scratching) so I am using them as test pieces for now.  Good news is Color Rite R157 seems like a pretty good match for *new* 2002 VFR parts.  All of mine are faded to some degree, and I do not see red particularly well in all lighting conditions (very slight color deficiency) but it seems close.  This piece has not been wet sanded yet so don't look at the orange peel and whatnot, but at 12 hours after clear coat the color seems good next to my tank (least faded part on the bike, and thing I want to replace the least) and one of the two eBay rear cowls that at least doesn't look too faded:

 

Next to one of the eBay rear cowlings:

PXL_20200923_171211105.jpg?width=590&hei

 

Next to my bike...apologize for no sunlight I know that's the real test, but I did use my phone camera flash:

PXL_20200923_171417024.jpg?width=590&hei

PXL_20200923_171446766.jpg?width=590&hei

PXL_20200923_171602207.jpg?width=590&hei

 

So I have limits with red color vision as I said, red is also typically difficult for camera sensors, and I haven't surfaced...but it seems like a good fit.  It's also pretty obvious the Color Rite color base will stick to the sanded red paint, but not any bare plastic spots.  You can see the gouges in this eBay part and how the red didn't even pool there enough to cover it.

 

Of the two rear cowlings I have, I tried the touch-up method as I can usually pull this off with auto paint.  But the VFR paint is just waaaay too thin so there was no real way to blend in hand painted and clear coated repairs in an un-obvious way.  I knew it was a long shot but wanted to see if I could get away with not respraying.

 

  

 

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Also...the bike is far more faded than this set of pictures makes it look.  Or at least to me.  Outside, it's on the pink side with almost no gloss left except the tank.

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Welcome back... I'll never forget your expert analysis of a failed aluminum rearset...  so let me know if you want help choosing your oil viscosity... 

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4 hours ago, BusyLittleShop said:

Welcome back... I'll never forget your expert analysis of a failed aluminum rearset...  so let me know if you want help choosing your oil viscosity... 

Hahaha...thanks! 😃

 

I may be asking you for a rear set at some point, I am still futzing around with the bike and deciding if I like the stock position.  I didn't like the Helibars much and sold them a long time ago, I road bicycle too much and I am pretty used to being flat-horizontal there. 

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It'll be a day or two before the paint cures hard enough for me to tackle wet sanding and surfacing, but I am pretty impressed with how well the Color Rite R157 spray cans work in general, and how close they are in color to the original.  In the "you get what you pay for" line of thinking, they are 3x as expensive as something like Duplicolor from Autozone, so very happy to find they work much, much better of course!  I only had a couple excessively thick spots that formed drips, which are annoying to sand out (if you even can), but after the last coat they were all but gone.  And the way they pulled themselves flat will make blending really easy.

 

Some back story here: I bought two rear cowlings on eBay, one for $50 and another for $280, thinking the latter might have minor touch ups required worst case.  Turns out, neither was cosmetically what I want to put on the bike.  I tried using Color Rite pens and jars to touch up the scratches on the $280 unit, but the paint and clear coat on these bikes is sooooo thin there was no way to do it unobviously...and yes, I used all of the tricks.  And since red fades so readily, they and the eBay upper cowling piece I got were all a tiny bit different shade of red anyway.  A new one is $500 or so and I'd have been fine just buying that, but it's not clear from the stock codes that the rear cowling is in fact R157.  Unlike all the other painted pieces, there is just one part number across most if not all the colors.  Do not know why or how, it's kind of weird.

 

Since I was already in for repainting at least one of the little cowling pieces (Left upper meter cover, the small piece on the left...that previous piece was another $30 eBay attempt) and possibly the front fender, I decided I would give painting the $50 eBay unit a shot.  So far, very good!  This is what it looks like twelve hours later, next to the $280 eBay version:

 

PXL_20200927_151424410.jpg?width=590&hei

 

PXL_20200927_151344528.jpg?width=590&hei

 

 PXL_20200927_151333954.jpg?width=590&hei

 

It's a lot more clear coat than it looks like...the orange peel will be relatively easy to get rid of.  Surprisingly, only two tiny pieces of dust landed in the paint well after I was done, and were easily tweezered off 😄

 

Before I resprayed it, the $50 one was darker as well as more beaten up.  Now it's a tiny bit brighter and...this is super subjective after 18 years...closer to "new" R157.  From the experiment on the corner piece, the wet sanding and polish cycle will darken it just slightly (wasn't expecting that...just red is so malleable somehow) so maybe all of these parts will land in the middle.   

