'99 From Rats to Riches

Hi Everybody!

I'm new to this forum so I figured I'd rope you all in to what's been going on lately. Professionally I design, build, prototype, and reverse engineer things constantly, so I'm no stranger to getting my hands dirty and pulling things apart, but none of my hobbies have had engines before either, so I'm very much green in the garage!

I've been riding a Suzuki SV650S for the past 3-4 years and I'm over the moon with it. It's a nearly perfect bike for me, although on longer trips I find the ergos to be just a touch out of line and the buzziness of the twin at sustained highway speeds will actually vibrate the feeling out of my groin, which is an odd sensation to say the least. I got my feet wet doing oil changes and chain maintenance.
The VFR has always seemed like a similar spin, although a little bigger, a little smoother, a little heavier, a little more refined. I've always wondered if it would be a suitable replacement/upgrade.

In January I was fortunate enough to receive a raise and coincidentally found an EXTREMELY ratty '99 VFR800FI, but which fired up immediately, rode fine, and had a clean title for a shocking low price.zz

It had obviously been dropped: pegs were bent, all the plastics were gone, as were all the signal lights, tail lights, and dashboard (although the headlight was actually quite bright and worked well). The tail was a Weber grill which was tin-snipped and riveted back together. The can was a chopped little thing which was loud but not pleasing. I had no idea about the history of this bike, or the extent of the problems it might have just below the surface... But it started up, it rode straight, it felt DIFFERENT and I was already falling in love with it, so I paid his worrisomely low price and rode it home. It was an hour and a half away, so I stopped and topped off before I made the trip, but it went great. I was cold (it was January) but I was thrilled.






