Matt Tries – 1984 VF500F Overhaul

Jeezis, glad you are OK Matt!

good the the air vest did its job

If you hadn't launched the bike end over end , It sure looked like you were gonna ride over him.. Good on you for having the right reflexes to avoid that.

 

Yikes....glad you made it out as good as you did, Matt! Sorry for the breakage, though....

 

Thanks guys, and thanks Stray. Yea, all things considered I walked away pretty unharmed. I'm impressed with the air vest. It may convince me to snag a street version later this year.

 

I don't know anything about these, Matt.

If you get a minute, could you post a link to where one would go to buy one?

Thanks!

 

The one that I use on track is called the Helite GP Air Vest. It isn't one I would use with street gear since it's made to go around the "speed hump" or whatever it's called on a full suit. It's also somewhat bulky in that it provides rigidity on chest and back. Not like a full on chest and back protector, but it's got some. There is also an "E" version that is electronically activated. Below is a picture of what the GP E vest looks like uninflated and inflated.


I still have trust issues with computer and algorithm-activated devices. Probably why I'm still running a carburetor (lol). There are upsides and downsides to both types of airbags. There are scenarios where they tether may not fire if you don't end up separated from the bike or if you're lazy and don't spend the time to properly mount the thing and leave a bunch of slack. Or if you forget to clip it. It's habit for me now though--same as a seatbelt. I've also heard a bunch of horror stories about the algorithm ones not firing. The Alpine Stars Tech 10 seemed to have a lot of issues with this, though it seems to have been getting better.

I chose the vest as opposed to an integrated suit because I figure I'll upgrade my suit at some point. If you're buying a suit, the suit needs to be designed to expand enough for the airbag--I think you need about a golf ball size clearance around the inflatable portion and your body. The Helite is nice because I can get replacement canisters for like $40, and I can repack it in ten minutes. Some integrated airbags require sending in the entire suit to the company to get re-packed. That would effectively end my weekend if I had a simple lowside, so I wasn't interested in that. I almost bought a new RST 4.1 kangaroo leather suit with integrated electronic airbag for $1,300 this year which seemed like a steal. What kept me from doing so was not the $100 recharge kits, but the fact the airbag has a fucking subscription service of like $150/year or some bullshit to keep it activated. On a safety device. That shit is so infuriating to me. Not everything has to be a subscription.

Anyway, the one I'm thinking about for the street would be the mechanical Helite Turtle. It would just go on over a regular riding jacket. I'd just need to buy a few extra tethers and mount them to the other bikes. The question I need to be real with myself is whether I'd actually wear it on the street. It's one more thing to have to carry around when you get to where you're going, and it does no good if you're not wearing it when you need it.


You can get them directly from Helite https://helitemoto.com/helite-turtle-2-airbag-vest-black-mechanical-trigger/ or places like Revzilla (Cycle Gear). So I'd assume you could probably check it out in person at a Cycle Gear if you have one near you. https://www.cyclegear.com/helite

I'm not going to bat for Helite as being the best route. Hit-Air is in the same sector and is cheaper, and I know a lot of riders I've met that use mechanical tethers prefer the Hit-Air. I've even heard good stories about the Chinese knockoffs saving people's bacon--but I damn sure am not recommending going that route. I just picked the Helite because it made sense in my specific situation.

 

OK thanks, Matt! I've never heard of these, so really appreciate the in-depth response!

 

So I fired up my 500 yesterday to make sure everything is copesetic for a vintage bike show I entered it in tomorrow. Won't run on 4 (almost positive it's #3, rear right) without choke. If I can coax it over 3,500 rpm it'll roar to life--not easy to do though. It had to have sucked something into the pilot circuit on that carburetor. At least my buddy's 500 that he entered as well (I had a separate thread for that refresh) is all running well and good to go.

Rather rude timing if you ask me. Everything fired up and ran wonderful when I changed the oil a few weeks ago. I tried the quick fix of swapping the spark plug since that one's easily accessible, but no go. I found a pretty thin walled 18mm socket that just barely fits and works perfect to get in there.

