moroseduck

The cat! It's that little b******s fault! Honestly, if my partner hadn't been with me then I'd have still been sat on the bike until my arse was on fire 😅

Thanks Tim, the scouring of eBay has already started! Don't know the full extent of the damage "under the hood" as the fire melted the seat release cable, and I don't want to start getting heavy handed until after the insurance people have been out to have a look, not that I quite understand why they need to - there's no way they don't declare it a write-off.

In December 2020 I managed to bin my bike and properly trash the plastics. Despite knowing it was going to be difficult to get things sorted, I decided I couldn't give up on my bike. After much fairing hunting, a full respray, new exhaust and screen and an 8 month wait, she was back and beautiful. However, after her lie down and prolonged lay up, she wasn't running right, and eventually left me sitting on the side of the road in November last year. It wasn't until March that I was able to get my mechanic to sort the carbs and get her running like as well as she looked, but by mid March she was ready for all the glorious days Spring and Summer had to offer. And then on a ride out with my partner last weekend she started conking out again. I pulled in to the side of the road and tried to restart. Luckily my partner hopped off, and told me I needed to get off real fast as smoke was pouring out from under the seat. Something had gone very wrong with the fuel pump... Half an hour, one fire engine and a lot of water later and I'm back to square one, except this time it's the rear of the bike that's screwed, not the front. I'm not sure what the moral of this story is. If anyone in the UK has a line on some rear fairing panels or a seat (no matter how scruffy as I'll need to get re-covered and reshaped anyway), please let me know!

No one got any clues for me on these bits? I'm sure it's something pretty damn obvious, but my brain is letting me down at the moment.

Been putting all the bodywork back on my bike over the last couple of days. Has any other motorbike got a more faffy, piecemeal and easily broken set of plastics than a 90-93 VFR? Because if there is I don't want to buy it. Despite broken tabs and connectors, some of which I was able to fix, some I just had to ignore, and awkward wrangling to get some parts into place without snapping others I had it almost all back together. Then I came to the final panel, the right hand middle fairing, and it just doesn't line up with the lower panel. The right hand side is the one that hit the deck, so the upper fairing is from one place, the middle and lower fairings from another, and all are new to my bike. I tried loosening everything off and making use of all the wriggle room available, but it isn't happening, and I have no desire to split any of these pieces through with handling - the upper fairing already has a crack in it. Going to try and get it to a garage that can sort it, and if needed adjust the mounts. A lot of faff for being 5mm out. Just thought I'd share this bag of fun with you guys, it was all going so well... Here's a pic of the left hand side in all its new black glory

Can I hijack this thread with another similar question - got as far as I can putting my bike back together and I have these left over - what have I forgotten 😬

Had a go at vacuuming it out today, and did a lot of turning it upside down and shaking. Quite a lot came out but still sounds like there's quite a lot left in - I began to feel like the shaking and vacuuming was making more 😂 Might try taking it to my local garage and seeing if they will have a go with an air compressor. Could definitely give diesel a go, it's just making sure it's completely drained and avoiding sludge which concerns me.

Thanks gents, glad I thought to ask here before blundering on and making the situation worse! With any luck I'll have the bike together by the end of the week, once I've worked out the fairings jigsaw puzzle, complicated by a few broken bits and missing screws and bolts😂😬

Hey folks, Well, I'm so nearly there, after months of waiting I've finally got my bodywork (most of it...) back from the paint shop and have started putting the Veef back together. One holdup thought is the fuel tank. For one thing, sometime since I last saw it it's lost one of the rubber cushions from the front mounting. Luckily I've been able to source a replacement online for that. The other issue is it seems to have a fair amount of loose debris inside it - I don't know if this is pre existing junk, or crud from the paint shop, but I obviously need to get it out. Is water ok to use to rinse it, and given that it can't be fully drained even by tipping it upside down, any advice on how to get water and crud out? So near, yet still so far 😂😭

Brilliant, thank you, I'd planned on doing an oil change once I get the fuel tank back, I'll hold off painting till then.

