MBrane

One of the best comfort mods I've done was heated grips. Not only for the obvious reason, but their larger diameter solved my hand cramping issues when doing the freeway drone thing. The stock grips are too small for my hands. Just another angle to consider.

You kinda answered your own question there. I added a little more than 10mm to mine ( I have to be sure it's on flat, level ground for the rear tire to spin on the center stand). The reservoir is pushing against the plastic below the fuse block, but it's been that way for 20K+ miles, and hasn't hurt anything. The bike holds a line much better on corner exits under throttle now too.

Damn Linda Carter was just so hot BITD wasn't she? What were we talking about again?

The VFR battery is common to a LOT of other bikes. No good reason you shouldn't be able to find one. I would get a AGM battery myself. Some here are using the lithium variant batteries, but I'm still in wait & see mode on those.

Thanks for the clarifications. Re: the soldering, how do you solder after the crimp with that plastic cover in the way on the lug? Do you do away with that? Move it off and then try to slide it back over the now crimped/soldered connection? Just use a large, hot iron, heat the lug, & flow solder into the crimp area. Work quickly, and the plastic won't melt too much. If you use too small an iron you'll melt the plastic long before the solder flows. You could always just remove it too since it's getting covered anyway.

I was all set to do the "eliminate the connector" drill and direct-connect the stator wires to the r/r wires, but now see that apparently a "standard" connection won't work for long. You used "10G spade lugs" and I found this site/pic that shows those: http://workmanship.nasa.gov/lib/insp/2%20books/links/sections/206%20Spade%20Lug%20Terminals.html 1. How did you use spade lug connectors to make the connection? It looks like these go under a bolt head, or something like that, not attached to one another. Did you have one of these lugs on each side? 2. You used 10G lugs - what is the gauge of the stator and r/r wires? It looks smaller than 10 gauge to me, so wouldn't the lug not fit very well? Or am I misunderstanding? I just want to do this job right, the first time. Thanks for any help. Well I guess the ones I used aren't true "spade" lugs since they have a hole not a slot. I simply bolted them together, and covered 'em with shrink tube. The stator/R/R wires are 12G, but you can put 10G connectors on 'em just fine. Just gotta crimp 'em a bit more. I ALWAYS solder too. Don't trust crimping alone to provide a good electrical connection. The ones I used look like the yellow one on the R:

Interesting. Looks like the splices couldn't handle anywhere near as much current as the wires. When the GF's 99 melted the near-new Hitachi stator connector I went into overkill mode, and used 10G spade lugs crimped & soldered. It's been fine since. My 98 still has the replacement Hitachi that I put on back when my R/R fried 2 Decembers ago. Go figure. That will be going away soon though as I feel like that connector is a ticking time bomb....

If it rains often, but not a lot I may do a major cleaning/valve check on the VFR. It's getting new Galfer brake lines, and cylinder/caliper seals for sure. If it rains a lot I'll be working so no time to wrench. I still need to figure out why the SV650 is crapping out above 5K, and change the rear tire. Need to decide if I'm gonna take the GTS back to the track sans bodywork, and if so which parts need to be removed, photographed, and put on eBay. Eventually the whole thing will go there if I don't find another one in good cosmetic condition really cheap.