Terry

There is also a check valve in the body which allows flow into the SMC but not to return except through the tiny bleed port.

AFAICR, the mesh side should face into the brake hose; in the body there's a one way sprung-ball valve that should flow into the SMC but not back, but there is also a tiny pin-hole sized relief port in the plastic body to allow fluid pressure to release back the other way to the hose. When you apply the foot brake, you will be pressurising into the SMC as well which also adds pressure to the rear centre piston. It's a complicated system. I have diassembled the PCV (I delinked my brakes so it was sitting around looking interesting but unneeded). There's nothing in there that can't be pulled apart, cleaned and reassembled. Let me know if you want more pictures.

Also on the topic of "alternative" choices: I present to you my latest acquisition, a 2001 Honda Silverwing 600. The water-cooler FI twin cylinder head is just like a VFR, but this has a belt-driven CVT transmission. 70,000km, and another example of "it looked better on eBay...". Going to have my work cut out for me with this one, the PO rode it till it started giving grief I think, an oil leak and also burnt stator (hey, it is a Honda!) for starters, and it has been left in the elements for a few years so the corrosion levels are epic. Then there are the incorrect fasteners all over, missing fasteners, or (shock!) using silicone sealer to glue body parts back on....bleurgh.

You could also do what some bodger PO did to my new purchase; drill through the switch casing and into the bar, and insert a self-tapping screw. This was done from below where it's not obvious, and doesn't affect functionality, but its not exactly elegant.

I just used whiteout on the gears; I also put a matching mark on the cam. The photo is of my ST1100 but the prinicple is the same. You will find on reassembly that the marks will look a little off until you tighten down the cam holder saddles which moves the tension spring within the gear.

Actually, the bushings don't necessarily look worn to me. The thicker lower bushing is showing a full dark grey coating of teflon on its outer, sliding face, as it should. The skinnier upper bushing is showing its non-sliding, back surface that sits wedged into the top of the fork leg. You can't see the sliding face against the fork tube.

I can't imagine that there will be a lot of choice in the stock 100/90-16 and 110/90-18 sizes, maybe just the Brdigestone BT45, but I've heard good things about those.

I recently fitted Pilot Road 4 GT's to my ST1300 and really like the light steering feel and good bump absorption. Better than the BT-023 tyres I had previously. I have Metzeler Roadtec 01s on my VTR1000 and had those on my VFR800, very neutral steering and comfy but perhaps not as fast steering as the Michelins. All have given much more grip than I know what to do with.

I've got really loose spings in the clutch damper area of my VTR; with the basket out of the bike, you can make a nice rattling sound, and I'm fairly sure it contributes to some rattling especially at idle and low revs. Probably fixable with a new clutch basket but not worth doing. IMG_3665.MOV

The slave cylinder is really no different to any of the brake pistons; it should be able to be pushed home with some moderate effort, you are only working against seal friction, the internal spring and the resistance of the fluid returning to the master reservoir. If the tiny return port at the master is clogged, that would require a lot more effort; maybe some cleaning and bleeding is in your future? If the return port blocks, your clutch will start to slip. As a maintenance fiend I would also advocate lubing the lever pivot, and pulling the pushrod out of the cases and cleaning and polishing that.

Its quite normal for the slave piston to creep out while the slave is dismounted; gravity pushing the fluid down there I think. Try pushing the piston back in with a clamp before you refit the slave.

It has been touched on above, but external adjusters are not the whole answer if other parts of the suspension (e.g. spring weight, preload and the shim stacks/valve bodies) are not correct. If the shims are too stiff or the valve body is too restrictive (Honda HMAS I'm looking at you) the adjuster won't make much difference. Personally I find it best to leave the adjuster alone and work on getting the shim stacks correct. The shim stack (e.g. from Racetech) will normally consist of x quantity of 17 x 0.15mm shims backed up by a "pyramid" of smaller/reducing diameter shims. Changing the 17mm shims (e.g. adding or subtracting one) makes a big difference, bigger than winding the adjuster in or out. Only takes about an hour to pull the forks out/apart/change shims/refill and refit with some practice... To summarise what has been discussed above, get all of the stock parts working well, and change out the shims/springs/valves inside. I did this in steps (revalved standard, then added VTR rebound adjusters, the VTR fork lowers/F4i delinked brakes, and finally F4i forks in 6G triples). Each step is an improvement but the biggest one came from the first step. Aside from the springs, you can re-use the valve bodies and shims in all of the above; the cartridges are basically the same in 5G, 6G, F4i and VTR but with adjusters added in the VTR (rebound) and F4i (rebound/compression).

Love it! actually if one knows the screw pitch for any screw-adjusted tappet, I guess you could work out how many degrees of rotation from zero clearance would get the required clearance.

You can buy this one in Japan...

The diaphragms lift the slide and the needle up out of the emulsion tube, so less flexbility = less lift; I doubt that would cause low end richness. What does cause low-end richness is any wear on the needle or the emulsion tube that it fits into. My RF900 suffered wear in the emulsion tube and that caused poor fuel economy and occasionally fouled the spark plugs. You can viually inspect the emulsion tubes by removing the diaphragms and slides and looking straigth down to the emulsion tube in the floor of the throat. It should look perfectly circular, but on my RF the holes wore oval due to movement of the slides allowing the neede to vibrate against the tube.