Winter Project

I've always wanted to put a full body fairing on my bike. I have a set of Lockhart side panels ,but I don't like the look. So when someone offered up a VF1000R fairing I jumped on it. I got the fairing, bracket, gauges,headlite, radiator and windscreen. All for $250 shipped. Needless to say this is not a pristine let alone stock painted fairing or a good windscreen. I did get lucky and find a new Gustafsson windscreen for $50!!

It's going to take some fiberglass work, which I have to learn, to fix the bad spots and to modify, by raising the windscreen up. I'm thinking on cutting it from the top of the head light staight back. Then raise it about an 1-1 1/2" in the back to nothing at the light area. I'm still going to use my stock bars. The R gauges don't have a fuel gauge or idiot lights. I bought a trashish 750 gauge panel to get those from. I have to cut the lights off and then either use part of the panel for the fuel gauge or make a can for it. I finding out there's a bit more to it than just bolting it on. I've trial fit it three times using my stock fairing tab. Which is for a one bolt bracket vs the R longer two bolt. After trying the R bracket using it's bottom and top bolt holes to my single tab hole. The fairing was either too high or too low. So I was able to pinch it in the center between the holes just by putting bolts in their holes and tightening them to pinch the two piece together over the tab. Seems to be where it should be. even the bottom fairing mounting holes line up with my frame brackets where the lower screwed to. So I'm close.



Now I have to weld tabs on the steering head. I was hoping not to have to do that. I also have to alter the bracket somewhat to fit around the radiator tube on the right side. It's dead center to where a stud goes to hold the bracket. I may have to try something with the radiator. I have a couple to play with. I'm going to make wrap around frame clamp style brackets to weld studs to ,instead of on the frame itself, for the rear fairing bracket mounts. Plus all the wiring and other stuff I'm just catching on about.

I'm not in any big hurry as long as it's done by riding season. I'll keep adding to this post as I go. Any and all suggestions and help will be much appreciated.

 

That is a good looking bike

 

Looks good. Those bars ARE high, it's clear what your problem is. Did you get the surround piece that closes in the area around the gauges and forks? Is your lower radiator on in that pic? I"ve got one from a 750 on order to add to my cooling system and I was wondering what kind of clearance I was going to have with the lower fairing. I figured I"d have to cut an opening in the front to allow some air flow. When you get a second, can you shoot me some close ups of the lower radiator with the fairing in place. I know it might not be exact to the R but it will give me an idea. Look forward to watching the progress.

 

Hopit you're just the guy I'd like to talk to off line about your light and fiber glass work. I did get the surround also but not the side frame covers. Yes you're right I did have to cut the radiator opening to get the fairing to move back enough, plus for cooling. I drill/ground 1/2" holes in the corner first to get a radius. Here's how much I had to cut. Came out just a tad above the bottom tank. Just right. I do have to shorten the hose from the wp to pull the bottom of the rad back a little for final fit. Shouldn't be a problem.



The fairing is just hitting both front exhaust pipes as seen here once it gets pushed back in to position. So these will need a little clearance most likely. The fairing may not be set exactly where I'd like it.



Seems like the whole fairing needs to come forward as much as I can get it because of fairing clearance at the rear brake pedal. Or I may have to shape it more like the leftside at the shifter. Which is fine.

Here's what it looked like the first time when it was too high:



The very bottom back was hard against the collector. You can see plenty of room for my foot at shifter. Setup like it is now those tail pieces at the bottom will need a spacer between the mounting tab and fairing to push it out about 1/2"-3/4". It still touches the exhaust even though it lines up to the original rear mounting tabs of the belly pan. Where it sets now the sub frame will clear the top radiator on the left and just barely on the right. So some adjustment will be needed for better right clearance.

 

Thanks for those great shots, very helpful and enlightening. They show I might be in trouble. I think it might be too tight of a fit to get the radiator between my front pipes. They are slightly wider than stock but not as wide as the F"s. I think that's why you're seeing the pipes hitting the vent openings on your set up. I think I just went from 50/50 to 20/80 on likelihood of getting it to work.

As far as your set up, I"m surprised the lower ears are hitting the exhaust. Maybe that lower mount for the belly cowl is slightly rearward of the R"s? The back edge of the fairings run parallel to the frame under the tank and slightly below. It's hard to tell from the pics but you may need to come forward a tad. The last pic shows the back not parallel to the frame with the top being too high, as you indicated. I wonder if the steering head mount sticks out more on the R, pushing the sub frame more forward?