Oh well. Off to Road America on the VStrom instead to watch a friend's track day. Evening plans are now cancelled to see if I can get this thing running on 4 once I get home. Sorry neighbors. Going to be a loud day later this afternoon and evening.

 

Whatever blockage was in there worked its way through. It was still misfiring this morning, so I let it be. Just got home and it fired up immediately on all 4. Just took it for a 15 minute ride, and it's all good. On this day, I'd rather be lucky than good.

 

This was the first time these two bikes had been together in a while, so that was cool.



The day started out absolutely pouring rain, but the sun broke through and then it got quite hot and humid.

Neither of us won anything besides "Participant". Though I would argue that having two of the only bikes that weren't forming an oil or coolant puddle wherever they were parked should have constituted its own special award.

 

Thanks for those cool photos, Matt! Damn those bikes look AWESOME! Thanks for sharing!

 

I'd been hesitant to put any miles on the bike that put me out of easy "pickup" range due to that weird issue earlier this year with it firing on 3 cylinders. I still don't know what caused it, but it's definitely gone. I did just under 200 miles today riding out to watch a buddy do a track day. I don't think I'm going to run a track day on this bike this year. Too many things I need to get worked out on my race bike. I did make it through July without crashing though which is more than can be said about May and June.

No questions--just two observations.
1. I got about 43mpg running between 80-90mph indicated. I have a feeling the speedo is pretty optimistic and that was really 75-80mph.
2. Since getting my radiator repaired and subsequently running the Evapo-rust radiator de-rusting kit through the bike, it does not show any heat in the engine if you're at speed. I keep thinking the temp sensor is broken. Then I'll get into stop and go traffic and it'll start to climb up. I guess that's a good thing. It's just weird it shows the engine is ice cold as I'm cruising down the highway on a 75°F day. I guess I did replace the thermostat as well, but even if it failed open I'd expect to see heat on the dial when cruising at 7k rpm.

 

Matt...my temp gauge needle on the 500 really moves a lot. It is pretty hot here in Houston and my needle will run the full range of the "normal" zone. It used to freak me out but I got used to it. Sitting at a traffic stop used to be pretty stressful as the needle would climb fast to the end of the normal range. I just dont worry about it anymore.

 

Have you ever put a digital gauge on it to measure the true temp? It still stresses me when I see that needle climb.

 

Mine used to as well. I haven't seen it pin itself to the hot hot part in a long time though. It's probably the only reason I'm noticing is because I used to worry about it quite a bit. You're in a lot hotter climate though and it's possible I just haven't been riding much when it's very hot. I'm not going to worry about it because everything seems healthy.

 

How hard was it to pull those out? I have a nice set of German-made pullers and they did nothing while pulling. So I tried again pushing through against the puller head with a dowel and ball peen hammer, but that didn't work. I have a 20-ton shop press, but I wanted to check and see if there wasn't a reason that I just can't push both out the same hole. Is that a spacer between the two bearings or is that part of the hub?

 

Before I used the 680 loctite? Pretty simple. There is a spacer between bearings, yes. I don't believe a shop press is going to help you remove a bearing--only installing a new one. Each one is only going to come out one direction.

 

Take a long drift that you are going to use to drive the bearings out and you give the spacer a sideways/crossing smack next to the bearing you are going to drive. It will kick the spacer a bit to the side, and then with the new found purchase, that's where you start to drive on the bearing. After the first one or two smacks, the spacer will be looser and more easily moved to the side to get on new areas on the bearing and evenly drive it out.

While some are harder than others to get that first "bite", I have never not been able to do this.

 

I have not, but there is a long post somewhere in the forum where a guy put thermocouples all over the VF500F engine. His conclusion was the engine just runs hot and Honda designed it that way for whatever reason.

 

Thank you. I had to buy a much nicer set of pullers. What a giant pain in the butt!

 

watched your lates video yesterday Matt. Always entertaining, love the commentary style