what did you do to your vfr today?

Wow D , thats a cool looking get together there.. talk about a great turn out.

 

Nicely done you


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Awe, Ooo, Christmas in March, Nice, love getting stuff especially this. I've never seen rocking horse poo up close and personal.

 

Dropped my clutch in yesterday.

It's the same. Only better. Super consistent, and it feels like a VFR clutch should feel now.

That's the weird thing about preventive maintenance, I guess. It's not dramatic, but it is important, and I think it was worth spending the money. So much more confidence, launching without that half second of wondering whether it's going to grab or not.

It really is hard to explain an issue like this, but it just wasn't right. And the old plates were not bad to look at, though a couple of the disks were a little darkened from some slipping and abuse. Still, the material on some of the disks was as worn at 20,000 miles as my old bike's clutch was at 75,000. I'm thinking the PO abused it more than a bit. He did like to drag race against his friends on their big bore cruisers.

Shock goes in next week some time. Going to rip out the PAIR system and block the ports while I've got the tank off.


Oh -- edit to add that the clutch took 20 minutes. If you don't count the hour scraping the damned gasket material off!

 

To that, I can add 15 minutes with my magnet stick, fishing for the dowel pin that I dropped into the sump. You can only imagine the feeling of relief when I heard the little "click" as I struck gold....

 

Well they light it up well and have had no issues with them.

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Hi A.M looks like you're doing 265 km/h there. If your side stand was up, you might have reached 270! ;-)
Thanks for the pics.

 

Hah! There's a funny (in retrospect) image. I remember reading about the pins and was very careful to pull and set them aside when I got the case off.

After a couple of short rides, the difference is palpable. The clutch grabs the same every time, and no more of those surprise too-quick grabs. I was trying to get out in front of some cars at a light last week and ended up crossing an intersection with the front wheel a little light when it slipped and grabbed. It was fun, but I prefer my front wheel on the ground. I am not that kind of hooligan! Now I can take off slow and easy or fast without worrying. It really improves confidence and comfort, even though the difference is small.

 

As I was placing the dowel pin back into the case I was thinking, "wow this would be a really bad time to drop the dowel, what with the case open straight into the sump". At about that moment, I bumped the end of the dowel on maybe the crank end and it dropped straight into the oil and disappeared with a glug. Definitely an "oh sh1t" moment.

I had a similar near miss with my VTR1000 where I used cable ties to secure the camchain to the cam sprockets to maintain the timing while the cams were out. I forgot these were there after I had the sprockets bolted back on the cams and the cam saddles in place, and used a spanner to rotate the crank. There was a loud "ping" as the cable tie broke off and disappeared. But where? Down the camchain tunnel? Fortunately, after about 10 minutes of panicking, I found the broken cable tie about 10 feet behind me on the floor.

I agree about the joys of a refurbished clutch. Like a lot of slowly wearing items, you just don't really notice how badly the worn parts are affecting your riding until you change them out. The VFR is the first clutch that I've worked on, and it was pretty easy to do. Over many years I've been slowly accumulating tools, my latest was clutch holder pliers and my favourite, an electric impact driver. The latter makes very short work of any tight or stubborn fastener in a reasonably gentle manner, and has probably saved a few fasteners recently.

 

Yeah, I used to have a good selection of tools and a garage. Now I have barely enough room to store the bike, but enough hand tools to do the maintenance job most of the time, and I'll buy more if I need them. I had one bolt try to round the head off on the clutch cover Sunday, so I ran to the store and got a 6 point socket to break it loose, because there are a LOT of 8mm on this bike. I KNOW I'll use it often.

I have a friend who owns an auto shop and if I need the real tools I can work there. An impact wrench is nice to have, and he has other things to help -- I had a hell of a time breaking my calipers loose when I did the brakes. Previous owner seemed to think torque settings were bare minimum suggestions! And he didn't know what copper grease was for. I actually busted a ball end from my allen wrench in the hanger bolt and my buddy had to weld a wire on it so we could pull it out, then we got it out with that impact gun and the allen wrench attachment I had broken. I could NOT have done that in the driveway with the hand tools.

They're torqued to spec now and I used copper grease. But even then caliper bolts sometimes seize. That hammer action from the impact really is magic at times.

 

So the chick wants a ride.
I got the passenger setup. No handrails.
But I am gonna run it unzipped to get the left side on...


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V4spark boxes & OURY Road Grips.

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So now I can ride me chickbon the back...

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Un-Zipped ? You gota do a youtube video of that sound clip! Its gona sound like a nascar - (Just saying) straighten that rear brake pedal, the method I like to use is two adjustable wrenches, one I get situated on the metal of the pedal, the other one I get situated on the other wrench, I usually straighten them pretty nice while they are on the bike, learned this trick track side from some old timers. Hows your mom doing?

 

I see a shorty here. Yea, a Video or it didn't happen.