1984 VF500 Rescue

So I aquired a VF500 over the weekend. My old man bought it, got it running (somewhat) and stuck her in the garage. In gest I told him he should give it to me to replace the 2007 Buell Lightning that was stolen from my garage back in March. To my dismay he called me and told me to come and get it. There was a universal fuel pump and regulator installed that to me was quite useless. I removed the pump, ran the line from tank to carb and walla! Runs just as good. Although, I have to run it at about 1/4 choke so it wont idle at 3500. It was doing this when I got it. I tried adjusting the idle but it seems to be inoperable. The exhaust is a yoshimura, sounds like a pissed off moped. Fairings are in decent shape, other than a missing tab or two. Gas tank looks like its full of rust and has one pinhole just above the petcock. I found a used tank online, waiting on it to ship. The tank I found is black so I guess I have some paint work to do. Seems to run fine, just need to figure out the idle situation. The boots appear to be in decent shape, I'm not gonna take them off to find out. I'm sure the carbs need to be sync'd but it'll have to wait a while. I'll post pics one of these days.

Where would you guys start restoring first? After the carb situation is taken care of. I would really really like to find fairings to cover the naked area on the sides. Know where to find them?

 

These are horrible.







So she has a few miles on her.

 

Stuff is around, but it's going to take a fair bit of patience to find it.

If you're thinking resto, I'd just work on the stock stuff and bring it back up to snuff.

They were popular little bikes and can be pure magic on tight roads, but they're old and parts (bolt on customizing stuff) is pretty hard to come buy.

You can do some custom stuff like cbr600f2 wheels and suspension, but that is going to also require a fair bit of cash.


Just strip 'er down and build 'er back up a nice as your budget allows. Most guys who build these old 'ceptors back up with custom touches (like myself) do it more for a love of the old 80's machines more than what you can get out of them as a regular riding tool....




Is that a full 4 into 2 pipe or just some slip ons?

A full pipe for a vf 500 is worth a couple bucks these days....

 

holy sweet shit

Thats quite the odometer reading.Good find, if you give up give me a call......been looking for my next project.:thumbsup:

 

there is alot of posts about the 500's carbs I'd read them first. E-bay has the parts you need.

 

i too took off my fuel pump and changed it to a gravity feed. my carbs were really clogged and fouled too and it had a horrible time running. a friend of a friend has an ultrasonic bath cleaner and it did magic for them. apparently the bath unit didn't cost a lot, but if you can find someone to do it for you that's even better! purrs like a kitten now.

 

Slip-ons.

And she is very....well ridden. I like my bikes like I like my women. I dont wanna have to teach her how to treat me right.:thumbsup: