84 VF1000F - new front end?

Hello,

I have a 1984 VF1000F in which I am planning on restoring. I have heard that an RC51 front end can be retrofitted. I have found an 01 RC51 complete front end including brakes, wheel, triple for $800 CDN.

Is this a recommended mod? Is there much fabrication / modification required to make it fit?

Thanks
Tim

 

I think you'll find there would be a lot of fabrication to make that fit. Not the least of which would be cutting out the steering stem from the VF1000 lower triple and getting it incorporated into the RC51 lower.

There has been some discussion about this in the past. I've checked, checked, and rechecked and found that there exists a possibility of interference between the wheel/fender and either the front cylinder head or radiator. Although the RC51 forks are pretty long, I suggest that you be very careful and check all clearances carefully because I think they would have problems. You need to have 5-10mm of clearance at full fork compression and lock-to-lock.

The only way that I've determined this was possible is with a custom upper triple clamp to drop the forks down enough to ensure clearance.

On one of my F's I'm currently running a set of VF1000R forks that I've adapted CBR900RR internals into. This eliminates the clearance problem but gains you all of the performance increase you would expect from full cartridge forks. The cost was a fraction of what an RC51 front end would be in just the parts alone.

Here is a link to that thread:
http://vfrworld.com/forums/first-se...-vf1000f-conversion-full-cartridge-forks.html

 

Thanks for the information.

Also, I went to your website - it looks like you will be able to help me with a wheel conversion.