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Chris71mach1

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About Chris71mach1

  • Birthday 06/11/1976

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    Chris71Mach1

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  • Location
    DFW, TX
  • In My Garage:
    1987 VFR700F2
    1998 Yamaha YZF600R

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  1. I'm so mad at myself for having taken so long to discover this thread. What a fantastic build and a gorgeous bike! If you're in DFW and still happen to have the bike, I'd love to see it one of these days!
  2. go to www.servicehonda.com and plug in the info for your bike. you will find that they have detailed parts pics (the same ones the dealerships use, in fact) with part numbers, and a surprisingly high availability of those parts for purchase.
  3. Chris71mach1

    87 VFR700F2

    January 11th, home from the shop, post-restoration
  4. yeah no doubt, frodus had mentioned something about fitting that e-vfr with some cobalt racing bodywork, and im itching to see how that bike will look when that work is done....
  5. that harness kinda worries me....it doesnt address the internal grounding problem of the r/r at all, nor does it have any fuses built into it that i can see. it looks great and would prevent one from splicing into wires (hence making it easily removable and easy to return the bike to stock), but how about the air flow issue? that harness is a great start, but not quite comprehensive. (nor do i see anything geared to the older bikes, either)
  6. ok folks, we've all heard the horror stories. battery dies. bike on the side of the road. charged the battery and it still dies. NEW battery and it still dies. (and so on, and so forth.) what it all boils down to is that Honda seems to not have designed the charging systems very well on a lot of their bikes, and from what i can tell, this holds espically true for VFR's. from our perspective, and since we love our bikes so much, THIS SUCKS! after having these problems myself, and doing plenty of research, reading up on this topic, and talking to a number of people who know a LOT more about these bikes than i do, I finally came to the conclusion(s) of repairing the bike myself with a few aftermarket tweaks. this stuff is obviously best done when the r/r finally fails you, and you have to replace it altogether. thats not to say that any bike out there couldnt benefit from this thread, and who knows, it may even be a good idea to perform this upgrade on a bike that hasnt failed yet just for the sake of preventative maintainence. okay, so here we go. the most common problem here seems to be that the r/r dies prematurely. (hell, my own bike is on at LEAST its third that i can tell). from what ive gathered, the reasons for this are: (1) internal grounding. this causes the r/r to not be able send as much ground current out as it needs to, which generates unnecessary heat. (2) poor air flow at or around the stock mounting location for the r/r. again, the enemy here is heat. these things get HOT, and it comes as no surprise that over time, they literally fry themselves. (3) inadequate pathways for enough current to flow both to charge the battery, and for the standard ground wiring coming out of the r/r. now, the fix. i'll address these in that same order. (1) the internal grounding of the r/r is an issue. this is easily fixed though, as i simply found an example in the CBR r/r that a previous owner had used on my own bike. this mod is fairly easy, as it is really only adding one wire to the existing r/r, though you have to partially disassemble the male connector block on the *battery* side of the r/r wiring (the connector that has 4 blades in it). You will need a tiny little flathead screwdriver, a length of 20ga wire (id say about 6 inches), and an eyelet to put on the end of the new wire. as youre looking at the top of the connector (the side with the clip up) you will notice 2 red wires on the left, and 2 green wires on the right. the red are the hot leads that send current to the battery to help charge it back up, and the green wires are both grounds. the r/r that i have came with the external ground on the bottom right (the bottom green wire), so thats where i recommend putting this. youll want to use the tiny flat head screwdriver to go in the back of the connector block and push down the clip that holds that blade in place. carefully pull the blade out of the connector block. strip one end of your length of 20ga wire, and gently pry open the part of the connector blade thats holding the stock r/r wire on (it wont take much, the 20ga wire is pretty small). slide the stripped section of the 20ga wire into the blade crimp with the other wire, and use some pliers to crimp it back and secure it. next, just to make 100% sure this wont come apart, dab a small bead of solder down on that blade to hold things in place. now just re-insert the connector blade into the connector block, and install an eyelet on the other end of that 20ga wire. now, youve just modified your r/r to be externally grounded. I ran my external ground wire to my subframe and bolted it there, and it seems to work fine. (2) that pesky air flow issue. this can be addressed in a number of ways. some folks relocate the r/r entirely, some find creative ways to duct air to the r/r. I got lucky, and was handed the following link: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/stu.tyrrell/Turbo_Mod.htm that howto just rocks. these pc fans are really cheap (i again got lucky and being a professional geek, i have a few of these sitting in a closet ready to be used for some wierd motorcycle hack job). the only creative things i had to figure out was where to run the wires, and i also had to modify (yea, by modify, i mean cut a little hole in) my rear fender so the r/r would mount in the stock position with the added bulk of the fan on it. i ended up running the ground wire for this fan to the external r/r ground on my subframe, and i splice the hot lead for the fan into the hot lead for the license plate light on my bike. this way, the r/r fan will come on anytime you turn the ignition on, and will turn off when you shut your bike down. no ducting, no relocating stuff, and its a win/win! (3) the main part of the charging system upgrade. extra wiring. this is the fun part. though one thing i have to say, to you folks who are afraid of doing electrical work like i am, dont be scared! this is easier than it sounds once you sit down and start work! basically, ill start by showing you 2 wiring diagrams. one is of the stock r/r configuration, and the other shows a diagram of the r/r wiring with the charging upgrades done to it: vfrstock.jpg vfrmod.jpg now here are the tools/materials I used for this: several feet of 12ga wire (youll want to have at least 10 feet handy), wire crimps (unless you want to solder the in-line wiring and use heat shrink tubing), those handy blue wire splice things (i forget what theyre called, but you could also use the button-hook method for wire splicing in this case), needle nose pliers, 4 eyelets to fit on 12ga wire, wire strippers, a roll of electrical tape, 2 inline fuse holders (12ga wire on them of course), and two 10 amp fuses to put in the inline holders. I started with the ground wires, cause theyre the easiest. first, youll want to cut the jacket off of the small wiring harness that comes out of the r/r to go to the battery (this is the jacket around 4 wires...2 red and 2 green). pull out 2 lengths of 12ga wire that will run from the r/r to the negative battery post (yea i know the diagram says to use the frame ground, but i just opted to run these to the battery). make sure you run enough slack to tuck them in or run them around stuff to your own liking. this will look as good or as bad as you want it to. use your blue crimp splice thingys to splice each new length of 12ga wire onto one green wire each. on the other end of these wires, strip the end and crimp on an eyelet. make sure the eyelet is big enough for the battery cable bolt to go through (i had to drill my eyelets out just a little for this to happen). okay, so that was pretty easy. wham, bam, thank you viffer. so cool, now onto the positive charge wires. the lengths of 12ga wire you want to run now are going to be somewhat shorter. only run them halfway across the frame. now take your wire crimps and strip one end of each wire, and crimp on a fuse holder to each one. on the other end of these, use a couple of blue splice crimp things to splice each of these into the 2 red wires on the r/r. this is where youll want to move over to the right side of the bike to finish this. now, run 2 more lengths of 12ga wire that will run from the inline fuse holders to the positive battery terminal. strip BOTH ends of these 2 wires. each one will crimp to the fuse holder on one end, and to an eyelet on the other. bolt the eyelets to the positive battery terminal. well...ok....thats really about it. itll likely take you as long to read this thread as it will to do the majority of this work, but hopefully this thread can consolidate all the research ive done into a quick place for other vfr owners to find all this useful info. another thing that i ran into during this repair was the fact that the female side of the connector from my r/r to my stator was absolutely fried. i implore yall that if yall see burnt, damaged, or outright fried wiring, to just replace stuff. I went to my local Honda dealer (Honda West, at the weatherford traffic circle for you guys in DFW), and they just GAVE me the female connector block and 3 blades. i built the connector with some wires, cut the old one off the stator wiring, and crimped the new one on. an easy fix, cheap as hell, and i dont have to worry about running damaged wiring anymore.
  7. Chris71mach1