Now the game is this: My K6 SV and a 99 VFR in similar condition command a similar price, so if I can get this VFR up to par without going over budget (= what I paid for the Suzuki) then I can live with both and sell off whichever I like less. At least, I keep telling myself I'm going to sell one of them, that remains to be seen!

~~~

Over the past several months I've been going through and cleaning / maintaining / fixing things.
The bike has consistently revealed to me what it needs. On a ride to lunch I noticed I was leaking antifreeze. A quick look into the coolant system showed me that line was supposed to be connected to an overflow reservoir that wasn't even there! So new hoses, clamps, and bottle for the left side were in order.

I ordered a set of Chinese plastics because even if it was kinda goofy, it couldn't be worse than the patio furniture it was currently wearing. Compression molding obviously leaves something to be desired, but it's all going to fit together and from a few feet away nobody is going to care. A quick test-hang of the parts got me pretty excited on Saturday afternoon!



Although the tail section holes looked a little wrong, a closer look revealed that the undertail tray is actually from a CBR600, would you look at that. If I can get everything hooked up though, I won't fix what isn't broken. I have ordered a stock rear combi-light to hold the tail together and a stock headlight for the nose fairing. It was expensive, but unless I was going to model the stock headlight and try to 3d print something, I didn't see another option unfortunately.

I put a new set of clutch/brake levers because the old ones were bent/broken respectively. Drained, cleaned, and refilled the reservoirs on the handlebars while I was at it. The turn signal switch was completely gummed up and wouldn't move, so that whole assembly came apart and was lubricated and cleaned. I hooked up an LED taillight to the connections at the tail to see if I understood the wiring diagram, and everything worked perfectly, except I still had no blinkers! More homework led me to jumper the relay, at which point a beautiful amber light illuminated my now-smiling face, and a new relay was ordered.
The throttle tube wasn't snapping back, so I pulled THAT assembly apart and lubed the cables.

I bought an amazon set of Tach/Speedo, but then realized that the speed sensor has a digital coupling, so I opted instead for a GPS speedo with all the indicators built in.



I made an dashboard adapter that I'll put the new dials in. Likely leave a space to one end where I can have a smartphone clamp (and maybe even a charging hook-up, so I can use it as a GPS)



At this point my headlight had stopped working, so I checked the fuse box and found a burned up guy.
I love fuses. You look at it, and either it's completely fine, or it's totally blackened and ruined, and that kind of instantaneous feedback is wonderful when you're troubleshooting.

While at the store to grab mini fuses I picked up a generic midpipe and fitted an aftermarket exhaust that I've had laying around for a few years. It is a big M4 from I believe a Ninja 1000 OSS that I scored for 40 bucks off a coworker. Looks semi-professional!



When all that was done, I fired up the bike to hear the new exhaust and hooooly moly, what a glorious sound! .....for ten seconds, and then the bike died and wouldn't restart.

Bummed out.

I thought about it for a couple days and did some homework and decided that you only need a couple of things to achieve a running engine:

Compression, which doesn't go away overnight. Safe to rule out for now.
Spark, Air, and Fuel. I can look into those.

I pulled a spark plug and it was preetty carbonized, so I ordered a set of iridium NKGs.
While I was waiting for them to arrive, I pulled the tank up and cleaned my air box out. No critter's nest, thankfully, although a handful of stinkbugs were evicted. Snorkel out, Flapper modded. I have my eye on the Pair mod, too, but I have seen a few different methods so I want to do more research.
I tested a new plug against the frame and saw a visible spark, so they all went in and that was buttoned back up.

Next, I siphoned the fuel out of my tank, and good god. Houston, we have a problem.
There's a tremendous amount of separation/contamination, there's detritus, there's even a little bit of rust. #SAD



So the tank comes off, and I've got several gallons of white vinegar and distilled water. The game is afoot! Looks like this was once a redboy!



I'll continue to keep this updated as the project progresses! Thanks for everything already, guys.

 

Cool. As a fellow 5 Gen owner, I can appreciate the effort. I had to rebuild mine after a low side as I just couldn’t see it get parted out and feel the guilt of not getting it back up and running.

Oh yeah, Welcome to The World!

 

Incredible write up, bikes lucky to have you.
Keep us up on the next adventure in this resurrection.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

a smart rule to follow is to always drain and flush the fuel tank on any newly-purchased bike

 

You're doing the Lord's work restoring a 5th gen!

 

Okay I think I’ve kept you guys in enough suspense.


I worked very hard all day one Saturday using the vinegar method to clean my tank, and it looked fantastic- but it flash-rusted within hours and looked as bad as before.
Put simply, I was devastated.

A friend and mentor at work advised about tank treatment kits, and much to the dismay of the red-kote-or-bust folk, I decided to go with KBS. General consensus seems to be that if you follow the directions precisely, it works great- but if you try to cut corners, you’re going to have a bad time.

While I waited for the treatment kit to arrive, I decided to dive back into the electronic end of things.

Let there be lights, and they are good. Headlights AND taillights.



I finished my makeshift dashboard, so I got that wired up. One mini-loom descends to meet the greater disaster area.




