Terry

Looks like a fun project! I'd do a compression test on the engine(s) first which will tell you whether they are worth any effort. Then take the cam covers off and check the cam lobes and rockers for excessive wear, which was this model's Achille's Heel. It's been a long time since I have owned one of these (hence the black and white image...).

Cat: I'd push this nice tail cowling off a table and onto the floor if I could. I'm pissed because it is already on the floor.

New flat pads on old dished discs will take a bit of bedding in to be sure. Congratulations on getting out on the road.

I amaze myself sometimes! I had a something related when I replaced the TBs on my 5th gen after installing the thermostat and the throttle wouldn't close fully due to bad hose routing. Glad that you sorted that one out.

I would have a look at the routing of other hoses around the airbox; maybe you have a hose that is catching the throttle cable drum? Otherwise you should remove the airbox base and lube the linkages that connect the front and rear banks.

Happy Days! A little package arrived from Mr James Daugherty, containing new compression pistons and his recommended shim stacks. I spent a little time on Friday evening installing those into the bike, and had a decent chance for a test ride today, with a great near-400km run on drying roads. A "garage bounce" test wasn't encouraging as the forks feel suprisingly stiff at low speed, but the reality on open roads with bumps, holes and tar seams was very good. Firm but in no way jolting, the forks now give lots of confidence and even braking hard over unseen lumps was drama-free, My wrists were also much more comfortable, I was getting home after a couple of hours with quite tender wrists from the jarring of the stock forks. The cruise control also got a bit of a test and passed with flying colours, this takes a lot of the worry out of open road mile-munching by removing the need to keep such a close eye on speed. The CC is a little dozy when it comes to matching undulating territory, being slow to dial in throttle as the incline starts and then holding throttle longer over a crest than is ideal, but otherwise works as advertised and seems to be great value for money. Earl was pretty decent on fuel today, we had an average on the first tank of about 17.4km/L, and bettered that on the second tank at 18.4km/L (where I filled up in a small town and was then on a sweeping open road or freeway most of the way home). I think that is better than I was getting on my ST1300. The photo below was at Langs Beach in Northland, a favourite for a picturesque stop. I got home about an hour ahead of the scheduled heavy rain and thunder.

5th gens were made for 4 years, 6th gens for 12 years; lots more 6th gen bits around as a result.

I am not a big believer in "VFRs run hot". I do think that the side-mount radiators are less than ideal when airflow is low. I think a big problem (especially in the 5th and 6th gens) is the use of digital gauges that read out some Big Numbers (especially in Fahrenheit) and seem alarming. If these were dial gauges, 212F (oooh, scary, that's boiling point!) would be halfway between cold and hot and not worrying at all. My later Hondas (e.g. ST1300, VFR1200) just use bar graphs for temperature, and I suspect the electronics are set so that they readout is in the "warm but OK" zone all the time, unless the temperature is Really Hot. The cooling systems is just like every other system on the bike, it needs maintenance and the components need to work properly. Something as simple as a dodgy radiator cap that won't hold pressure will cause all sorts of genuine overheating, as will a stuck thermostat. I think we need to remember that these bikes were designed, built and tested in Japan. Having visited there during a sultry August, that is one steamy hot climate; if the bikes pass use testing there, I can't imagine Florida or Georgia could be any worse.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMnjF1O4eH0&pp=ygUQZmF0IGJvdHRvbSBnaXJscw%3D%3D Does my ass look big in this?

I am not a big fan of the current "weight forward" design trend and think bike design peaked at the 1990 VFR750F... I have had a ride on one of the Suzuki GSX-8Rs and found it to be a very nice package; certainly light and easy to manage, ample power and tidy handling.

The PO put a fender eliminator on my MT-10. This was the result of a wet ride and some road works. I put it back to stock after this.

The marker lights are LEDs that are integral to the wiring harness for the turn signals; I suspect the LEDs are not removable, they're certainly not shown as a separate spare part. I had some issues with getting mine to work consistently and ended up cleaning the terminals where they plug into the main harness.

I just picked around the edge with a pin to slowly ease the screen off the cartridge. It only presses into the groove. I am sure that you cannot buy new parts; AFAIK the cartridge is only included as part of a new SMC. The exact same part is in the SMC for the ST1300 and so I assume any other Honda with linked brakes e.g. CBR1100XX. The screen is only there to act as a filter, if it was missing I doubt there would be any performance issue, unless the compensation port gets blocked up. I think the most important thing is to keep the system well flushed with clean brake fluid regularly.

If you look at the modern design for the ABS pump, there is no channel that needs to be opened or bled as all the action takes place on the open side of the control piston.

The screen should be intact and just press onto the blue part. Under that is a one-way check valve, you can see the ball, there's a spring under that, just plastic pieces that clip together. The whole piece will lift out of the SMC body. There is a very tiny hole in the blue body that needs to be cleaned.

It sounded like a scrape to me, not a slosh. My opinion is that it has to be something within the motor or driveline as it responds exactly to the throttle on or off. Maybe as simple as the chain being pulled tight on the top run by acceleration, then slacking off and dragging over the rubber bumper along the top of the swingarm, so I would be starting there. I guess it could be the camchain tensioners but I thought they're more likely to cause a big rattle rather than a scrape.

I wouldn't worry about the cooling hose behind the headers...they're all like that sir. And you can boil water in a paper cup over a candle. For the brakes, get the service manual and follow the specified sequence; IIRC you bleed the right front centre, left front centre, then tip the SMC so the outlet is above the inlet, and bleed through the PCV nipple at the back of the tank, then do the rear bleeds last. I got my wife to help with the SMC/PCV bleed, and got a much better pedal feel by also compressing the SMC piston (press pedal and hold --> press SMC and release pressure through PCV--> close PCV --> pump SMC back out with the foot pedal; and repeat).