 

Since Partzilla informed me all of my new plastic shipped yesterday, the most complex part of the whole restoration is essentially done (assuming I do not botch the wet sanding!).  The rear cowling has paint on all sides, so I had to buy a little enclosure from Amazon, hang it carefully so nothing was touching, etc...everything else is easier.  The front fender is faded around the front end so I will want to repaint that, but it's a much easier shape to deal with.  And the two upper cowling "meter covers" are really small and easy to do.  

 

So other news, I should have all new plastic by Tuesday, but I may not install it till I move back to CA.  Mostly because the bike will go in a moving truck, lashed up to the side, and I won't be there every time it moves to verify how it's handled.  So it makes some sense to get the tail piece on under the pannier racks but not the front or side cowlings.  

 

Also got a new R/R and VFRness from tightwad in the mail!  The battery dying on me not far from home last weekend really worried me.  Voltmeter says all is well and the old battery was clearly on the way out...but, I still think the system should have been charging it better.  And just do not want to end up stranded somewhere.  Got it bump started last time but don't want to repeat the experiment!

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Amazon says plastic delivered...crossing my fingers it looks as it should, and that the Color Rite job matches.  😁

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Ok, here is brand new R157 plastic.  First picture, the rear cowling I painted is at the bottom and the slightly better eBay part is at the top, with a new front fairing in between.  The rear cowling won't be ready for wet sanding for at least another four days, so not exactly in final form.  The little pieces are a $20 piece I experimented with from eBay, and a brand new right side one.  Can't get the left side anymore from Honda.

 

PXL_20200929_170508885.jpg?width=590&hei

 

And a new side cowling with the repainted tail:

 

PXL_20200929_171627083.jpg?width=590&hei

 

Not sure how these will show up on people's screens, but in real life the new plastic is slightly darker yet than the repainted plastic.  Should look okay for the tail piece as it's a couple feet from the rest of the bike.  But now I see that when I get to repainting the front fender and those little side corner pieces in the next couple days, I need to go heavy on the base coat to get them as dark as possible from the outset.  

 

Otherwise...while I'm the original owner I don't ever remember my bike's plastic looking this good, even when I rode it out of the show room at Honda of Milpitas.  New out of the box is a different level of glossy.  Going to go extra-careful on surfacing the new paint to try to match, and ceramic coat all of this stuff before it goes on the bike!

 

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3 hours ago, ShipFixer said:

ceramic coat

 

You mean clear coat? I understand there are two basic kinds...the kind that is more or less clear paint, and the kind that is epoxy...and much more durable. I haven't used either but I'm waiting on your results.

 

Also, dude, you use you bathtub as a paint bay? You must have the most understanding wife on the planet. 😀

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17 hours ago, Gebruiker said:

 

You mean clear coat? I understand there are two basic kinds...the kind that is more or less clear paint, and the kind that is epoxy...and much more durable. I haven't used either but I'm waiting on your results.

 

Also, dude, you use you bathtub as a paint bay? You must have the most understanding wife on the planet. 😀

Well, fortunately I don't have to make anyone happy but me and the motorcycle here 🙃  But it was just hanging there for photos under my "best lighting inside."  I got a small enclosure from Amazon and made some makeshift ventilation work.  

 

By ceramic coat I mean new school ceramic alternatives to wax, they are not only super tough but some of them also protect against UV exposure pretty well.  I have been using boat wax (higher paraffin content than auto wax) up until this year, but I'm pretty impressed with the ceramic stuff I've tried.     

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So the good news...my front fender is going to look great!  The color is the closest I've seen to the new out-of-the-box plastic yet.  So long as I wet sand and polish it well next week, it should look great next to all the other new stuff:

 

20201001_113530_COLLAGE.jpg?width=590&he

 

The bad news...I think I did the rear cowling wrong, and the reason it's a little lighter is the clear coat is too thin.  I will probably just go with this one for now, but since I technically have two other rear cowlings to work on I will definitely go for a do-over if the final surfacing makes it look like I think it will.  It's hard to say though, the rear cowling was hanging vertically when I sprayed it so I did a lot of thin coats instead of two "wet" coats as per the can instructions to avoid runs and drips, and still got a few.  It could have plenty of clearcoat and it's just a rough surface making it optically different for now.  