With the return of my resprayed fairing and tank imminent it's time to get the scuffed and flaking paint on clutch and alternator cover painted, but I've never sprayed anything before. I've bought some TechCote high temp paint, any advice on how best to proceed much appreciated - I'm tempted to mask off and spray in situ as Ive not taken the respective covers off before and have no idea what to expect, is this dumb? Thanks in advance

Well, I made it back in one soggy piece and am now the proud owner of this very scruffy NX650. Having never owned an upright bike like this the first few corners and roundabouts were a bit alarming as I had to relearn how to ride, but I got there in the end. Had a really fun ride home despite the pouring rain, certainly a very different riding experience from my VFR which is just what I wanted. Now I just need to attend to, well, pretty much everything on it 😂 Should be a good place to learn some spannering skills on a machine that's less likely to kill me if I get it wrong! Grabbed this picture whilst lost in rural Wales

Quick update on this (because I'm still waiting on my fairing and fuel tank to come back from the paint shop so I've got no VFR adventures/misadventures to amuse me). After too much time looking at stuff on the internet I've pulled the trigger on a rough and ready 1998 Honda NX650 Dominator. It's a runner not a looker, but is only costing me £1500 which is about as good as it's going to get in the UK for this sort of thing, and seemed like an appropriate amount to spend on a bike which may not get a ton of use. Looking forwards to collecting it on Sunday - a 3 hour ride back from Swansea on nobbly tyres that haven't yet been broken in, in what promises to be utterly atrocious weather 👌 Now I REALLY need to sell the XJR

That definitely looks worth checking out - my boys live down in North Devon so I've even got a place to stay. Thanks for the headsup!

I've been looking at these for my gen 3 - they describe the system as having an "improved lighter design" - is this just bs then? Or at least not enough of an improvement to make them worth swapping out a functional original system for?

There's nothing quite like getting smacked in the head by a large bug at speed to really wake you up 😂

The above questions about realistic opportunities to go off road locally are totally fair, this is definitely not the best place to be for it. There is a local group that meets (or at least met) up to go on rides and trips out, and we do have the Ridgeway nearby, but if definitely want to explore that option in the company of someone with experience. I really like the idea of being able to visit family in Devon, or go back to where I grew up in Wales and having some fun, but I know this might be a pipe dream. As much as anything I'm after trying out a different riding experience, and dual sports offer at least the potential of that. The VFR and the XJR are both brilliant bikes, but they're also both fairly sensible bikes, and nobody needs two sensible bikes. I don't want to go down the sports bike route because the VFR is as much in that department as I want/can handle, and the XJR is definitely a far down the more cruiser path as I'm willing to go (admittedly not very far). Hence dual sports/adventure. I've looked at bikes like the transalp, FG650, Tiger etc, but feel like I might end up with too much of a sensible, middle of the road bike with those. For a second bike I'd rather get something that has the potential to be great new fun and/or an utter pain in the arse than something which is just quietly capable. Thanks very much everyone for your advice and experiences with these bikes, I've now thrown the Honda Dominator into the mix as well as they seem to be a bit cheaper - I really don't want to spend too much money on what might turn out to be a terrible idea. Posted with appreciation of a space where I can air the thoughts spinning round my head without annoying those around me who don't give a crap - at least on here it can be easily ignored 😂

You know that thing when you're spending a lot of time on ebay/Autotrader/Craigslist looking at bikes you probably shouldn't buy, but really want to buy? Thought I'd ask for a quick reality check from folks who've ridden more... Quick catchup to where I'm currently at bike wise - bought my gen 3 VFR in 2012, but never really clicked with it and didn't ride much between then and last year. In 2019 I bought an XJR1300 to replace it, but didn't get around to getting the Veef on the market till March 2020 and then, well, you know. Over the summer I decided to roll the dice on getting the seat reshaped and recovered to see if that would help my enjoyment of using the bike - biggest problem I've had with it is my knees smack hard into the fairings. Got seat done by a dude called Ross, looks great and more importantly transformed my riding experience, so the VFR is now going nowhere (apart form sliding down the road, but that's another issue. I love the XJR, it's great fun, made of torque, a proper beefy boy naked riding experience and a real blast on a sunny day, but for a while now I've had a hankering for a rough and ready dual sport thumper for all year round play time and markedly different riding experience from my VFR. I've been eyeing up DR650's in particular, as well as KLR 650 and to a lesser extent the Honda Dominator, but there aren't many of them in this country and so the prices are far from a bargain, and the XJR would have to go to fund this purchase. So my question is, do any of you guys have experience of these dual sports bikes, any advice on models, and thoughts as to whether or not this would be a dumb path to pursue? For visual reference, attached is a picture of a cat attempting to steal my XJR, thanks in advance