Here's a shot of the R's fairing in relation to the frame.


I imagine you're somewhat happy with the bar height? If you could maybe give up even a little, it would save you a ton of fiddling. Maybe cap off the air holes in the forks, remove the cross over plumbing and drop the bars below the triple? I know you tour with your bike and every bit count's.

It's going to look killer with some silver added!

 

The fairing is just hanging by the from the pinched mount. The rear will come up a little, the bracket is just drooping in the back. I think it does have to come forward some. I'm trying to keep it up as high as I can because of the bars. They are a good fit for me now for long distance stuff. My brake pedal is about 2" forward of yours. That's why it's tight on the right I see from your pic.

I think it will look good in Charcoal and Silver. I think take the stripe from the side cover and run it all the way thru to the opening which will be like your white only in silver and a thin area on top by the windscreen coming down thru the light to the opening. Then stop the top one short and I have a set of original charcoal/silver Honda wings I bought back in 84. Cut the Honda from the bottom and put V-Four in small lettering under it. Kind of like the first pic with the yellow on the fairing. I have the old decals on the side of my tool box that I traced.

So your pipes are closer together, that may be tuff unless you have room in front of them. Then you may have to add heat shields of some type. Or see if you can move it up.

 

I tinkered with the fairing on Saturday. I had to cut 5 1/2" off the back on both sides to get it off the exhaust collector and have foot room for the brake pedal because my brake pedal sets lower and forward compared to the R bike. I think this is going to be the final paint scheme. Everything inside or in front of the tape will be silver and the main body will be charcoal, with a charcoal,silver,white original honda wing.(yellow paper)






Here's some more pics of paint schemes. What do you like or would you do?

VF1000R Fairing Project Photos by geop69 | Photobucket

I still have to figure out were to cut to raise the wind screen for the bars. (photo with blue line) I have to secure and make clamps for the fairing bracket next. Then attack the wiring lengths and changes. It's a start in the right direction I think.

 

I got to work on the bike the last couple days. I made and gas welded some frame brackets for the rear fairing bracket mounts. Mounted the air horn, cut pieces of fairing bracket as needed, started reconfiguring the wiring harness how to mount the 3 relays I'm putting in for horn,low & high beam, fixed my speedo, separated the idiot lights from the old 750 panel I bought along with the fuel gauge. Also found out my start button on the right switch is fuggeled, so I'll have to fix that. Well it's a start.

Here's some pics:

R/L frame brackets. Had to lower right side to clear radiator inlet tube



The "Bad Boy" Wolo air horn. Notice rad clearance.



Had to fix odometer that dumbass broke.






Idiot lights. Still need finishing and mounting.



OR


There's more pics here if any body wants to waste some time.

VF1000R Fairing Project Photos by geop69 | Photobucket


I have to order some wiring harness connector ends and contacts to finish reconfiguring. I want it to look like a stock harness and not all cut up. My harness is shorter than the "R" harness so I have to make adjustments. I also had to buy a longer speedo cable. I've got to make/alter a housing for the fuel gauge I pulled from the old 750 cluster I bought. That's going where the R radiator cap poked up. Plus switches for my fans and head/running lights. I have an old 1kf wiring hardness to get any color wires I'll need. I'll be a little busy for a while and may be stay out of trouble that way.

 

Got the mini dash Idiot light panel done. Made a bracket to bolt on where the R's fuse panel was. Though once bolted on you can't get to the bolts or anything used to mount the dash to the bracket to take off encase a light burns out. So I decided to epoxy on 4 1" dia neodymium earth magnets with a strength of n45, (strong) to the underside of the mini dash. Once on, you can't even knock it off the bracket. It's on there very good. I went and cut out any wires not need that were shared with the main dash. Then lengthen or shorten wires for a better fit at the connector.




Now all I have to do is splice in to the main wiring harness to bring over the wires that were shared to the 6 pin connector for the R dash harness. Plus for the addition of 3 relays, fan & light switches. May be a power plug too. I made a little portable wire stand for soldering splices. I'm surprise of all the splices I have found in the factory harnesses I'm altering or stealing from.

