1999 Winter Rebuild

Well I am in up to my elbows with this 99 yellow hornet, as can be expected with a bike having 30,000 miles I figured there would be issues to fix. But I did not figure I would be this deep into it
Having said that I am glad I listened to the other members here and carried on.
So far I have found a bad thermostat and all the O rings were toast, the fork seals and dust boots were gone and were leaking so bad that the front brake pads were trashed. The steering stem bearings were notched so bad it was fun to watch as they rolled back into the center and locked there. for sure the clutch and brake system needs a refresh, in fact I can see the clutch slave cylinder is wet so that needs a rebuild. Went I did a compression test I found one of the cylinders was low ( 120-125psi )compared to the rest ( 165-175 ) so it is time for a valve shim check. The list goes on but it is better now than later when the sun is warm on the face.

Last night I was replacing the front wheel bearings and seals and I noticed something I never remember seeing before on a bike, one of the front brake rotors has been replaced with an aftermarket unit, I think EBC

I have owned this bike for 6 months and never noticed this, not sure what would cause one rotor to need replacing.
Is this a common issue?, I would guess it would be ok but I will have to see if I can find a good matching Honda set , if not it will drive me crazy every time I look at the front end.
I came across something else that has me puzzled, on the bottom of my upper cowling there is a small opening that from what I can find out is a maintenance hatch that originally had a cover.

I have two questions
What did this opening give you access to?
And when I went to find and purchase a new one I can only find a cover in black, was black the original cover colour or was it Yellow as the rest of my bike?

 

Attached is a picture of one of the thermostat hoses under the throttle body
I was very impressed to see that Honda had paint marks on the hose or under the hose clamp, and how they lined up with casting marks on the thermostat housing which gives you the correct rotation location of the hoses for easy installing
I never saw this on a bike before but I was impressed with Honda's detailing


And sure enough when my new hoses came from Honda last week they too have these paint marks
Man when I think about it, it does not take much to impress me these days

 

My refresh work always seems to snow ball on me. But it is self-induced. The "while you're there" syndrome I call it. I really can't prescribe to the "if it ain't broke" philosophy on most things. When it is staring me in the face and the access will never be so easy again... I'm digging in.

The one EBC disk is kinda weird, with lots of possible reasons. Weird tip over damage? Stuck caliper destroyed a rotor? I've been collecting some Gen 4 wheels and disks for some projects and found some very good deals on perfect stock rotors. I just make sure to buy from a seller that offers returns and mount them on a wheel, on my stand, and check runout and closely visually inspect them immediately.

Think the doors are all black. Is it a headlignt adjustment access?

 

My refresh work always seems to snow ball on me. But it is self-induced.

I think I have done this my whole life. If I build or repair anything it seems to always be overkill once I am done
The best I can come up with on the upper cowling cover is that Davis Sliver Spares has it listed as a headlight inspection cover, I guess I will have to have a hard look at this one as I did not think it would be for that, and so far they are all black on line, if that is the case I am surprised Honda did not have them match the paint color. I am starting to think this cover could be part of another countries model specs, something like the plug in the fairing on a 1990 VFR750 which in England is used for the fuel tank peacock system

 

Those covers below the headlight are all black, they aren't paint matched. They are a vestigial feature on North American VFR800Fi, but are there because UK bikes have some weird center marker light that lives dead center in the headlight assembly. Maybe a UK member can chime in on what law over there requires that little light. See the parts fiche here: https://us.fowlersparts.co.uk/parts/5065399/vfr800fix-1999-e-50t/headlight You'll notice that little bulb is absent if you look at the Headlight fiche for an American model VFR.

I had one of those covers disappear on me, so I ordered a few extra. On the VFR where the cover decided to take flight I put some silicone adhesive around the clip edges before popping a new one in place.

Headlight aiming is done on the backside of the headlight housing by passing a screwdriver through provided holes on the instrument cluster panel surround.

 

Well, there you have it, the mystery is solved, I went over to the garage this afternoon to have a look at what is behind the panel and you can see that there was a location made for a bulb or something. Good to know the true reason, it was driving me nuts, I will have to order a couple so I will have a spare before they are no longer available
I also pulled off the water cooling hoses that run from the water pump to the cylinders on the left side and as you can see the O rings look like new, they will be replaced but it goes to show what the heat from the engine and coolant is doing to the O rings just before the thermostat housing and before the coolant gets to the rads.

 

A lot of other countries have a little "running light" in the assembly that the US didn't get. The nice thing is there is usually an extra switched 12v lead built into the wire harness that can be used for accessories.

 

Honda actually left this little bulb in the Dullville when they brought it to North America in 2010. It was such a half-hearted release for that bike though, I don't think they spent the energy considering such small changes. I'm sure there's some other random model where that bulb was left intact.

 

Sitting here trying to convince myself to go to the workshop in -20 c weather, not going well.
Anyway I thought I would show what I used to remove a stuck fork damper rod bolt. I used this type of bolt extractor and found one that was a little bigger than the allen bolt head, drove it in with a hammer and used a 3/8 power bar to slowly turn the allen bolt, I have no idea who installed this bolt but man it took some pile of pressure to creak it loose




I found this type of square extractor when driven into the head of the allen bolt takes a better bit than when using a standard screw style extractor
Hope this helps the next fork rebuilder

Question: My 1999 has 30,000 miles on it and was wondering if it is at the stage the injectors should be cleaned before I reinstall the throttle body
If so is the a way a person can do this correctly in their workshop or should I try and find a company that can do this?. This maybe hard to do up here in Canada on the east coast.

 

Those cap screw bolts are torqued to 14-15 ft-lbs and should have a medium thread locker applied which is why they're such a pain to remove. I just did an oil seal and bushing replacement yesterday. I'll be taking that bike out today to test my handy work.



I wish I'd known you hadn't gotten there yet as I would have chimed in. I know the Honda service manual and Clymer both show approaching these cap screws with hand power, but that is not the correct approach in my opinion. Hand power is just asking to round off the hex. I use a good 6mm socket driver with an electric impact,and firm inward pressure on the fastener and allow the impact to crack it loose. I think there's a much greater chance of success that way. If no bench vise to mount the slider, what I did was flip the fork upside down and put a rubber strap wrench around the slider and one of the front fender mounting extensions. I braced the strap wrench against my leg and pushed straight down on the impact.

Even with the impact, the hex usually shows sign of wear after extraction. I don't reuse these cap screws. I keep 90116-383-721 on hand and install new. That gives a greater chance of removal the next go around with a hex in good shape.

 

The way you creaked those bolts loose makes perfect sense, I will have new allen bolts to install along with new crush washers
I see what looks like the stock fork springs, do you find they work ok for normal driving, I have been thinking about installing an after market set after a couple of members rate them highly, but the choices in Canada are few. I did find Race Tech springs listed at roughly $250 up here

 

Thread locker on those bolts is old school, modern bikes don't use it for that very reason. The copper washer is more than enough to keep them in there..... torque to 17-20 is more than adequate.... just like your oil pan drain bolt.

 

Here's a couple pics of UK headlight showing the UK version with it's "position light".

 

When you have the fork apart, run a tap through the thread in the cartridge base to get all the old threadlock out. I make sure that the damper bolt threads in/out easily with no binding before I attempt re-assembly, and I do use a hint of blue Loctite. Most important is to either use new copper washers or to anneal the old ones before re-use.

The suggestion to use a impact gun on the damper bolts is dead on as well. Gentleness does not help with these little buggers.

 

Well there it is, mystery truly solved about the hatch on bottom of upper cowling.
Very good point about running a tap up the damper rod threads, I would have perhaps forgot this, even after I found someone used something besides loctite in the past

 

Re: UK 'position light' - it was (is?) a requirement that with switchable ON/OFF headlamps that a smaller light was available to use if you didn't use the main headlamp. Often used when parked by the side of the road to highlight your vehicle, it was mainly applicable to cars but applied to bikes too. Don't think it's applicable now that we have permanently ON headlamps.

HTH

 

Well there is finally some progress being made on the 99 yellow hornet. I was lucky enough to find a set of rotors off a 1999 CBR600, they looked like they went through the war together but I gives me a matched set of rotors and they cleaned up fairly well. I will add that if you have to replace the rotors make sure you run the mounting bolts through a die . I was very surprised at how the factory lock tight stuck to the threads of the bolt, a wire wheel would not touch it, and I am sure if you were to reinstall without the factory lock tight removed you would not get a good torque setting, I will also be using new blue lock tight, probably not needed but what the hell


In addition to the rotors I picked up a set of PAIR cover from a 600 and thought I would try to make a set of PAIR block off covers. I tapped the inlet pipe with a 12mm tap and sealed them off with an allen bolt and JB weld, a little rough looking but I could not find any metric plugs around here. I also think for the hell of it , ( unless someone think otherwise ) that I will reinstall the reed valves since the CBR600 covers are made for them.\


I also flat plate sanded the mating surface to help with sealing



And last but not least I cleaned, painted and flat plate sanded the housing components for the thermostat and associated hoses, I must saw they look a lot better than when I started, good thing you guys had done this on your own projects and convinced me to dig deeper as I now know I have to back in and redo the 1990 VFR750

 

If it's just flat surface to flat surface on the PAIR halves, I would just do a nice smear of Hondabond. But I'm not familiar with that style, are the reed valves needed to locate or seal something?

 

I agree, I was planning on using a fine bead of Hondabond around the cover edge.
To be honest the reed valves will service no purpose ( that I know of ) reinstalled under the covers, in my head I figured, since they act as a one way valve ( for air to get into the head but exhaust can not get out ), I figured they would act as double insurance against exhaust gases getting out if my bolt/JB weld failed.
I think I have a problem with over kill.

 

Usually better than under kill.