As has been mentioned above, sales of bikes of all sorts are significantly higher this year as people look for stuff to do outside, and people who's income wasn't negatively affected by Covid haven't been able to go on holiday or go to the pub, so money for leisure spending is burning a hole in pockets. And then there's just the gradual but continual death of these machines due to accident, exacerbated by the lack of replacement plastics for gen 3 and 4. After my low speed off last year, I nearly gave up on mine - a '93 in average condition, worth maybe £1500 on a good day. By the time all is said and done I'll probably have spent about £900 to get her back on the road as it had a custom paint job previously , so a full respray was the only option to not look awful. One of those times when you have to keep reminding yourself this is a hobby, not a practical choice 😂 For a lot of people, the idea of spending a lot of time trying to find actual replacement plastic that isn't also knackered and getting it to look good for a low value bike just doesn't make sense, hence seeing several pretty rough "streetfighter" conversions on ebay lately, which no one in their mind is going to buy, and are destined to become more parts bikes. One thing that gives me some hope is that I've seen a couple of ebay sellers offering replacement fibre glass fairing panels for older bikes. Now, admittedly the one I ordered from poland never arrived and I had to go through PayPal to get my money back from the jerk, but he was definitely making them, and there is another guy in the UK doing the same kind of thing. So, with luck, this will be taken out of the hands of larger manufacturers who don't give a crap. This is me in Sunday morning optimist mode 😂

Lovely job making it look it's best! I think your next project should be to ride up to Oxfordshire and help make my gen 3 look half as smart! 😅

That's where I ended up. Other than the lifespan, which is in reality longer than most of us even keep bikes, then short of swapping plugs and doing dyno runs and trying to measure fuel efficiency etc for each set it's all a bit of a head game. If you feel that one plug is better than another, that's probably as good as it's going to get regardless of whether or not there's any actual truth to it. My bike was running pretty damn sweetly for a 28 year old with the plugs she had, so I stuck with those. If things are working, don't mess with them is my motto! Also, I really didn't want to try and get at those front plugs 🙂

Oh man, that's a project! Great to hear that it's already making positive headway - Honda do seem to have made a bike which, at it's core, is almost indestructible by human hands! See a lot of this kind of thing on eBay, people have had the idea of making a streetfighter after binning the bike, got as far as tearing it all apart, then given up because it's hard to do and left the poor bike to languish for years. It's a real bummer that so many gen 3's especially are going to end their days like this as the aftermarket parts just aren't there for them. In the UK the number of listed legally running bikes from this era is less than half of the number declared "off - road" and even that's only a few hundred

It's a 4x5 field camera, actually the newest camera I own! It's built by a company in the UK called Chroma cameras, and is mostly made out of carbon fiber, you know, to help it go fast 🙂 It's really fun to use - much like biking you have to give it all your attention or bad things happen. Rarely painful things though, so that's something.

While the Veef is all sad naked, I got to take out the happy naked chugger today. Big bike, need a big camera to strap on to it 😂 Both of those things probably say a lot about my fondness for low tech

Very quick question for you learned folks - will a 4th gen brake pedal work on a 3rd gen bike? My gear shifter and brake pedal have, as they seem to on many 3rd gens, got irredeemably tatty. I've replaced the shifter with the gen 4 alloy version, and there's a matching brake pedal on the bay for sale, but it doesn't look identical to what I have so I thought I'd ask before wasting money. Thanks in advance