Full disclosure: I over-heated one of the prongs on the switch while soldering and it pulled straight out. I had to replace the whole button with another from the hardware store. I assume it was just an on-off momentary, but I guess we’ll find out!


While my tank is off, might as well do the PAIR mod. Big thanks for fellow vfrworlder jeffrozar for his kickass guide, which I followed with ease even though I am a putz.
https://vfrworld.com/threads/how-to-pair-removal-for-5th-generation.35929/
I picked up a couple of rubber plugs at the local hardware store so I could stopper the necessary holes and hoses...



...and in short order was able to put the whole system where it’s belonged all along.




Hey little buddy, come for a visit? You seem a little bitey, so I’ll leave you alone.





OKAY it’s tank time part two and I’m feeling hopeful. This time the sensor and pump come out. It’s about to get serious.


Step I is a solvent / wash. After my whole shebang a week prior, I wasn’t expecting much, but this really took quite a bit out. Again, I followed the instructs as precisely as I was able to.
Step II is a rust remover, but it also etches the surface and deposits a film of zinc which prevents the dreaded flash rust. Neat-o. Good for 10 days. Another shocking amount of shit came out. By now I wasn’t sure whether to feel good about how much cleaner it surely was by now, or crest-fallen about how dirty it had really been.

They stressed the importance of not allowing this to pool and evaporate, so I stood the tank upright and peeled a small access slit in the tape on the fuel pump hole. I used a small pump-siphon to get the majority out, and then set up my compressor to blow air through the fuel cap.



I sealed around the nozzle with tape like this, so the air was really forced around and out the tiny sliver at the bottom, near where any excess would run off to and pool.



After about 45 minutes of that, the tank was bone dry and looking quite pretty on the inside. I was still feeling hopeful. Time for an overnight at least before the coating.


Several days later - well under ten - I carved a few hours out of an evening to coat the tank. It’s quite a pretty looking mixture.



I spent about 30-45 minutes tipping it and rocking it and coming in through different holes to ensure it was as coated as it was going to get. Another 30-45 minutes of draining excess, frequently removing the pooled bits with my small siphon before they could start to gas off and trap solvents.

By this point the epoxy is pretty gummy. I poked all my holes out and peeled my tape, and let it dry outdoors in the shade until nightfall, turning it every half hour or so, just in case it’s still running a bit inside.


I don’t have a garage to leave this in, but it requires 5 full days to cure. Instead I requisitioned a portion of the laundry room and built a makeshift fume hood with a box fan and some sheets. The tank wasn’t smelly anymore, so my little ruse should be sufficient.

 

The next thing I’ve done is a bit ghetto- the adaptors I ordered don’t actually fit the bulbs in my taillight, so I decided to just hardwire one end of the adaptor to the bulbs themselves. Not a permanent solution, ofc, but it will definitely work for now, while the hunt for the correct fitments continues.

The bike side of business is made into another mini loom. Semi-professional.



Although I could ostensibly attach my tail fairing at this point, yet another VFRWorlder has graciously sold me not only a centerstand, but the appropriate seat undertray as well! That will tie things together nicely, both physically and metaphorically. Shout-out to ccrunner

I tried to put the chinese front fender on, but the holes didn’t align and the plastic, notably thinner than OEM, would flop onto the tire. That’s not gonna work.


Since the inside of my tank now looks so much better than the outside of my tank, I was going to repaint it anyway. Looks like this one is a twofer!

It’s 400 wet sanding until all the chips, ridges, runs, bumps, and pinholes are smooove.




It won’t be perfect, I stopped in a few areas where I revealed some bondo. I don’t want to complicate this by undoing previous repairs. Just trying to even things back out.

Primer!



Paint!



Clearcoat!



I designed a logo for the tank of my bumblebee bike. It started out kinda round and cute, but gradually iterated towards a more angular and aggressive form. By now I think it might be the yellowjacket instead! I printed two copies and taped them to a sheet of Frisket.

I X-Acto’d carefully along the lines, and then peeled-and-stuck my stencils, carefully working all the air bubbles out, and masking off the rest of the tank.





Peel and reveal!




Using said X-Acto I scraped along all the lines to clean up the edge, not worrying so much about nicking the yellow because of my small clearcoat safety net.
That's what I'm talking about.




And then bury it in clearcoat to try to get it as smooth as possible later.

When both my pieces were well-cured, I took an air sander and a disc of 2000 and knocked down the high spots. I didn’t worry about getting all the orange peel out because I frankly wanted to leave as much protection against flying rocks and giant beetles as possible… but I made sure it was smooth to the touch, and afterwards I buffed and polished them to bring the shine back out.

New Fuel Cap in place and a new zipper guard, which I'll stick on with the seat in place so I can center it.
I also have a pair of tank grips which I will probably trim down and use on this.. but again I won't attach those until it's on the bike.




Sadly while waiting for my undertray my clumsy butterfingers dropped my tail fairing and it cracked clear in half!! I think I may give up on it and buy an OEM one. The refinish game is not terribly difficult and I would trust the original plastics more anyway. If you guys are selling a yellow guy, let me know!


I think that’s as far as we are, now. Thanks for reading!

 

Liking it so far! Keep the progress and pics coming.