VF1000R cam oiling

So is the OP's bike one of those that has cam problems? I had thought it was taken care of when they went to gear drive cams, but we seem to have conflicting opinions in this thread?

Same thing for the '86 VFR700 and 750.....never heard of the problems with that model. Was it line boring that finally solved the issue for good? Line boring started on the R models?

 

Line boring only started on the 85 vf1000R's. The 84's were milled bearings.
I have seen lobe pitting on the 84, 85,and 86 1000R's. It seems to me that the poor camshaft construction is most likely the culprit here.

 

And there it is! This myth appears probably the most often. Gear drive, line boring, etc. do nothing to address the problem. As I've stated dozens of times, the issue to two fold: thin case hardening of the rocker arms and poor oil supply to the top end. A fix needs to address one of those two or else it isn't a fix. Also note the cams themselves are not part of the discussion and are only involved as collateral damage.

The oil supply and case hardening were both improved on the 1986 VFR750 so to my knowledge those never had a problem. Some post-86 Super Magnas suffered the problem because of the same inadequacies of the early generations.

 

Ok, is the face on the damn rocker arm chromed or not?

 

No, it is not. The rocker arms are steel that is case hardened.

 

If that's the 'case' then having them, and the cams, black nitrided should fix the problem. I've had forming dies black nitrided and that stuff really works. It is crazy wear resistant. I went from having dies fail after a few dozen uses to now lasting 500 cycles with no visible wear.

 

Unfortunately black nitride is just a surface treatment and doesn't really work that well for high contact stress applications like this. You need to have sturdy support of the base metal or else the same result will occur. If the base metal yields it doesn't matter what surface treatments have been applied.

That said, the facts are this: the design is marginal. That's why some have failures at 10k miles and others not until 50k or more. Black nitride coating certainly won't hurt and maybe it would be just enough to tip the scales in your favor.

 

Just curious, do you feel the oiling of the top end on your 5th gen is "robbing" the bottom end?

 

I had a 1000F that crapped the cams at about 25,000ks.
It wasn't that hard to replace the cams and rockers, good oil replaced regularly goes a long way to prolong the time when this happens, but it will happen.
If you are rebuilding to have a great looking classic, then I would do the mod.
If not, let it slide and keep an eye on it.
It's not like it's going to fail suddenly and leave you stranded on the side of the road.

 

What, like the voltage regulator ?? :tickled_pink:

 

Exactly...that's what the later models do, not the first gens.

Honda designed the first gens with the cam 'problems' on purpose. This was so that only the chosen few who really loved and deserved to enjoy these bikes could. If you were not worthy of owning and riding the most perfect bike ever created by man then the cams would fail on you. It's your own fault, you just didn't ride the bike as intended.

Think of it like a beautiful exotic woman, let us say Italian.....she is young, beautiful, sensual, intensely passionate....everything you could ever imagine, and she loves you in a way you never knew possible. But then one day you get into an argument, a simple dispute really, nothing big....but this same intense passion now goes the other way. She breaks ever dish and glass in the house, throws all your clothes outside and then stabs you with a fork......outch.

That's a first gen. Is it worth suffering a stab in the face with a fork every once in awhile for the privilege of operating such a fantastic machine? If you own and ride one, you understand.

 

Bit of early Christmas cheer 74ullc?

 

A man's gotta do something to keep warm. Brandy with a bit of egg nog mixed in seems to be doing the job tonight.

 

Too damn funny and so very true. Great job.

 

It lives!



[video=youtube_share;Wm36zxtoXBI]http://youtu.be/Wm36zxtoXBI[/video]

 

Awesome.

Man, I've heard that very starter sound probably 5000 times. Never gets old.

 

Yeah thanks! Good to hear it run. Valves were all nicely in spec. Cleaned the carbs (they weren't bad but all the pilots were plugged of course), replaced the bowl gaskets, polished the float needle seats, and it fired right up and idled nicely (with no leaks which made me happy). Lots of smoke, but I don't think it was burning oil. I need to roll it outside and just let it run for a while and burn all the sh!t off everything.

 

Sounds good!

 

sounds nice! good thread. :thumbsup: