Thermostat Replacement - 6th Gen VFR800 VTEC

This is a timely thread revival. I'm replacing my CCTs as my girl has 36K miles and they're noisy. I already have enough stuff off that it wouldn't be much of a stretch to go after the T-stat, but I'm hesitant to make the xtra effort. So the dilemma is, should I go ahead and replace the T-stat, and the wax unit, now. Or is there a good chance I could go another 15K+ w/o worry? Just wondering ...

ACE

 

You have heard of Murphy's Law haven't you?

 

I'm thinking about replacing my thermostat this spring and I'm wondering how you replace the throttle bodies? It seems like the boots are in a might tight space so how the h*** do you get them back? Well, that and any tips for getting them off
/R

 

I know this is definitely forum necromancy, but i don't suppose anyone has any of the pictures from this thread? none of them are showing up for me and i'd feel better about attempting this with them.

 

Do you have a download of the 6th Gen Service Manual? If you don't have it, get it. There's everything you need in there, drawings of the areas, descriptions, routings of the hoses, etc. But speaking of pictures, taking your own pictures as you do the disassembly is by far the best evidence you could hope to have. Between taking pics to document what you're doing, step by step, and simultaneously paying close attention to what the Service Manual shows, you can't go wrong.

Yes, it's a big job digging down into the engine "V", not something you want to do repeatedly. So I'd suggest being really, really ready to deal with all the long-term maintenance items that are hidden down in there. The cold-start wax-core unit (it gets progressively worse as it ages), The fuel injectors can be removed and sent out for professional cleaning, The coolant hoses are old and should be replaced (yep, they are "consumable items"), The O-rings at the coolant junctions to the front and rear cylinder heads, and maybe there's more that I can't think of right now.