1984 VF500 Project

New member here. I posted in the new members section that the 84/85 VF500s were my dream bike as a kid. I had pictures from the sales brochure in my locker. I thought they were the most gorgeous bikes I had ever seen, and to my eye they are still one of the best bikes ever made. Its proportions were just perfect.

But my parents wouldn't let me near a road bike. Life moved on, but there was always that itch. I ended up getting into road bikes much later in life. In 2020 or so I bought an 86 CBR600F to start learning how to wrench. I got it running, and learned a lot about it, but sadly all my plastics went up in a garage fire. There's a long thread on cbrforum.com about that project where a lot of great people helped me out.

Last week an 84 VF500 came up locally. It was a project for sure, the plastics were a hodge hodge from different bikes, but at least the plastics were "original" (to whatever bikes they came from), and of course, it doesn't run. The seller told me some potential buyers got it to turn over. He thought all it needed were new plugs and carbs gone over. At that, I drove 10-12 hours total to pick it up.

Here she is :

IMG_6441-b by NuggyBuggyVFR posted Jul 17, 2025 at 7:32 PM

I was both disappointed to see the rust up and all the issues up close, but at the same time excited. Even in her mismatched clothes, she was beautiful to me.

Plastics were, as I said, a hodgepodge of parts from different bikes, but that was even more apparent in person.

I looked in the tank and the rust seemed OK, but when I got her home, I realized the fuel cap didnt seat and that I didn't know how bad it really was.

Once I started draining the gas, it was all foul brown sandy sludge. The smell went out 30 yards. I am not sure how, but even after pulling the petcock no fuel would come out the bottom - I had to turn it upside down and shake to get most of it. I left it open for any residual gas to evaporate, and am planning to fill it with vinegar this weekend - in fact I asked for next week off so I could tend to it. I am not sure whether you can leave a tank with vinegar indefinitely.

Electrical seems to mostly work - lights, signals, instrument panel are all there and they work. Despite the engine almost certainly being dry as a bone I tried to see if it would turn over. No dice.

I think my game plan is:
0- pull plugs and pour some Marvel Mystery Oil, 2T oil or the like into the plug holes. Then maybe see if I can get crankshaft to turn just to get things lubricated
1- start on rust removal on interior of tank - probably vinegar but maybe electrolysis. Not sure if electrolysis could be harmful to exterior paint (which is, surprisingly, almost intact).
2-while that's working, check condition of starter/solenoid
3-if I can get starter working, pull carbs. Order carb rebuild kit (recommendations?) and clean/rebuild carbs.
4- should I do anything to the engine itself out of the gate? I've never opened an engine before, but I can follow instructions.

Anything I missed?

I really, really want to get her as close to showroom condition as possible. This was my dream and if I can do that, I plan to keep her until I die. But being realistic, budget is a big constraint. So if anyone has a line on affordable bodywork, let me know !

 

I'm pretty sure this was the picture I had in my locker. That's the color scheme I dreamed about.



I think there was a slightly more maroon red (in 85?) that also caught my fancy at the time.

 

Welcome.

Captain 80s is over here too... This is likely a better place to get answers on that particular model.

Me, and and a fair number of other members, have experience, advice, failure stories, success stories and encouragement to offer.

 

The great thing about electrolysis is that it is very effective and will not harm the paint. A very good option if it needs that level of rust removal.

 

Would you recommend electrolysis over vinegar? I've only just started playing with electrolysis. It's cool, but I'm worried getting sacrificial anode or anodes into the tank and not shorting it out could be a bit futzy. But now that I am setup, it's almost free, and it's so fun !

 

Thank you - I am hoping to draw on that knowledge and generosity - I know I won't be able to do this with help and encouragement!

 

I started electrolysis yesterday.

Here's what it looked like when I started.



I should have had all my ducks lined up before I started flushing tank with water. Figuring out a way to get an secure an anode in there wasn't easy, especially as I planned on clamping to the interior of the filler opening as I didn't want to expose bare metal elsewhere (I guess one of the hidden mount points would have been fine). I think I will sand away one of the mounting points to get an easier place to clamp and free up some room in the filler opening.

When I pull out the anode I also think I'm going to wrap some rubber bands around its length at various points, just to protect it from accidentally contacting the tank.

Now I'm struggling with how to empty the tank. I expected that after pulling the petcock all the liquid inside would drain readily. It does not, even when it is full - it trickles out.

I understand that flash rust sets in very quickly - so how does one drain the tank, put nuts and bolts or chain in there, agitate it, remove all those nuts and bolts or chains and get the tank started again before flash rust?

 

Do these bikes have a fuel level sensor? Google says yes, I see one in the V30 Magna manual but see nothing in the V30 Interceptor shop manual.

 

No fuel level sensor.

 

I use a large cork in the filler opening with 2 holes drilled in it. One holds my bent anode in the right place so it can go down towards the rear and not hit anything and one for a vent.

 

Welcome and look forward to seeing your progress, Nugs. Very nice intro post too - well done. Especially posting a pic.

Couple comments......

