New to the Forum and the VFR800Fi, and I need Plastics

Hi Guys,

As of today I am the proud new owner of a 98 VFR800Fi with 104,000km , which is in some dire need of repair and TLC. The previous owner seems to have forgotten to tell me that the bike must have been in a little fender bender as well as having been dropped.

The upper cowl is cracked as well as the rear seat plastic. Both black.
I am tempted to go the Chinese ABS Plastics route with aftermarket print but in reality I'd want to keep the repairs cheaper and just replace what is in fact broken :smug:

Any chance anyone has a black upper cowl and rear plastic that they want to sell?
Oh also the upper cowl brace seems to be bent, would bending it straight be a safe option or better to just replace it?

Thanks any input is appreciated

Philipp

 

Hi Philipp and welcome to the Madhouse:welcome:

When you get a chance please drop by the introductions part of the forum and say Hi to the rest of the folks on here. You will soon realise they tend to like photos on here, so even if the bike is in a sorry state just post up a picture of your VFR to avoid having folks raggin on you until you do.

If you are not very mechanically confident, then it may make sense to get a professional to give the bike a thorough check over before committing funds to repairs/replacement materials. Whilst a dropped bike is only likely to cause cosmetic damage, any sort of fender bender is worrying and could be more serious and potentially dangerous. Given the "forgotten to mention" attitude of the previous owner, just how certain can you be that the fender bender impact was truly minor?

Sadly what may appear to be a minor derangement of things like forks, steering and frame can be a potential time-bomb which Murphys law dictates will tend to fail when its most inconvenient. In your shoes I would almost certainly get the bike checked before investing further time or money.

So lets hope it gets a reasonably clean bill of health - then the big question is whether to repair the old OEM? fairings or fit Chinese replacements. My starting point tends to be that if the panels are OEM Honda stuff and are reasonable complete, then assuming they are not completely smashed to bits, you will probably be better off repairing them. The videos below shows the basic process of making solid repairs to cracked plastics - so you could potentially repair the cracked plastics for very little money, even if you then pass the job on to a local paint shop to prep and paint them to match the rest of the bike.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61iyLarL258
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7GRNvPSf7k

I suspect that if you take your time a repair will give a result which will far exceed the quality of any of the aftermarket stuff, and cost much less than a set of replacement OEM Panels (even if you can still obtain them). Sadly even those firms offering pattern part ABS panels for your VFR tend to supply panels which are far thinner and flimsy than OEM so they will never really look right on a VFR.

Good luck and let us know how you get on.




SkiMad

 

Thanks so much for the replies. I will do the introduction shortly here.

The issues I have identified so far are:

Rear Plastic is damaged
Upper Fairing is damaged
Upper Fairing mount/support is bent
Front Rim is dented
Clutch lever is bent
Left Mirror mount is damaged
Fork Seals are leaking badly

I have encountered a clicking/clackering noise when braking however the braking may be a coincidence.
Someone informed me I should check the forks just in case they are bent (the bent rim made him suspicious).

I am someone who loves the challenge however more so who loves to tour and ride . I bought this bike for exactly that purpose. I knew that she had some issues but the bent rim and potentially forks were unexpected. Thankfully the parts are relatively easy to get but the plastics... well the side fairings are in decent condition while the upper fairing is pretty rough. I foresee some work for my winter here .



I was also wondering if that front axel is normal, a bunch of things have been done to this bike before hand, aftermarket fuel pump as well as suspension.

 

Thanks , yeah I was suspecting that the fork tubes sustained some damage, the dented rim could indicate some sort of incident to that effect. I was wondering how difficult it would be to bend the stay right and questioned it myself, but so far I haven't found a straight one for the 98-01 models, and believe me I have searched .

Same goes for the plastics (always the case it seems) I am not really keen on the aftermarket stuff, simply said most even the ABS molds are thinner and lighter and that makes me quite weary of them.

I definitely am for bringing her back to her original glory, I am still relatively new to riding (in my 4th season now with ca. 20,000km under my rear) so I want to bring the bike back to as original as possible in regards to the parts that are damaged and worn.

Thanks
Phil

 

Welcome aboard. As others have said, the plastics are not that hard to fix. Painting depends on what end result you want. If you know a friendly painter/panel shop they may be prepared to let you do the prep work and then paint it for you for reasonable money. Are there any dings in the tank where the bars may have hit it? That is normally a sign to me that the bike may have been in a serious crash (no proof on that, just something I look for). The clicking is most probably the headset bearings, check them out while you are doing the forks.