 

I got the fuel gauge done. It only took me two tries to make it. I didn't like the first one so I started over. It wasn't as easy as I expected it to be, of coarse. I bought a cheapy gauge so I had a housing to put the 750 fuel gauge in. That needed major altering because of the depth of the original 750 gauge. I had to relocate the mounting studs and make a pass thru hole because of depth. Then made an angled cover for it. My first thought was to set it flat in the panel(where the R's radiator cap was), then decided to angle it like the other gauges.

The outer cover is made out of a Shop Vac extension tube. The narrow end is perfect size for the gauge to set in and it's black plastic to match the other cowl pieces and the right thickness to match the edge of the gauge ring.




I'm waiting for the electrical connectors to arrive so I can finish the wiring and put the lights and fan switches in the cowling on the left. Then I'll take everything apart so I can weld the tabs for the fairing bracket on to the head stock. Seeing my gas welding equip isn't up to the task, I got more power!

Here's the new toy to do that with.



It's my nephews welder that is on loan to me (forever). I put in a 240v stub off my breaker panel. So now I'm the only one in the family that has power for this welder. Nephew's garage will get wired sometime this year for it. Then he may get it back! I have a couple of welding projects coming up so I'll keep this for a while. I had to buy the tank filled with co/argon mix. $164 is what the tabs are costing me. Ouch! I'll be able to alter the bracket also for wiring/mounting tabs for various electrical components I'm putting in.

 

Got a little more done. Got all the wiring done for the harnesses,relays and new fuse block for the relays, switches for lights and fans with proper gauge wire and color match for the harness. Plugged everything in and it seems to be ok. Cranked it over and the tac moves. I had to get an R speedo cable. The 750 is about 4" to short.

Here's a little ambiance mood lighting


Next I had to take everything apart to weld on the tabs on the steering head for the fairing bracket. I also relocated and altered a electrical connector plate along with spot welding on various nuts so I don't have to fiddle with trying to get them on later. I also welded a tab to make the inner cowl from bouncing because of the plate and fuel gauge weight and relocated a couple of harness straps.




Then I had to plastic weld the inner cowl end where it get screwed on. The PO could get the screw out so he cut the inner cowl with side cutters to get it off. :frusty: But he did give me the cut off piece which I thought was nice of him. Still have a little finishing to do on it.

My first plastic weld. top side


Bottom unfinished


I had to cut holes in the inner cowl to get my stock wire harnesses from bars,ign etc through so they would connect to the main harness. They are not as long as the R's. I have grommets for the holes.



Next is to get all the old paint off the inner cowl. Somebody got carried away with some kind of paint not made for plastic. Then I'll spray it Satin Black. Paint for plastic this time, it will never flake or come off.



So now all I have to finish is painting the fairing bracket and put everything back together. Then all the mounting work will be done. Then on to the body work.

 

Impressive what you have figured out so far. Lots of work! So do you think you'll have it on the road in two months? I'm guessing early April is when it's nice enough to ride there. Pretty spoiled here near San Diego (weather) hard to imagine not being able to ride for months at a time. Luck with your project.
John

 

I'm hoping to have it done by Mayish or sooner. The big part for me is the body work. I'm not really a body man type guy and have very little experience with it. So we'll see.

 

I had a bunch of maintenance to do to the bike so I just got around in finishing up everything that holds the fairing body on and all the electrical. I tried to make it look like a stock Honda build. The inner cowl really came out nice compared to what I started with. I have a side fuse holder for the 3 relays power which I made easily accessible like the top stock fuses. I put on shielding around the main harness because it runs outside the frame now. Everything works fine, gauges/tach work proper. I'm happy with the results so far.

Now comes the body work. Which I'm not looking forward to.

Here's a few pics

Wiring:



Inner cowl, fuse holder and control wiring. Fits right for my Fox shock adjuster.

 

Looks really nice. You utilized the space in the upper radiator area quite well. I'm hoping to lose the upper radiator on my R some day...might put in a microwave or one person sauna. The surround did come out nice, did you paint it or treat it. The fuel gauge "pod" looks right at home. Don't panic about the body work. If you mess up, you can always sand it back down. Looking forward to seeing some more progress pics.

 

I painted it with a flat black Krylon for plastic. The original surface was either eched by some chemical or a very thin .003" skin came off in areas. So I striped the old paint the OP put on then sanded the best I could. Then sprayed about 5 coats of plastic paint on. Let it set about 8 days to harden then went back at it with the orbital sander then by hand w/400 grit. Then respray two coats of flat Krylon for plastic on it. Then final step was carnuba wax. We'll see how it holds up. Krylon is the only paint I really use for a finish spray can as it has been great paint through out the years of using it.

