Matt Tries – 1984 VF500F Overhaul

Me personally, wouldn't mess around and just let the pro's handle it. You could spend $150 on a lot worse things

 

If I thought I could do it in less than 4 hours, I'd probably just do it myself. Or if I could dip the full tank and leave it for a week, but I just don't see a good way to do it with the material I have. The fork areas I was unable to submerge was a ton of paint on gel... wait 30 minutes... take some off... And with how much more area the tank has and how much better the paint was applied, I just am pretty sure I'd make things worse.

$150 in Japanese Anime stripper stickers for the tank!?

 

If I was going to try and not pay somebody, I would have an orbital sander with a soft pad, a ventilator and a few packs of varying sandpaper pads. Add alcohol and/or weed and music. At least I would know what the inside of my tank still looks like. Maybe use some stripper just around the gas cap well.

 

Yeah, that's it, anime stickers.

 

Here in So Cal they use bullet hole stickers


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The alcohol and/or weed with music gets dampened a bit by wearing a respirator in a cold garage for 5 hours. Not that I'm above it, but I'll be at minimum $50 in materials with no guarantee I'll do it right and not cause more harm than good. I just don't have the skills to do it without getting frustrated and mistake-prone.

I did get the TRAC-side emulators installed today, so both are done now. Man, there's a lot of little goofy bits involved with the TRAC. First time in my life I ever had to find a 1.5mm allen wrench with this thing.

 

Oohhhhh.... COLD garage. I've heard those exist. Nevermind.

Good job on the emulators.

 

Good looking set of chopsticks you have created.

 

Funny you mention chopsticks--that's how I used to measure oil height. I'd go to the grocery store and grab some grocery store sushi and save the chopsticks. I'd mark the height I wanted and keep dipping until it hit the stick, hah. Motion Pro fork oil height tool makes things a lot easier than that now.

It's not North Pole cold like Stray, but 20-30°'s still sucks.

 

Agreed. It's been down in the 30s at night here in Seattle. The outer garage has a paint booth erected at the moment, so I got outside and did an oil change on the Element in the balmy upper 40's yesterday. Luckily it's a fairly easy job and it felt quite nice in the sun actually. But the sun started dipping and I scurried into the heated sanctuary to start winterizing bikes.

 

Cap, your comment about winterizing motorcycles made me realize I should probably do the same on some of mine and then also pressure test the VF radiator after the repair. I'm very happy to say that the radiator and all electronics are working great (I should probably knock on wood since the fuel pump wasn't plugged in). Ran it all the way to hot to allow the radiator fan to kick on. No leaks. Awesome.





And it was at that point while I was running the bike that I was reminded of the quote from the only anime I've ever watched in my life, Full Metal Alchemist. It's the guiding mantra to the entire show. The Rule of Equal Exchange. That is, In Order To Fix One Coolant Leak, You Must First Sacrifice The Integrity of Another Cooling System.



Last winter (I hate winter) my truck overheated and I nursed it home in -7°F weather with it pinned to the top of the temp gauge. I replaced the water pump and a ton of the cooling system thinking I'd warped the block and blown a head gasket. Bought a block tester and no indication of blow head gasket. I did about 5000 miles this summer between track days and other stuff--always carrying spare coolant with me because I was always worried it was going to start losing coolant again. Nothing. It never lost an ounce. I'd almost forgotten about it until I noticed the puddle beneath the truck today... Got the UV light out (I'd added dye in the spring to the coolant) and found what must have been the issue the entire time.



But it has to be temperature dependent. I'd heard other people with this issue say that it only presents itself when it gets cold. I shrugged that off as coincidence. Nope. As soon as we hit freezing temps, I spring a damn leak from the Y-Connector. I replaced the O-Rings in it this spring in that Y-Connector, but I guess I'm just going to replace the entire thing this time. I suppose it's not all bad. I could have blown a head gasket which is 2 bridges too far from my ability to fix myself. I'll get this one fixed, just an annoyance. One more reason to hate every single aching second of winter.

Maybe someone will get a kick out of my new license plates though. Wisconsin came out with Road America plates last year. Mine just came in. I had put "VF500F" as my second choice, but it felt like that should go to somebody else. If nobody gets them by renewal time and WI still offers them, I'll probably switch. Assuming the truck doesn't explode from overheating.

 

> my truck overheated and I nursed it home

Sometimes it's possible to get home by opening all vents and windows and maximizing the temperature & fan speed .

 

Does anyone know an alternative to these fairing bolts? I've been searching mcmaster carr and a bunch of other sites, and I can't find anything. I've got a bottom cowl I've gotten wet-sanded and will hopefully have painted soon to see how the yellow liquid spray matches up to the powdered wheels.

But I can see a bunch of other applications where I'd want to use these as well. But at nearly $6 per screw, I'm not really wanting to load up. The holes in the fairing appear to be 10mm, so I assume that's probably the size of the shoulder diameter. I can't find one to measure though.

It has to have that real shallow shoulder since it's just the depth of the fairing it needs to support.

 

The same style used on the rc24 and other models (https://www.ebay.com/itm/2x-Honda-C...lts-m6-x-16mm-with-6mm-Shoulder-/191920705288). On my vfr700, after a fairing repair, the stock shoulder bolt wasn't quite long enough and I used a nylon collar on a standard bolt.

racetech - https://racetechtitanium.com/produc...etric-bolts/shoulder-bolts/m6-shoulder-bolts/
You could also contact boltmotorcyclehardware.com (?). They usually sell kits but might sell half dozen shoulder bolts, not sure going aftermarket will save $$.

 

Honda ST1300 has a couple of styles.... 5 and 6 mm thread, two shoulder lengths and a couple of thread lengths. Hex drive 5mm.

 

I like these guys stuff. Not cheap, but cheaper than OE and their kit is still paying off after 14 yrs.

https://www.probolt-usa.com

 

So I don't see anything exact--however... this may be a solution here. M6 collars of different diameters and depths. I could essentially make up my own with any M6 bolt. This may be a decent answer.

I'll stop procrastinating at work and look at this again later. Thanks for the advice everyone.

 

I buy used Honda bolt lots off of eBay when they are done breaking bikes. I probably get a hundred dollars or more worth of OEM hardware for about $15 shipped.

I paid $20 shipped for this VFR lot. Not a lot of specialty hardware in this one, but when I saw the Givi ring (that I needed anyway and are $20) it was a no-brainer.

 

Answer is.... go buy more project bikes and build up your reserve supply of fasteners. LOL

 

THIS.....