rhoderage

No offense to all of us, but this site is becoming more for old farts daily 🙂 can't believe i'm coming up on a decade of VFR-ownership, and I've made my 40's... pics of the new ride?

Looks great... I think the exhaust suits it well. Let us know what you think about the sound while riding!

Nice 3g... my 2c is she isn't riding it. the 3 throttle rolls at the end before shutting it off are kinda like.... wuuut?

As much as I'm the guy with the older car with limited electronics, and I think that my riding skills are generally decent enough to not need this MOST of the time... I totally see the value, and how it will absolutely be a part of all bikes in the future... similar to how seatbelts, abs, traction control, etc has become a standard for all cars to reduce risk of significant injury/death We can hope that it will lower our insurance rates at least... nahhhh we all know better than that 😁

Agreed with everything Cogswell said. I intend to keep my 02 for as many decades as I can. As much as I'm excited to get my new-to-me 99 in running condition this winter, I'm already considering NEXT winter's project to be swapping the 99 engine into the 02 body. I enjoy the bike, and my time is almost a 50/50 split of riding vs wrenching/cleaning/farkling... which means I don't ride enough these days but I have every reason to keep it and continue to enjoy it for a long time to come. And its long paid for which helps lol. I would buy a white 8g if I found a good deal - I think they look the most modern of the VFR's, and clearly those who have them enjoy them. I continue to be surprised and impressed that many 6g riders who upgrade to 8g find it a better overall bike, thats a HUGE win for Honda on what seemed almost to be an afterthought ('oh wtf, we have a parts bin, lets cobble together a new 800'). I think the 5g looks very dated in the front and tail. The 6g in white/black colour scheme still looks modern to me, though it is a little porky with the side rads and flared tail for the underseat exhaust. Mine turns 20 in December this year.

Its a great question and I will try the various rust removal techniques... this appears to be the original tank, it has yellow paint underneath the orange. Would be great to save it; visually its ok with no real dents or outside rust

August 22 2012 I purchased my 2002 VFR800... I've been on VFRD for the duration of this time and its been a tremendous resource. BUT you folks have turned me into one of yourselves... and for a few years now I've had real interest in a 5th gen. In the meantime I moved to a house with a garage. The hunt has been on for a winter project... I've done a lot of work on my 02 and the increased confidence (and quantity of tools) makes me want to try a full rebuild. Budget was <$1000 to buy it. Doing the daily search online, find a local 5g which has a write-up indicating that the fuel tank rusted out and the bike wont run due to debris. He just wanted to get rid of it... we emailed and chatted... I rode over to take a look. $900 and 3 hours later he's taking it out of his truck in my driveway. Was it fate? I did NOT expect a VFR to be my <$1000 project, and I couldn't be happier! So we have a 1999 VFR800. Not quite 47000km. Original colour was yellow. Non-running currently. New battery. Ancient scary tires. No exhaust can. Cheapy ebay REPSOL fairings with paint runs under the clear & decals... good from 10ft [they will attach better than in pics; mount points on bike are tweaked, and there are only a few bolts currently holding all the plastics on... yikes]. Bike lived outdoors for a couple years per the PO, and parts are weathered. Shout-out to my wife for agreeing and not being angry. I can't believe she was cool with it... she's a keeper. The plan: I don't know! The goal of the 'winter project' was to refurbish a bike I wanted to ride on a low budget, ride it next summer, and sell it the following spring unless its a keeper. [I still don't know if I'm allowed to KEEP multiple bikes]. The first step is to get it running... once riding season is over, I will take my 6g tank and hook it to the 5g and see where we are at unless I can de-rust or replace* the current one by then. In the meantime, fairings are off, and I'll be digging in looking for anything else which needs repair. Looking forward to some quality garage time over the next year! I'll keep this thread updated with progress.

I had the same challenge on my 02... and i tried to force it, and ultimately thats never a good idea and I did some damage to one of the seals on the slave piston. That forced me to pull the slave, clean and rebuild, and bleed the clutch again. Absolutely perfect since. The reality was I hadn't been into a slave cylinder before and so was not super interested in opening it as option one... but it was so quick and easy, and I cleaned what i expect was ~20 years of old fluid gunk... totally worth the investment of time. Also took apart the master at the time, measured the internals, replaced seals, and bobs your uncle... (it was last summer, and with COVID of course there was a backorder of OEM slave seals so the bike had downtime... aka tinkering time)

The best colour scheme! Great choice 😀

LOL Grum beat me to it... can't wait to see the engine swap to get that in a VFR! Only q is what gen it fits best in... based on the dimensions, I'm thinking air cooled

Very interesting... cold changes it is!

Di electric grease yes

Didn't take any further pictures. Did my best at the lineman splice. Im not experienced at soldering but it all was secure. Heat shrink and tape. Taped all 3 wire runs securely together and double checked all wiring routing for battery area. I also verified how the Corbin seat was fitting to check for pressure on the relay, ie if th.at mashed those two wires together Checked the relay operation first as grum suggested, perfect. everything checked out fine. Starting perfectly on first try each time. All switches ie start kills are working properly again. Everything is back together and all systems go. Thanks so much to Grum and Shipfixer and everyone else who assisted!

