Hello from South-central Wi.

Howdy all,
1st, thanks for all of your participation here. I've been browsing and learning about my recently acquired 2001 VFR. It's intimidatingly sophisticated compared to my previous bikes (VTR1000, 1st gen SV650s,89' Hawk650) but reading all of your detailed descriptions of maintenance tasks give me a good idea of what I can tackle myself vs. stuff to leave to the pros.

I really love this bike. The SV was fun (still need to sell) in an elemental way but it just doesn't sing to me the way my red Honda's have.

Looking forward to many miles aboard this roaring gentleman of a sport bike.

 

Here she is! This is as delivered. I've since cleaned it up a little more and put on some Metzler Z6. I've looked in to polishing the exhaust tips but they're magnesium, which can polush, but tarnished very quickly, so I think I'll just leave that.

 

Yeah, isn't red great? Welcome aboard. How many miles? It looks great in that photo, any known issues?

 

Thanks. It's pretty solid. A little neglected, so fresh fluids were done right away. An immediate issue is that I believe the thermostat is bad (warms up slowly, doesn't reach 175f when cruising in cool weather). I've read those are tough to get at, so I may hire out the work for that and a valve clearance check. It will probably cost a lot.

I'd like to do JDM suspesion, but I'm pretty happy with it for the way I ride, so that may wait.

 

Same here, thermostat stuck open, no record of coolant change or valve clearance check, in need of some TLC/ maintenance.
Thermostat replacement is not horrible to do yourself, just takes time and patience. Flushed the cooling system while I was at it.
There is a good step by step post in the mechanics garage that is very helpful. take a look at that before you pay someone else to do it.
Here is the post. https://vfrworld.com/posts/451142/

 

Welcome Im in Kewaunee 20 miles east of green bay. Maybe we can get a ride in.