1986 VFR Restoreof Japanes import

Greetingd form South Africa. Well a couple of days ago a mate an I agreed on me creating more space in his garage by taking an old 1986 VFR off his hands/

The good thing is it looks like most of the oem stuff is there , including the small bits and bobs, most of the bolts look to have never been touched
23000 km, so low milage

The bad: It had a drop at some stage in it's life which damaged the fairing byt the mirrors(which are missing)
The tank is a complete rusted mess, but no holes. I have since sent it off to be de-rusted and relined
Clutch is kaput(nothing at the lever) need to bleed it i suspect

We thre some fuel in it and she started pretty quickly, but carbs are definetly needing a going throught

So i thought i would say hello, and post some pics as and when money/time allows progress on the restoration

On order for noe, Carb boots from Honda and a clutch seal kit....but i think alot more will follow

 

Today i took of the radiator , which is a mess, hopefully it is holding wateer (seems too) and is now getting some airflow.
I will be keeping my eyes open for a secondhand one or even (if this one doesnt handle) a replica one from overseas)
I'm going to paint the fins black , hopefully making it less obvious where i removed a top layer of fins


Does anybody know why the top and bottom of the radiator has raised aluminium "warts/roughness" for want of a better word... corrosion?

 

Welcome!

You got some work, but it should come thru ok. Good luck!

 

And gave the airbox a refresh

 

Thanks mate, Awaiting surprises...but hoping with the excepion of sprayjob, the big ticket items are salvagable/ok

 

I made the mistake of using higher pressure water when I cleaned the fins on my home central AC unit years ago. They needed to be straightened out as best as I could. Very tedious work. You can get plastic "comb" like devices to use to straighten them out but those are only good for fixing minor damage to the fins. They are available at most hardware stores such as Home Depot. I don't know if you have HD in SA. If you can't find, talk to an AC service person and he should be able to tell you where to get one.

I ended up using a small blade screwdriver to open up the fins. Very gently of course. But you won't get them even close to looking good cosmetically. But they will be functional. I did this about 20 years ago and they are still fine, and the AC unit still pumps out the cool air. You mentioned you were going to paint the fins black. Flat black I suggest. I am sure you can get special paint designed for radiators. Black will disguise the less than perfectly straight fins, so you should be good to go. It is doable. Just very tedious.

 

do not, DO NOT paint radiator FINS or youre sure to overheat. very bad idea. it would take me 2 or 3 full days with a thin knife blade or exacto to straighten the fins, never perfect but better. unfortunately, i have alot of experience.

 

I paint my radiators all the time. The 86 VFR rad is painted silver from the factory. And my 92 and 96 I don't think are made of black aluminum.

You just don't want to paint it like you would most other things, I use satin or matte engine case paint or something similar. More of a fog on the fins and you can go a little more on the tanks. I have a fleet of restored bikes that are not overheating.

 

probably youre right, but we need a heat transfer engineer to sort this out i dont believe the factory applied any paint to fins, but maybe im just ignorant or sumthin, need my eyes examined ?

 

That would be an interesting point of view. I know there is an applied colour on my home AC unit. But there does not appear to be on either my VFR or my Africa Twin. Mind you, the heat transfer of an AC unit is far lower heat than that of a motorcycle engine. They are two definite different cooling vents also.

 

I think Honda already did.

You need to check out your 97. The fins are not silver.

PLUS, I got over a dozen or so bikes restored by me that don't seem to be complaining.

Like I said, they don't have 3 coats of laquer and 3 coats or clear laid down. On a factory rad you can kinda see the alum peeking out at certain angles. LIGHT application.

 

so the radiator and oil cooler fins on RC30s were painted too ?

 

??

I don't know. Check yours.

All of my VF1000Rs have all black rads.

So does my NS50F

The oil cooler on a 86 VFR is not raw aluminum, including the fins. It also has a LIGHT application of silver paint.

 

Yes... Because there is corrosion UNDER the silver paint.

 

Original 92 VFR with "warts" in the OEM black paint...



Oh.. there's aluminum...

 

And... restored. I've only overheated on the side of the road never.

 

Radiator shop that cleaned & tested mine painted it. No detrimental effects so far.

 

ok, by the preponderance of evidence, im wrong and hereby appologize.

 

Whilst certainly not perfect its good enough to leave on if its not leaking(lets hope)