    charging system

    pics of how to upgrade charging system
  8. ok, yall asked for pics of this, so here we go. they arent the best pics in the world. but they at least get the point across. first, we have a pic of the top of the fender, where the new license plate mounting brackets/slides are bolted down. youll notice the tabs are pointing toward the front of the bike, so the slides went down toward the back. i used a drill and jigsaw to cut the slits for the slides just in front of those tabs that you see in the pic... pic from left side of bike new mounting brackets shown from top this next pic is just looking toward the back of the bike from the gas tank... DSC00240.JPG this next pic is taken down from underneath the fender, from the left side of the bike. you can clearly see the slide thats on the right side of the plate, and on the right side of the pic, you can still kinda see the left slide (just not quite as clearly) DSC00241.JPG the slides themselves dont come anywhere near the tire, and really, if not for my inspection sticker plate, i could have mounted the license plate far lower than it is. right now, you see it mounted as high up as it can go. the next image may not look like what other 1st gen's do, as the rear of the fender has been modified (ok, cut and hacked) to accomodate the Cobalt Racing tail section there. the tail is off in this pic to show more of what it looks like when mounted from the back of the bike. DSC00242.JPG this last pic didnt come out quite as well as i wanted it to, as it started to get dark outside, but this is the bike with the tail section back on. note how the plate is all nice and tucked up underneath the bike and out of the way, and how that gaudy piece of plastic isnt there anymore making the rear of the bike look like 20 year old eyesore DSC00243.JPG
  9. Chris71mach1

