Thought it was time for some maintenance on my 94 vfr

Bought myself a 94 vfr750 4th gen last September and decided it was due for some loving:biggrin:

Had noticed a couple of small oil leaks and front brakes were grabbing and not releasing 100%, she seemed to use a lot more fuel than she should too and was running a little rich.

So out came the tools after picking up new air and oil filters, engine oil, head cover gaskets and left/right side engine cover gaskets.

Stripped the fairings and seat off the bike, then proceeded to remove the tank, air filter cover and drain the oil
Next it was time to remove the engine covers, strip the old gaskets from the covers and refit with new gaskets.

Then it was time to remove the head covers, bloody hell, that was not fun at the front of the engine.

You need to remove the radiator, the front fairing including lights etc, undo the oil cooler and sit it up out of the way and then try to hold the bloody radiator out of the way to remove the front head cover:help:

Remove old gaskets again and fit new ones, noticed why I had a small leak from the front head cover gasket as PO had the engine cover on back to front:crazy:. Fitted engine covers with new gaskets and found that getting the front one back in is even trickier persevered and got it back on and thought now would be a great time for new spark plugs, so raced to the local auto shop and they had a set in stock Got the old plugs out and found PO had NGK B8ER instead of B9's.


So now she has new oil and air filter, check out the old air filter looks like it's been in there a while.
New oil, plugs and gaskets.

Then it was time to strip the front brake calipers and redo piston seals/ clean all fittings and reassemble, then bleed:biggrin:

Got her all done and back together and decided I wasn't happy with the stock seat, being short of leg at 5'7 (170cm) I decided to lower the riders section and reshape. At the same time adding some foam and shaping the pillion seat so as to keep the lovely wife happy:high5:

I removed the seat cover and after sitting on the bike, decided where to sculpt first, the sides had to be cut down and in slightly as well as taking out about 3/4 inch from the rider seat. Cut out using a very sharp filleting knife. Then using the angle grinder I shaped to my desired finish. Added some foam around the front edge to give the "boys" some breathing space:high5: and then shaped the pillion seat.

Dropped it at the upholsterers yesterday and ready to pick up tomorrow morning:biggrin:

Will be interested to see how she goes when back on the road. 12+ hours of labour and some skinned knuckles (bloody radiator):biggrin: very therapeutic working on your own bike though. Seems the pics may be all out of order. Maybe I should label them before downloading next time?

 

Ambitious job! And thanks for the pics. I am finishing up similar (though less extensive) refurbing on my recently-acquired Gen 3, but I am less confident in my skills.:tongue:

Two things of interest to me: does your Gen 4 have a long rubber flap that folds under itself on each side below the air filter - near the outside? I can't remember how to place it.

And . . . I'm eager to learn the effect of your seat carving. I know I will have to address that issue on mine but I am reluctant to send that big box across the border to Florida, so if your shaping has the desired effect I might give it a go myself.

 

I'm in the same exact boat right now. I stripped off ALL of the body work for a thorough scrubbing inside and out, while I had all the body work off, I also cleaned out the radiator overflow tank. I fabricated a K&N air filter out of a panel filter I had for a previous car I owned. I also replaced the sub air filter with a new Honda OEM unit. I did a valve check (luckily valves were within spec), for the rear cylinder head, and assumed the front was good after seeing what was required to get to it. I also removed all of the PAIR garbage and fabricated plugs out of the original piping.

In addition, I installed a xenon HID kit, which required some creative cutting and modification to the headlight unit. It looks awesome, though!

Spring is just around the corner - my 4G will be tip top once the oil is changed and the first tank of fresh fuel goes in the tank!

 

The rubber flap you refer to, doesn't appear on my 4th gen. There is a rubber flap on each side of the frame that sits under the tank and rests on the frame and another at the back of the rear cylinders head cover. Are either of these the one you refer to? You can see both of these in the pics above, the rear one is in the pic with the socket extension sitting on a bolt and the front one is seen in the close up shot of the engine minus cover, rubber flap sits resting on frame.
Hope this helps.
As for the seat shaping I will let you know how it feels. A word of warning with the seat is to take it slowly with the grinder as they can dig in or grab foam if you get aggressive. I found that by resting the grinder and the safety cover on the foam I could shape the foam much easier and smoother.

Working from front to middle and then rear to middle seemed easier to do once comfortable with the grinder.
Biggest expense will be the recovering of the seat at $165 Aust

 

Yes, the side ones must be the ones I am referring to, I just don't have bike near me when sitting here. I can "sort of" see them in your pics but I can't tell exactly where and how they fold over.

