New owner with questions about mech

Hi,
I am French and I am living in Mexico
I was looking for quite some time to a VFR 750 or 800 in order to make a big road trip in Mexico / west USA.
But down here, they are very few and finally decide to go on the trip with my KLR650. That was before I hit a bus last week and bent my fork...

Yesterday I spotted a 1998 yellow VFR 800, it is clean, has all the papers I need, I will see it again today to try it (too much rain yesterday) to check everything handle right.
It is a bit overpriced for a 11yo bike with 38000 miles on the clock, but i have very few other options as I am leaving for phoenix next Saturday.

I have to change tires and brake pads and give it a good service. Here comes my question:

How easy it is to work on a VFR?
how much access do you have to do common things you have to do on a bike?
- changing oil filter
- changing air filter
- changing cooling fluid
- changing brake pads
Is any technical review / user manual availiable on internet?

apart from these basic stuff, what should I do or have done on a bike with that mileage and no maintenance history?
Any hard / complicated things to set up in the engine which sounds just perfect?
Any advice before hitting the road for 3 weeks and something like 10000 km?

Thank you very much for your help

 

The oil filter is located behind the front exhaust header, it is a tight fit, but not impossible.
The air filter is under the fuel tank and is fairly easy to get to by removing a few bolts and a couple of hoses.
The coolant is easily changed via the drain plug on the lower left side of the bike. One thing to remember is to let the air out of the system after flushing it(the fan switch is located at the top front of the left radiator and sometimes traps air causing the fan not to switch on).
The brake pads are no more difficult to change than any other bike.

There are manuals available here for download. If the link to the one you need does not work, you can try vfrdiscussions.com.

Good luck.

 

Hey, Maximillion....

......don't go anywhere until you confirm that the charging system is putting out at least 14 volts, as these bikes can have dodgy voltage regulators.

At that mileage the bike either has had its steering bearings replaced .....or needs new ones. And check wheel bearings, too, while wheels are off.

 

Squirrelman,
The battery might be weak, I have a volmetre at home so I will check, where should I make the measurment?

The direction seams a bit heavy a very low spped, I will check bearings. Same for wheels.
Any good direction where to buy bearings cheaper than from Honda?

 

Go to commercial/industrial bearing supply and order NTN or Koyo bearings made in Japan.

Avoid using Chinese bearings even if they're cheap.

Measure charging voltage with meter across battery terminals with engine running at about 5000 rpm.