Fixed 😄

New part arrived. Funny enough it was cheaper to buy it WITH the starter relay, versus without. You read that correctly! The relay will just go in the spares bin as long as my Honda part checks out ok. The connector is using brass terminals. I am going to split the red wire into two as suggested and use the spare terminal on the starter relay. Question - should i remove the wires and attach to my non brass terminals? Think its worth it, or even necessary if I split the current across 2? I dont want to take the lazy way but if its not useful then its one less thing.

Yes i had also switched the rr to a mosfet about 8 years ago. I really went through everything except the stator itself. Mosfet rr. Redid the stator yellow wire connection. Vfrness. New honda oem starter relay. new red connector as it was melted. I had the wiring harness recall.done around then too . Its been flawless since and runs at 14.3v steady...this was a real surprise

PC5/Autotune Fiamm horn Voltmeter USB charger speedoDRD battery tender lead I don't think any of that stuff would be a problem, some is hooked up through a fuse block I don't understand either why the red wire would only be a problem at that spot... the rest of the wire looks just fine. perhaps that part of the wire was damaged somehow, or at least the insulation? maybe it got a bit of water in it or something; the bike was outside in freezing weather for a day back in january when we moved no idea!

Rest of the wiring down to the taped junction is fine

Start opening up the tape on the wiring behind the red connector... looky here... it melted through the wire insulation Better view ... can see the red melted into the electrical tape Now we are concerned about the red and red/yellow shorting... it wasnt happening in the red connector or spade terminals or crimps... but the red and red/yellow wire kinda look melted together... Better pry them apart to see... And look at this... they had melted and fused together inside the electrical tape wrap under the rubber boot. Will be an easy fix. Replacement connector arrives wednesday. I will still run all the checks as well to be sure, this is just my start today... Thanks so much for the help fellas. I literally told the wife i would post on here and within an hour probably have a detailed answer of the problem and solution... and as usual, you didnt disappoint!

Thanks for this... will definitely try the splitting of red wire into 2 spades into the starter relay. All for it if it shares the load and reduces the chance of recurrence, since its now the 2nd time since I've owned the bike that I'm replacing the red connector! Would like to put this one to bed permanently if possible.

Totally hear what you are saying Question though - could this be a red herring? Since the starter was engaged for a longer period of time than normal (ie not normal cranking, but stuck engaged), could the longer flow of high current compared to normal have melted the connector and wiring end? Ie this is the result, not the cause? Just spitballing since I can't actually do anything else with it at the moment 😃 I sure hope it is as simple as those two wires having made contact; that's a very easy fix.

Not the prettiest ever (see below) but I dont see the red and red/yellow wires touching. Not the greatest pic angle. Im wondering if the connector melted between the spade connectors for those two wires, ie inside the red connector, and we just cant see the point where they shorted. Ill take it apart, cut the red connector open, and do the electrical tests on the wknd. Just ordered replacement red connector, itll be a week or two in shipping so bike is down and I have some time to sort it out. Shipfixer thanks for your post as well, gives more to look at if the initial suggestions dont solve the issue. I had the harness recall (bike is '02) done years ago at Honda. Ive replaced the starter relay (oem from local honda) and this connector (ebay) around 8yrs ago. Bike has a vfrness as well.

Didnt have time to test but took a quick look at the starter relay. It looked like new, for what its worth (nada). Red connector has some melting. Looks like some charring inside the terminal and maybe on the red/yellow as well. I'll do the electrical tests by the weekend... just wanted to share the quick update that we are on the right track.

Thanks so much guys. I will get at it by this weekend... maybe after work if I get motivated (ie the wife's list is short!) It was probably 7 or 8 years ago at least that I replaced the starter relay (OEM from local Honda), and the red connector in Grum's pic above which was similarly melted. For that I ordered the red case online, and clipped out the bad sections of wiring and put it back together. I appreciate the help immensely and I'm interested to take the wiring out and see how its looking today. Thanks for the test suggestions Grum, thats what I was really after as I don't want to make the wrong move and mess something up worse!! 😃

Hoping Grum will chime in on this one! Got home from a ride, stopped and put the bike in neutral on sidestand (running) to open the garage door. Heard a weird sound, wasn't sure under the helmet. Clutched in and put in gear and it stopped. Curious... put in neutral, started again. Shut off the bike. Sound continued - it was the starter cranking! Put bike in gear, stops. Take key out, flip kill switch. Click into neutral starter is engaging, even with the bike off. WTH? How can my starter be continuously running without pressing the start button, with the kill switch on, with the key out of the bike? But only in neutral, whether bike is on or off Needless to say I left the bike in gear, disconnected the battery, and signed on to VFRD!