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On 9/30/2020 at 11:02 AM, ShipFixer said:

By ceramic coat I mean new school ceramic alternatives to wax, they are not only super tough but some of them also protect against UV exposure pretty well.

 

 

I had to look that up. I didn't know they existed. Thanks! I'll keep them in mind if I get around to more body work...one of these days.

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1 hour ago, Gebruiker said:

 

 

I had to look that up. I didn't know they existed. Thanks! I'll keep them in mind if I get around to more body work...one of these days.

Oh, you can use them now in lieu of wax 😄 Just gotta start with completely clean paint (clay bar and isopropyl or degreaser to get the wax off).  I am using the expensive 9H rated stuff from Amazon for the "baseline" then some spray bottles of ceramic coat from Meguiar's for routine post-cleaning stuff.  

 

It's working like a champ on my bicycles...mud sticks a lot less... 

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These are the last bits I "need" to paint until I tackle re-doing the rear cowling.  These are called left and right panel meter covers, but they are the corner pieces that go beside your gauge cluster.  I purchased a new right side, but you can no longer buy a left side from Honda anywhere, and what's on eBay is uninspiring.  Gonna be looking at these a lot, so...maximum effort on my original plastic!

 

Painted_VFR_parts.jpg?width=590&height=3

 

The test piece in the upper left hand corner was a $25 attempt I picked up from eBay.  It has scratches and broken tabs so I'd already decided it would not go on my bike.  I wet sanded at 24 hours knowing it would not be awesome, but wanted to see the end color to see if I should proceed.  It's clearly too light and was just too soft to get shiny and scratch-free...but I also wasn't trying that hard.  For those who aren't familiar, the clear coat is a hard urethane mix that takes days or weeks to fully cure to its maximum hardness.  So it feels a whole lot like a polyurethane skateboard wheel when it's 24, 48, etc. hours old because they are closely related, and trying to wet sand or polish at that point is an awful lot like attempting the same on a skateboard wheel.  What's worse is it will shrink as it cures and magnify whatever you did in wet sanding.  Quick turn body shops will use fast curing chemicals and heat to get around this, but YMMV.  This is also why touch up bottles recommend no polish or wax for ~30 days.  Show car builders will go beyond this and wait crazy amounts of time, like three or four months, before touching a paint job!

 

Anyway, pretty happy with the color match so far.  The painted parts are a tiny bit lighter than the OEM plastic part.  But I want the bike to match 100% left to right when I am looking at it from the saddle than I want one side to be 100% to the rest of the fairings.  These will be the last parts I wet sand for sure, to retain as much clear coat as I can and hope for best color match.

 

Meanwhile, the bike itself is nearly apart, I've got the front cowling halfway off and the new one ready to go.  One snag from the parts diagrams, the grommets and whatnot between the upper cowling and the cowling frame do not seem to appear anywhere, and do not come with the new unit.  Everywhere else I ordered all of the new parts because, well...18 year old plastic and rubber mostly comes off in pieces.  Going to have to hope all of these grommets come off in one piece!

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Some minor updates...I have the bike mostly apart, and I wet sanded the rear cowling last night.  Bad news, it is what I thought, I didn't put enough clear coat on it.  There are spots where I went straight through to color coat right away, and the sharp edges and corners didn't have near enough material on them.  Good news is that I did put plenty on subsequent pieces, and what I got out of most of the rear cowling as-is indicates future pieces should be really good where there's enough clear.  I'm showing the rearmost part of it here next to new plastic, because it came out the best.  This piece will go on the bike as it looks good enough, while I re-do the paint job on my original rear cowling:

 

PXL_20201005_130614079.jpg?width=590&hei

 

PXL_20201005_130557284.jpg?width=590&hei

 

PXL_20201005_130455379.jpg?width=590&hei

 

I also took apart and replaced the gauge cluster lenses.  When you are looking at your gauges, there is an outer black plastic shell that extends into the cowling behind the windscreen.  Underneath that is a solid piece of clear and blackened plastic that forms the gauges.  This has a seal in the back of it, and it screws into the back shell of the gauge console.  The gauges are one printed circuit board with the tachometer and LCD screens attached.  