As for the seat cover, I am going to try to just staple the original back into place myself.

 

My home made K&N filter:

 

Nice job on the filter, looks good.

I got the seat back today and rushed home, fitted it to the bike and started riding to work. Seat feels good. Stopped to put wet weather gear on and she wouldn't re-start. Was firing and then didn't seem to have enough battery power to turn over, mmmmmmmmm bugger. Luckily for me I was outside an auto shop and when a guy turned up for work he put a starter pack on and the bike fired straight away.

Rode to work and checked again after stopping, similar thing with not sounding like the battery will turn her over. Checked again several times during the day and she fired as per normal.
Left after work and fired right away with plenty of power, got home and checked starting, started once then same thing, wrrrrr wrrrr then nothing.

I am wondering whether I have done something wrong or maybe I haven't reconnected a wire? seems to be as she gets hot the battery wont kick her over. Got a new battery delivered to work and haven't fitted it yet.

The reg/rect looks like it has been replaced at some stage as it has large fins. Could it be the battery has reached the end of it's life?

Might post a message in 4th gen and see what comes of it.

 

I'm on my third R/R, my second one was the finned version. I had the same exact problems you are having. Check the connection and the wiring between the R/R and the stator for scorching or melted connections.

 

Thanks VT Viffer and will check those this afternoon, as a point of interest what did you go for with the third R/R?

Did you change the wiring like I have read some here have done?

 

I rewired the entire charging circuit from the stator plug (on the right side of the bike) to the R/R. I used 14 gauge 20 strand wire for higher current capacity. I did not modify the wiring path, I am still reliant upon Honda's engineering. I deleted the plastic plug on mine, and the spades plug one at a time onto the R/R, as opposed to all 5 wires getting plugged in at once.

There are pictures of it somewhere, but I can't find them.

 

Thanks VT Viffer and finished mountain biking so it's off to look and see if I can find what is happening.
Keep you posted.

 

Sorry to not get back to you earlier about the rubber flaps, on my 4th gen they sit well below the airbox and are sitting on top of each side of the frame(actually stapled by someone to another rubber flap).

 

^^^ Honda did the stapling - they come that way from the factory.

 

Sruss67: Now that you've had some seat time I wonder whether there are any changes to the seat shaping you might have done in retrospect? I am going to try to copy your pattern. I am wondering whether you used a secial wheel on the grinder to get the foam so smooth?

My bike is smoking although it's been only running for about a kilometer so far. I hope it is just the WD40 and/or engine storage oil burning off. If I need to replace the gaskets . . . did you just order up a set from the dealer? It seems you only have to swing the rad forward and pull the airbox to access?

 

Further to my questions above, I found a website with detailed seat-shaping info, consistent with what was done here. As a bonus, there are examples of foam-shaping on a VFR seat.

Modify Seat

But go to Home page and work through the sections.

 

Hi sunset and although I haven't ridden the bike much as I have been away for near on two weeks, I did notice a few more vibes through the seat now. Nothing major and would probably take out more of the stock foam, then place some denser foam in to take the vibes away.

As for the grinding wheel, standard worked fine, just take your time and use the guard to rest against the foam so as the wheel doesn't grab the foam.
If you are referring to the engine head cover gaskets then I picked them up from ebay as new old stock. Had to pull front fairing off, oil cooler off and pull radiator well out of the way to change the front cover gasket. The rear required removing the petrol tank, seat and rubber flap. I fitted the rear cover really easily and the front takes a bit of fiddling to get the radiator just right to get the cover back on.

Hope this helps.

 

If you've gone thru three RR you got yourself a lemon..... how many RR have others gone thru?

 

^^^ Not quite. I guess I should say that the bike is on it's third R/R.

The original owner had the original R/R fail while he was several hundred miles away from home. His solution was to pull all "unnecessary" fuses and bump start it for a month until he could afford a new one. He bought the "finned" Honda OEM one, but he jammed the burnt up plug and scorched wiring into it. That R/R didn't make it 1,000 miles - it never had a chance.

I ordered a finned R/R from regulatorrectifier.com, and they sent me the original style (without fins). So I fabbed up a heat sink and PC fan for it, and re-wired the charging circuit with heavy-gauge wire. In other words, I made lemonade. 5,000 miles later, and I still have a rock-solid charging voltage.

 

Are these the same "others" who took you aboard thier spacecraft?