another '86 saved from the scrap merchants

This has been a long time coming, but "just about there now". After distractions and health issues, another restoration took over........ you know how it goes.
The old Lady is finally in her fancy dress in a nice coat of Pearl White, polished rims and a bit of gold paint to go with the gold decals. New discs brake rotors, seat re-covered, a new mirror finish stainless steel sleeve over the mufflers, stainless steel front pipes. The intermediate pipes given a birthday with black High temp ceramic coating, and she is looking like someone cares about her again.
There are still more jobs to do, fit the new chain and sprockets (gold chain naturally) install heat shields inside the lower fairings and under the fuel tank, new fuel lines to be made up, plus endless little jobs before I fire her up. It has been at least 5 years since I last heard that V4 run, and I just hope the reworked mufflers are not too loud as there was a bit of work reconstructing things during that part of the rebuild.
It will be a different experience to ride a bike with "odd" wheel sizes but that is part of the pedigree so I shall not change it. I tried to stay true to the origins and only made a few minor changes for my personal taste and I am actually looking forward to an instrument panel that I can "read" - the '89 has an abominable dark grey? facia with orange markings which are useless for me - being color "defective". I had to put white dots on the glass where each incremental 20km/h step in speed occurs, so I know what speed I am doing.
I try to do everything possible myself, including the repairs to the fairings, the spray painting as I believe "if a man built it, I could fix it". (Within thew limitations of mt skill set anyway.) It gives me considerable satisfaction, when the job is done to be able to say, "I did that". It may not be perfect, but she sure looks a lot better than when I brought her home on a trailer!

 

Nice. A bit different but still retains the classiness. You should be proud.

 

Thanks Guys. I just can't help myself; she was never going to be concours once I rebuilt those damaged mufflers, so why not apply some minor touches to personalize the bike. Those front indicators are standard fitment on the Japanese domestic market bikes. And the wheels - what can I say - bland white looks pretty crap to me? Everything else is just the way it was sold from the factory, though I'm not sure we here in Australia received the Pearl White in '86?

 

Looks great, well done! About the facia: why not get some custom gaugefaces. I can' t find it right now but once saw a german webshop that made high quality gaugefaces for the VFR. Surely there is some shop in the US that can do those too.

 

Just ordered those gauge faces only this morning thanks V4 Rosso. I had asked AI where I could purchase them and was pointed to a Polish company called "Venoxy".
Exactly what I wanted - white numerals on a black background, printed on plastic panels replacing those already in the instrument cluster.
Cost was US$65.00 including postage, postage was "free" if you live in Poland. I wonder how many people get free postage?
They also make a reverse color option in wanted.
By the time the parts arrive I should have the '86 registered and able to ride her while I disable the '89 and do the change-over. On that score, not sure if I want to risk breaking those old, "fragile" instrument needles, or give it to the local instrument techs and pay them to do the job?

 

Recently made that same decision for my 87 VFR700...working through all the warts. She will never be a beauty, as I have others for that, just make her a runner.

 

Those instrument "panel" facia's are for the '89 - as can be seen in "not the real VFR, a mild custom" which can be seen further down the page. I am not sure which bike will be my favourite to ride, only time will tell. I understand the '86 has some quirks which some like and others don't