I finished the cruise control installation and took a brief test ride. It would have been better to hit a motorway but the weather was threatening so I rode a few 60 and 80km/hr sections near home. The CC seems to work just fine; it is not as precise as my car (which seldom moves by more than +/-2km/hr) but perfectly OK to manage speed on long boring sections. The instructions say that the CC will disengage if you tap the brakes (check) and also if the throttle is opened more than 5% beyond the CC (also check). The latter gives a slightly unsettling throttle wobbliness as the CC and your hand argue for control before the CC hands off. The set, accelerate and decelerate functions worked intuitively. The CC may have a slight effect on the throttle at idle speeds; if I blip the throttle when warming up, the rpm drops below the happy idle before rising back, which was not apparent before, and also if I just let the clutch out gently in first, the rpm doesn't quite match up and ease the bike along like it used to.

Yes I am fairly sure you will need that link out of the way when you try to get a shock in or out. There is probably another way, by unbolting the subframe and easing that back but I've not done that. The bearings in the shock link are well-sealed needle bearings and unless someone has been at your bike with a pressure washer, they're probably all OK.

A rattle that is most pronounced at idle and at low revs, but resolves when the revs come up, is most likely the camchain tensioners. It is a common issue on the 800 VTEC motor, and I had the same on mine when I bought it. It is most commonly the front cylinder tensioner that fails, something to do with orientation and oil feed I think. These are a bit fiddly to get to but replacement is well within the realms of a DIYer. If you start on the rear head you will get a feel for the task and that makes it easier when you do the front head, where access isn't great (but it can be done without removing throttle bodies). There is a method talked about online which takes a failed tensioner and applies more tension to the spring that is supposed to fix the issue; I tried that and it was better but still not great, so I bought a pair of OEM tensioners from Webike Japan. My 92000km engine sounds great now.

Are you asking about the Givi topbox mount? Like this: https://www.motocard.com/en/fitment-kits/givi-257fz_________.aspx

I did a quick trial fit of the parts last night. The connector in the throttle bodies came out without too much effort, and the rest of the system is then plug and play (or plug and pray). The system consists of the small CC control unit which will sit next to the ABS unit outside the frame, a wiring harness that fits between the two halves of the connector in the throttle bodies, an extension that runs back to the service connector near the battery and then a line to the bar-mounted control unit. I have Helibars and so can scootch the clutch perch over to make some space on the bars for the 3-button controller. There is one connection that I need to make to the brake wire on the bike harness, and it does look like the wire supplied is a touch short so I will splice in a bit of an extension there. The kit included an Ezy-tap joiner to connect to the stock harness. I'm planning on buttoning this up tonight but we have a tropical cyclone headed our way so a test ride may need to wait...

I just bought a PAIR delete set for my 1200 from eBay: https://www.ebay.com/itm/285225300697?_skw=PAIR+vfr1200&itmmeta=01KNSWB2KXKZABMWME2915RXDE&hash=item4268c0b2d9:g:orMAAOSwLulkMPPK&itmprp=enc%3AAQALAAAA8GfYFPkwiKCW4ZNSs2u11xBzDiqQyRLixfy5Q3GAZh7%2BGFT9Wped0wLyoaGhOPPiFi1tIxyCyx6GKmCeg8tL3xDay0oCTKnekJ4W%2FbvoKeJH9GNouQ7BYsJY0uLAKhLzsOdYiYH%2FxBbVXMvBB5klF7EvUZoLeFcLk58iASnDHnZ6q%2BbhuA5ztQzXbbcxqUSMnQm%2F7mp6ph2aJ9LbRfBApza1zrvqzsmIiy1j8P0wdh4nqg%2BpzT0%2FFbC2YE5FCOeICrYqu6ymtkz5m07tyOhemaHMOnM62A306MmE2zhaOor%2Fsyb%2FNtIlsFqUkxGDdEQRqA%3D%3D|tkp%3ABk9SR7qqrLyuZw I had to drop the radiator to reach the front head, the back head is dead easy. I then removed all of the hoses between the PAIR ports and the airbox, and plugged the airbox spigot with the supplied rubber vacuum cap. I disconnected the electrical connector to the solenoid and have wrapped that in tape. Based on past experience with my 5th and 6th gen 800s, having the solenoid disconnected will not trigger a fault code, I believe the FI system doesn't care about it. I haven't fired the bike up yet (planning on fitting the cruise control next) but I am not sure that PAIR delete will help you much. I suspect that you are feeling some low-end leanness due to a freer-flowing end can, and you may need to get a remapping done to correct that. I had something similar on my 6th gen when I fitted Micron mufflers, the low revs got pretty weak, so I reverted to the stock mufflers. Same on my MT10 when I removed the catalytic converter, it changed the fuelling and made it much rougher at low revs.

I thought the nut was probably still in place. If the nut is split off, then the bolt should be able to be tapped out. Having pulled the linkage out of my 5th gen, I recall that you can slide a spanner in to hold the nut but there's no way to turn it so you have to torque up the bolt and just hold the nut from turning.

Happy Days! The little box of goodies has arrived from Veridian so it is time to install the cruise control. This looks to be reasonably straightforward to do, I currently have the bike fully stripped as I fitted some PAIR blanking plates last weekend, so I just need to locate the controller onto the bars, connect to a brake light wire (beside the airbox), and plug into the service connector near the battery. The only finnicky bit is accessing the connector that lives within the throttle body, but as I already have the airbox off, hopefully not too hard to do. The Veridian instructions look pretty decent although I think their brake light wire might be mis-identified, but I have the wiring diagram and can figure out the a green/yellow is what I need to be finding. Wish me luck!