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Next time you have your bodywork off, take a look at the well nuts that hold your bodywork together - Honda calls these 'cowl setting nuts'. This pertains to any VFR that uses cowl setting nuts to fasten body panels together - the older the VFR, the more important it is that its nuts get a thorough inspection. I wondered why a couple of the bolt holes in the upper cowl of my 5th gen had cracks at their edges. These are the row of three holes where pan screws go into well nuts in the lower cowl. The PO was very careful and I have not run across any examples of fasteners being overtorqued. At my second oil change, I notice that many of the cowl setting nuts - perhaps original parts - had squished up through their holes over time, creating bulges between the faring panels that they joined. The pressure of the bulges acted like wedges up under the outer panels of the upper cowl, and the pressure of the pan screw was applied to the wedge from the outer side of the upper cowl, resulting in cracks. Just a heads up as you service your VFR - check your nuts [cowl setting nuts]. New cowl setting nuts have my fairings lying flat and happy against each other.

While changing my tires today, I noticed something in my right rear cowl that caught my eye and sent a cold chill down my spine...a dreaded stress crack! As a Gen 4 owner, and dealing with this for 20 years, this was a sobering moment. Below are some pictures of the crack. It's looks like it may be due to a bit of pressure from the EGCA cable and rear brake reservoir hose, that both route through there. Still kicking around some ideas to stop it propagating. Any other Gen 7 owners notice something similar...or other cracks elsewhere?