New to site and this bike.

Hey guys just a quick intro and give you a heads up I'll be asking a lot of questions.

I have a 86 VFR 700. Rescued her from a guy that likes to ride but knew nothing about bikes. He tried to perserve her for the winter by sticking her under the patio all winter and at the 1st sight of warm weather decided to break her out only to find she was leaking a lot of fuel from the carbs. He posted her on craig list and well you know the rest.

She is all original except for the left mirror, 64k miles and in need of some major cosmetic work, nothing broken just years of not cleaning her. My goal is to clean her up and she will me my daily commuter. I'm the kind of guy that likes a nice old model but I believe a bike or car is ment to be driven but understand I live on a isolated military base so my daily commute is 18 miles both ways but on the weekends we will take it to the mountains or ride down to to LA and ride PCH back up to the base about a 6 hour ride total not including burger stops. But thats what she will see with me as the owner.

My 1st bike was a 90 Honda 929 Erion Racing Edition I rescued from a stunter that had just beat the tank in to begin a life of abuse but I taked him into selling it to me and I loved that bike until the reaccuring stator burn outs began and at 600 a pop after 5 burn outs I had to let her go. That was 2 years ago and its not that I dont want a bike I just like mid to late 80 models. The 929 was a 90 but to these youngins it was a dinasaur. But a classic. The guy at the Honda dealship swore it looked newer everytime I rode in. We got to be friends because I made hime order every single screw and bolt for that bike 1 at a time. I grew on him.

Well to end this we got the VFR home and took a look at her and she was leaking fuel from one of the little plastic tubes under the carb. Took the carb off 1st try no issues and the rubber seals are in great condition. We are aviation guys that are used to pulling hard to remove components off aircraft so that carb were stuck every bit of 30 seconds. I read Lazy's post and was in shock. Anyway the plastic tube isn't broken we think its the little seal where it sets in the carb so we are gonna replace em and I'm gonna have the engine guys at work dip the whole carb in the solution they use to clean jet engine parts. One of my buddy used it on his harley parts and I thought they where new parts when he got done so should work very well on these.

I got all the body parts at my house and my riding partner is doing the suspension stuff at his house. We broke her down to parade rest don't even look like a bike now. The covers are going to the paint shop at work all it cost me was 2 large bags of sunflower seeds and 4 cans of monster energy drink and the paint to get the fairings and tank painted. She was red, white and blue but I'm painting her black and white with the entire front end pearl black and fading to the rear in a testarosa white. I'm replacing the Hoda stickers on her though with white letters on black and black letters on white. I'll post some picks of what I have later as we are cataloging the entire restoration. Wish me luck. And if your wondering why so much effort on such an old machine. I only paid 200 bucks for her.

 

GOOD FIND !!

:welcome:

I don't recommend soaking ( especially in any unknown MIL-SPEC supercleaner not designed for motorcycle carbs !), instead just addressing whatever few problems you have, like O-ring replacement or leaky needles and seats , likely causes for the dripping.

Carbs clean up well by soaking JETS only and using wires to verify that enrichener circuit ( the long, fixed tubes) and idle jets are open, then use carb cleaner spray followed by compressed air anywhere there's a hole.


ALL rubber and plastic parts need to be removed b4 any soaking, which is necessary in the VERY WORST cases ONLY .

Plan on getting a Honda service manual for that bike; otherwise you risk damaging parts, misunderstanding various systems, and the manual will save you time too.

Good Luck with a great bike !

 

Thanks for the insight squirrel, and talk to my buddy the dipping was his idea I had just seen other guys do it, but I will listen to someone that has experience. We don't wanna mess anything up. The carbs where in good shape just some oxidation but other than that just the leaking from that plastic tube. I wont lie I'm not the mechanic in this duo with my buddy I'm a body man, but we have worked on several projects together being we are always stationed together and we both have to agree on a step or process before we do it. It has saved us plenty of times cause we normally catch something the other doesn't see. I'm still learning about this machine and from my research it looks like the 700 and 750 were the best of the models!

 

.......of your girlfriend nekkid !!

 

We just got the carbs taken apart and its official the o-rings in the plastic tubes were disentergrating. We got to replace them. Looked on that micro fiche from another post and found it. Went to local auto parts store but they dont carry for petrolium based use. Got to call honda up tomorrow and see what we can find. Other than that we broke the carbs down to where we could get them out. Other than that I told him about not dipping them and we agree. Upon closer inspection they don't really need cleaning but going to do a quick wipe off since we got them out.

On a side note I got the subframe prepped for paint and have painted all the small support plastic. It's coming along fine and I'll figure out how to post pics of my new mistress as soon as I can.

 

yea im gonna second this request, with an additional "giggity"!

 

What Tinkerbell said

op2:

 

I'll post pictures today when I get home from work. Took me a second to get the hint but I got it. They will be there.

 

just in case you didn't really get the hint

as a fellow owner of the vfr700 I really want to see pictures.. where in California are you stationed?

 

Me and my buddy are stationed at NAS Lemoore south of Fresno. There are tons of riders here but with deployments and different commands we dont have guys that are into bikes like we are they just ride. Being in the middle of no where everything is really fun cause no matter what direction we got north south east or west 2 hours later we are somewhere major so having a bike is a must have.

Someone help me out I never posted a picture before on a forum, I hit the Little tree icon but it's asking my for the URL not the folder where I have the picture saved. I cant pull it up in the drop down menu either.

 

Pictures the day I picked it up

This is her, the day I got her right fairing was off because we had been looking at the motor and trying to see the fuel leak in action. Not bad for $200? What do you guys think?

 

I would say that is a damn nice bike for $200. Looks good enjoy riding her

 

Ok, Well I see this bike is gonna be a huge headache for ya so I tell ya what. I'll give ya twice what you paid and I'll come get it next Mon. Sound good to you???

:whistle::eyebrows:

 

Oh yeah and you have the same avatar as Fatso......

 

Damn, not bad for $200 at all- and you have the tail cover with bump pad! I am jealous. Have fun with it!

I thought I saw that avatar somewhere else.

 

She is good condition over all, the guy had 3 rice burners in his garage so he kept her under a covered car port. The weather still got to her though. And she don't look like that now she's just 2 wheels and a motor. The entire subframe has 3 fresh coats of black paint the carbs are waitng on the seals to get here from Captb ( he in Arizona so should be here today). My paint guy wont be here until tomorrow so the fairing are on hold and I still need to get the black paint order the decals and black seat cover.

The motor covers are getting painted Saturday and pipes polished. The carbs shouldnt need sinc'ing but if they do I'll do that once we get her baack together. We still havent address the suspension yet either. If I was in a hurry I could have her going in a week but time is not a factor here for me quality is. We know she runs so no pressure there my goal is to convert a neglected classic into a daily rider with looks it takes time. While she is apart I wanna cover every nut, bolt and screw and every nook and cranny and bring her back to one piece check list style so we don't miss anything and when I put her on the road mechanically she solid. I don't want to get her in the mountains with that I wish I had check this doubt creeping around in the back of my head.

 

$200?!?


WOW!! Bikes are cheap in America.

Good find.