So I took the VFR in to the dealership to get it looked over and get the oil changed. I'm doing this since I'm not all that familar with the bike yet. It turns out I'm missing some cowl fasteners, need a battery tie down, head gasket is beginning to leak a little and it turns out its not charging as it should. The stator is fine but it seems that the R/R isn't up to snuff and that needs to be replaced. The connector looks fried and has melted thru in one place. They said the connector isn't available anymore so they'll have to take it apart and connect it individually. This is going to cost me $60 in labor. Now that i have the shop manual and i see what needs to be done it looks like something i should be able to do myself and save me the labor dollars. Boy, they don't give that thing away do they? I guess some of the gear will just have to wait. vic
Most people go with a aftermarket rectifier(Ricks rectifiers usually). I'm pretty sure it does away with the factory style connector, just splice directly into harness. Mine was done by the previous owner and haven't had any problems. They seem to have larger cooling surface. Some guys even go as far as adding a little computer fan to keep them cool. Do a search and you will find a bunch of post about it. Nice bike, I love those years.
If you buy an aftermarket R/R, you won't need the fan; they have huge cooling fins that do the job well. As for the harness, go to this guy: Wire My Bike. He will have what you need to repair it.
As sort of an FYI if you’re interested, I had a chance to take out the new/old bike today. It was cool and windy out and I came to a couple conclusions. This VFR750 doesn’t have near the power as my FJ did but then its 450cc smaller. The Two brothers exhaust isn’t very loud at all. My hands were sore probably from the death grip I was using to hold on with. It’ll take awhile but I’ll get back to where I should be. Back and shoulders were ok though. I think the temp gauge works, it was only 45 degrees out so the gauge may not have moved noticeably. My ebay leather jacket and Held gloves kept me quite warm so I guess they’ll be too hot come summer. The new Streetsmart tires work great. There are a lot of grooved roads around here and these tires handled them much better than the Battleax’s did. I took a roundabout trip to Belle Fourche and when I left my battery was at 13.4 volts and after 25 miles it was at 12 volts. I really can’t wait for the new r/r to show up so I can put some serious miles on the clock. Same thing when I went up to Deadwood. I knew I bought the Battery Tender for a reason. My connector that mates up with the r/r is burnt and in bad shape so I hacked it off and spliced in connectors for when the new one shows up. In doing so I removed the back fairing and saw what bad condition its in. I’m going to have to do some serious plastic work one of these days. vic