 

Thanks Bryan

Thankfully the tank is in great shape no damage whatsoever. I suspected the Left handlebar was slightly bent but after further inspection I don't think it is other than the clutch lever which is bent downward (almost as if someone forced it downward, that with the other damage almost makes me think someone went over the front or nearly over the front.

And please ask all the questions you have as it helps me learn about the bike and gives me a chance to also delve deeper into what the history of this bike is. I am pretty certain the previous (well previous to the previous owner as the last owner never rode this bike) owner did not disclose all the issues with this bike which became some surprises for me however I expected surprises and having bought her for 900 bucks i budgeted for most of the repairs.

 

Looks like you need a donor-bike.....

Stay away from the Chinese fairings........

 

Well from what I have read and seen if they are compression molded they are junk but the ABS injection molds aren't all too bad with some customizations. That being said I found a US outfit that makes them and heard some positive things about them (injection molded). If i can avoid painting the bike i'd like to (did that with the suzuki which was a pain) but realistically i'd like to just replace the broken plastics with matching parts

 

FYI, black was never a color option to my knowledge so that's an aftermarket paint job.

 

Oh, serious? That would explain a lot... Dammit... she looks good in black though so the question is can the plastics be fixed and repainted. That being said that tanks is unbelievably well painted... It looks like a factory paint job...

 

You are right the bike came red only... dangit... okay new kink in the plan

 

The fi came also in black ....for sure. In Europe anyways....
I think the fairings came from another bike (other year of build). That explains the "factory paint job".

And you are right. Some Chinese fairings are not too bad. But don't count on a perfect fit.

Succes with the repairs....


Verzonden vanaf mijn iPhone met Tapatalk

 

The pesos in new paintwork are threefold. Repair-prep-paint.. They are interrelated. From the pix, the plastics look repairable. Prep is still aboot 90% of a good job. The paint is expensive. Some colors moreso than others. Red vs Black..? Red by far. Piecing a faired bike back together with even new OEM parts will not be what you are looking for going by your desire to get the bike back in great shape.

Not sure on that axle or the forks. If your front wheel is dented. Have someone do the work. Large trucking repair outfits sometimes do this type work. We would not want to lose you even though all you guys up there in the frozen North talk funny.

 

Thanks Tinkerin, I have no doubt I will get her back to her glory. I just have to find straight forks, and figure out what do do with the plastics... I am really confused where these black fairings come from... they look quite good.

 

Needs a bit of work, but all fixable.

Wheels can be straightened by specialists and maybe forks can be too as long as they're not too bent, but I'm not sure I'd be brave enough!

Have a look at the link below for Wemoto. It's UK based so might not suit, but scroll down to the forks and suspension part and you'll find aftermarket stanchions are a good price (in this country at least!). I used them a lot for by Fix rebuild last year, along with David Silver who are another excellent source for new OEM and pattern parts. Obviously postage would be an issue, but it does show the bits and pieces are out there. I also set up a few specific searches on fleabay and picked up the rest of what I needed there. In some cases owners here have bought a second bike for donor parts, so where there's a will, there's a way! Good luck with it.

https://www.davidsilverspares.co.uk/VFR800FIX-1999/
http://www.wemoto.com/bikes/honda/vfr_800_fi-w_fi-x/98-99/

 

The FIW (98 model) came in muted black metallic in the UK I believe so yours could be a UK bike, or the fairings and tank came from one. I don't see the side repeating reflectors on the front forks, which I understand have been a US (and Canadian? I don't know) requirement for many years either, so that maybe adds weight to the European heritage. Quite how it got all the way over there though is anyone's guess.

The US and I believe Canadian bikes had different emission controls on them that the UK bikes didn't have as well. A bit of digging around with a workshop manual and wiring diagram together perhaps with the VIN plate data could solve the riddle.

If your speedo is in KM though then the clocks are not UK as ours are all in MPH. Could it be from mainland Europe?

 

Well Yellow99 you rock I was browsing last night really trying to find an answer to this, and I think you are right on the money. In Germany this bike was sold as the VFR800FW (1998). I am going to check the info on the bike specs sticker as i am curious about this bike now. Thank you very much for those links I will definitely use them. How this bike or all the parts got onto this bike well... I came from germany, I suspect that either somone had it move with them or rebuilt this bike with german/uk parts... Still odd, there is definitely more to the story of this bike.

Thanks you so much