Choose the microwave, it'll throw off radar.

 

I found the perfect 4-way flasher switch with the Hazard emblem for the factory look on ebay from a Saab. It showed up yesterday in the mail. So I put it in last night.
I bought a two prong flasher can from NAPA to make things simple. I needed to find out what the five wires in the Saab switch did. Once that was done it was basically a two wire hookup. One wire to the sw gets power, the other goes to the can to supply it's power and the other wire from the can gets split in to two and each goes to R&L turn signal circuits. All four turn signals flash along with the dash indicators like factory. I set it up so the ignition has to be on first. I didn't want to have direct power because all somebody has to do is press the button and the flashers come on and drain the battery when the bike is parked at like a ralley or what ever.

Now the dash is finished.


Switch



The hook up

 

Dove in to the body work like a herd of turtles. The upper fairing has been repaired at least twice before. The first time looked like the op knew what they were doing. The second time they didn't have a clue. I started on the inside were all the bondo (1/4" thick in a 4"area) and sloppy resin work needed to come off so I could see underneath. There were two cracks from were the turn signals exit. One was about 6" the other about 3 all the way thru. Then back by the left side exit vent there was several pieces that were put back in and they cracked partially.

It only took me three tries to get the right ratio of hardener to resin. It's 8-10 drops per ounce at around 70-80 degrees. Two to three more drops between 65-70*. My garage is around 68 to 74 and there is a difference once your above the 70 mark. I found out to little hardener and it won't setup. To much hardener and it won't setup. Huh, yes either way to much and it acts the same. So I found that I can control the set time by using an extra drop for longer set time. Bought a 3M respirator for the toxic fumes. Boy is that nice not to smell that stuff and keep what brain cells I have left.

I started on the long 6" and ground away on a taper about an inch wide. Then layered in several different sizes of cloth I cut getting wider as I layered them. I got very thin to the outside of the crack with the grinding. Then I did the same back by the vent. I cut a large piece to cover most of the inside to stiffen it. Took care of a couple of other areas like at the mirror holes so I would have a flat surface underneath to work to later. All this was done on the work table which seemed to be the easiest way to go.

I'm now ready to do the outside and needed away to hold the fairing stiff and be able to work all around it. So out came the engine stand and with some scrap fire wood I built a frame and mount so I could mount it to the engine stand. It's a mini rotisserie fairing stand. It's sold enough to put some good pressure on the sanders without warping the fairing.

The outside really has some problems and it's going to take a lot of work to make it look good I think. It's either got a lot of paint,base epoxy, filler primer and I think a skim coat that may need to come off. If anybody has any suggestions please throw them out here. So this week I'll be getting real down a dirty!

The grinding


The outside


My stand

 

Use that mask when you are doing any painting too. Fusion ain't good for the braincells. One or more of the solvent fractions etch "plastics"

Fusion is good stuff use as an initial prime coat. Once it flashes off and hardens.. You can paint over it with all but the hottest auto and even home type paints.

You probably have this wired by now but there are a dozen or more types of "Bondo" as well as types of resins (epoxy and polyester) and cloths. Same basic uses. The tricks are just like loading up a surface with filler/primer and sanding back. Use a "cheesegrater" aka a Surform file. and shave off the excess when the mix gets to the "cheese" state. Saves a shitload of sanding and having all those nasties floating around your shop.

Nice TV... Avoid Oprah...

 

LOVE the engine stand trick! Seems you have a handle on it. Sanders are nice in the beginning but you'll want to switch to manual when you get to the final stages. Still can't beat the human hand when it comes to fine detail work.
I never liked the drops method using the hardener...I can never count those stupid drops. That's why like the pumps on the West system epoxy cans. One pump from each can is the exact amount.
Use a dremel on any deep surface cracks on the outside and get down to solid material. If it's all the way through, strengthen the back there before filling the crack. I fill deep divots with a mixture of resin and finely chopped cloth, not Bondo. Usually I'll hit the whole surface with a light coat of primer, a light sanding by hand will show primer in any defects in the surface that need attention. SEM sells a good sealer in a spray can and it's a must prep before the paint IMO.