    87 VFR fender eliminator

    not so ugly anymore
  10. yeah, he still makes and sells every single piece of bodywork for the 86-87 models, and youre right, he doesnt keep his web page up at all. the best way to get ahold of him is to just call and talk to him. the dude's name is Chuck Crites, and you can also see some of his stuff on ebay under the seller VFRChuck. The number I have for him is 740-474-9256. This is also his home #, so if his wife answers, dont be alarmed. just ask for him and let her know what its in reference to and she'll make sure he gets the msg. one point to note....Chuck Crites used to race these 1st gen VFR bikes way back in the day, and he really does know a LOT about them. he's also the only person/company/entity/whatever that still makes every piece of bodywork for this bike, and the 2 tail sections he makes are his own design. the downside is that some people tend to not like him very much cause he can be kind of cocky with all his vast 1st gen knowledge. If you can manage to get past that, he's really an alright guy to work with, and his work is absolutely GREAT. your best option would be to call him and discuss pricing and shipping, and all the various products he makes for the 1st gen bikes (so far ive got the solo seat tail, upper, carbon fiber windscreen, and lower stays that he makes, and im planning to get the inner panels on the upper and his CBR wheel swap kits when i have the money).
  11. theres not really an arrangement....the sidecovers are gone, and the seat is part of the Cobalt Racing solo-seat tail section i put on the bike. you can see pics of that in my gallery. ill go ahead and take the tail off this weekend and get some pics of the license plate bracket, etc. on the bike now.
  12. to start out with, I'll specify that this thread targets the first gen VFR bikes (86 - 89 VFR 700's and 750's). the back fender where the license plate mounts is a true eyesore, and has just GOT to go. its big, gaudy, and lets face it kids, just plain ugly. after plenty of research, i finally came to the conclusion that the laws of supply and demand have yet again bitten our beloved viffers in the butt, and the sportbike aftermarket world just doesnt produce a viable solution for this, so I set out to find something that would work. I ran across this generic license plate bracket at cycle gear, and i ended up paying $7.00 + tax (even though the website lists it for $9.99+tax). you cant beat 8 bucks and change! http://www.cyclegear.com/spgm.cfm?L1=&...BK&tier2=14 and now, the nifty howto for your new ADJUSTABLE fender eliminator for a 1st gen VFR (sorry guys, no pics yet). (1) buy cheap bracket assembly from cycle gear. (2) note 3 pieces. the big bracket that the license plate is SUPPOSED to bolt to, and the other 2 that are there to hold your turn signal stems. (3) you see that big piece of metal bigger than the other 2? good. toss it in the trash, or use some other method of making it go away. you dont need it. (4) your slide pieces are essentially the same, except that one has 2 long pieces sticking out for the other to kinda slide into. trim those 2 longer pieces off so that the 2 slides are the same. (5) remove the tail section, exposing that little tray-like section just in front of the computer/black box/whatever its called. (6) note that the 2 slides are bent at a 90 degree angle. increase the angle of the bend by probably 30 degrees (open the bend up, do not bend the fold closer together). (7) with the tail off, remove that gaudy piece of plastic that is holding your license plate and light, and unplug the wiring for the license plate light. (ok this is probably where i should tell you that this howto does not include a means of putting light on the plate...im probably going to mount a few LED's there later). (8) back to that little tray-like thingy. youll know its the right spot cause youll be compelled to use it as a tray for nuts and bolts every time you work on the bike. about an inch from the rear of the tray (rear being the side toward the rear of the bike of course), cut a couple of straight grooves in the plastic about 1-1.5 inches long. one on the left side, and one on the right. (9) with the bent-out tab facing the front of the bike, insert the 2 slide thingys into the grooves youve just cut in the tray-thing. (10) locate a small nut and bolt for each side. since the slides are down in the fender pointing at your tire now, all you should be able to see is the small, bent-out tab. put a bolt through the hole in each of your newly inserted slides, and secure each one with a nut on the bottom of the fender. (11) youll find that the slides are already at the perfect width for your license plate, so go ahead and bolt the plate onto each of the slides. note the looooooong hole cut in each of the slides now. this is where you get your adjustability. if you have one of those brackets that sticks out below the license plate that your inspection sticker goes on, you will want to continue. otherwise, adjust your plate to where it wont interfere with the tire. (12) install the license plate as high up in the slide tabs as it will go. (13) bend the inspection sticker plate upward (toward the back of the tire) until it can safely clear the tire. note: it LOOKS like you have lots of room as the bike sits now, but when you sit on the bike, that sticker plate gets VERY close to the tire....the only way i was able to clear this issue was to slide the license plate assembly all the way up. how youre done. step back and admire your handywork, as well as the fact that you dont have that awful piece of plastic sticking down around your back tire.
  13. Chris71mach1

    My Bike

    man youre doing stuff to this bike that i havent even HEARD of anybody doing yet...one of these days ive got to get the chance to see the bike and all the work youve done to it. let me know when that beast is all put back together and maybe we can terrorize the streets of DFW sometime. :fing02:
  14. Chris71mach1

    87 VFR700F2

    my work in progress
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