 

gauge_cluster.jpg?width=590&height=370&f

 

Couple notes...there's a bit of residue inside the gauge cluster from whatever they use for the blackened out sections.  I discovered this with an exploratory wipe down which turned into full throttle cleaning with isopropyl when it left a big streak down the middle.  Hopefully it's not some kind of UV filter that's absolutely necessary or something, but the lens is clearer now.  So, if you do this...don't touch the inside, or be prepared to clean it.  Second, these lenses do scratch very readily, I have tiny scratches from cleaning them, and 18 years of cleaning is obvious on the old unit.  So use microfiber or other really soft media to get it done.  

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Headlights!  1.) clean, 2.) wet sand with 1500 grit, 3.) three inch orbital polisher, and 4.) finished product.

 

VFR_headlights.jpg?width=590&height=370&

 

It's still got a lot of tiny pits, but fortunately (somehow) no significant yellowing from sitting in the sun.  A "full" restoration like I would normally do would require deeper sanding with 800 grit or tougher first, and take a lot longer to completely re-polish to clear, and I'm trying to move to CA in a few weeks so not going to cut that deep here.  There are some kits for ceramic coats that could/may fill in the smaller pits as well, but since a re-do on one of those is intense I don't want to take that plunge just yet.

 

Rear light group is next!

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Polished_lights.jpg?width=590&height=370

 

The rest of the lights.  And the tail light:

 

Tail_lights.jpg?width=590&height=370&fit

 

This one has a *lot* of pitting after years of running with the fender eliminator.  Nothing to be done about it of course.  At least now it's mostly clear and shiny!  All of the brake and side marker fixtures were a little cloudy from wear.  They won't look "new" up close but they will look a lot closer to it next to the new and repainted plastic.

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Front fender sanded and polished!  Took a long time but didn't want to risk using even my small orbital polisher on it.  There were a couple really thin spots on edges and corners that I got through despite best efforts but they are really small and not obvious from a few feet back so I won't re-do.  It's still a tiny bit lighter in color than the new plastic (upper cowling here) but it's not obvious until they are right up against each other, which isn't realistic.  From this, looks like seven days is definitely the first "good" time to wet sand Color Rite when done correctly.  My last pieces (meter side covers) were at five or six days yesterday and still a tiny bit softer. 

 

The most important thing is the pink fading of the front few inches is gone!  

 

PXL_20201008_223546213.jpg?width=590&hei

 

PXL_20201008_223600253(2).jpg?width=590&

 

Other stuff, the clutch circuit is completely cleaned out and overhauled, but I lost (probably accidentally threw away with rags, whoops) the lower hose bolt so I'm waiting on that from Amazon today before I can re-fill and optest.  

 

PXL_20201007_203646248.jpg?width=590&hei

 

New R/R and some general house cleaning like brushing down and straightening the oil cooler happen next, then it's on to re-install plastic!

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Soon!  New R/R installed, clutch is flushed, and half of the new or repainted plastic is in place...

 

PXL_20201011_110028388.jpg?width=590&hei

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Ok...finally time to ride!  I'm going to replace the rear plastic with another paint attempt (or a new part, if I can find one).  But...it looks pretty sweet!  

 

Before and after:

71D8D4B8_4E73_41A5_9D3F_9E728D528DDF_COL

 

PXL_20201014_061246255.jpg?width=590&hei

 

PXL_20201014_061304375.jpg?width=590&hei

 

PXL_20201014_061317061.jpg?width=590&hei

 

Still needs a full brake bleed, as I'm not sure the previous owners knew or cared to do all of the different LBS circuits and the rear fluid looks pretty awful.  But overall ready to go in a few minutes.  All the stuff I did:

 

- New or repainted plastic, including the dash and gauge lenses]

- Sargent saddle

- Cleaned and flushed clutch circuit including a speed bleeder

- New R/R

- New battery

- New spark plugs

 

Off to ride! 

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Looks fantastic!  It must be very satisfying to see it looking this great again.  In these photos, the color seems to "pop" better than the original Italian Red.  Congrats on all the nice work so far!  :cheerleader:

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