Moving fuel in and out of a tank is easy if you use an electric (battery) transfer pump. Really great investment and they are not a lot of $ anyway.

Also, I have used various methods to address fuel tank rust and lately have settled on the Evapo-Rust treatment. I just bought a 5 gal. pail and have 6 tanks to do, and since the product can be re-used over and over my investment divided by 6 becomes very cost efficient.

Not sure I will do any dry wall screws on these yet. Two of them I haven't opened up yet!

I did use them on a recent tank salvage that had a failed inside coating and I know it helped a lot!

I also use an electric power washer with my tank cleaning to blast the insides as much as I can get to by sticking the wand inside in different directions.

Lot of monkeying around but worth the effort when you get the job done.

To help with the flash rust, MMO, 2 cycle oil, or WD40 seem to work OK.

Best scenario is to get it back on the bike and fill with petrol, of course.

Cheers!

 

Congrats

Would be wise to pull those Valve/Cam covers off and inspect the cams etc, before you go too far.

Electrolysis works well, be patient. Evaporust works well and wont flash rust after either. Vinegar can work, takes a while, and you have to deal with the flash rust issue.

Flash rust shouldn't set in so fast (from electrolysis) that you wont be able to remove the chain/nuts and bolts.

As others have said, once you drain your electrolyte, rinse with water a few times, fully drain it. (fluid extractor or remove the petvalave), dump in a bottle of isopropyl alcohol, swill it around and then drain it off..., then the dump a bunch of wd40 in there and swill it around ( I buy the wd 40 in the bulk can)

 

would an oily coating interfere with the adhesion of tank sealers like caswell, etc.

 

Guess I will throw this in while we're discussing treating fuel tanks.

As I said earlier, I've become a Evapo-Rust disciple.

I have a tank being treated right now and here's how I'm doing it. I have it sitting outside on a table next to my service bay in a 45 gallon plastic tote. The reason I'm using a tote is:

1. It will be sitting outside for at least a week, so this will protect the tank from weather while it sits (I have a lid for it)
2. If any ER leaks out - it will be captured in the bin, so I will not lose it
3. Keeps prying eyes from spotting my tank. I live in a pretty respectable area but it's a beach town with lots of visitors and you never know what someone might spot and decide to grab.

Also and this is important......I bought a little kit from Amazon with rubber plugs and caps and used those to plug all the outlets on the bottom. Assuming those all remain seated throughout the process the other item that can give trouble is the O-ring around the fuel sensor opening. They get flattened and then are no longer effective.

Here's a few pics I snapped of mine tonight. I need to get a cap on it and will do so tomorrow. That will be helpful when I start the flushing process. This tote didn't come with a lid so I made one from a thin piece of plywood with plastic visqueen stapled over it.

 

Yeah. But you do a prescribed rinse according to instructions before. WD40 is pretty light stuff.

 

I wanted to do that! I couldn't think of where to buy a cork that large. The only thing about the cork is, I wanted to see the bubbles as a check to see if things were working.

I ended up using some foam I had, cutting a piece big enough to cover maybe half of the filler hole. I ended up wrapping electrical tape around it and the foam to try and position the anode. I had to move it back and forth a few times to try and guess as to where it would hit the tank. It all felt pretty fiddly. I did end up putting some heat shrink tubing at the tip of my anode as it seemed that was the most likely part to make contact.


If I had to do it again (I've done about 4 or 5 cycles now) I'd probably try using a dial indicator base to hold the anode. Things are looking really good. I see a lot of bare metal now - there's some dark areas - they don't look rusty. I understand electrolysis often leaves a black residue - so maybe that's what that is ? After each cycle when I dump the contents it's consistently getting clearer, although when I shake it around I usually get a few prominent black flakes.

Last cycle I put a length of chain in there and shook it around; rinse came out much darker than previous rinse so I know it did something good. Plan to do a few more cycles alternating electrolysis and agitation with the chain until everything is coming out decently clear.

Still don't understand why I don't have more liquid coming out of the hole where the petcock connects to. If I probe it with a coat hanger, it feels like there is no obstruction and I can hit the top of the tank.

Really happy with the results - this is my first real go with electrolysis. Will post a before and after picture.

 

for sure, you don't want any oil of any sort if your doing a tank liner

oil/wd40 is only to be used if your staying with a non lined tank

 

OK, got a chance to work on my baby a little over this weekend.

1) I put an borescope in the fuel tank. I can see what looks to be the petcock filter sticking out into the tank. That explains why it's not easy to get liquid to pour out the petcock opening, I suppose. Started reading about what's involved in picking that thing out.

2) I started another thread here where I struggled through a series of filter wrenches to get the filter off. I had to do this to get the starter off in order to bench test it. That problem was solved and I now have the starter out.

First, I tried to turn the pinion gear by hand. I could not, not sure if that's normal (Google search revealed contradictory answers - some saying it should spin easily, others saying it should be quite hard to turn by hand).

Decided to go ahead and connected frame of starter to negative terminal on battery. When I connect the positive terminal battery to the screw on the starter, I get sparks. Not a few sparks, but a ton of sparks - like I had metal to a grinder. I can see the pinion spin, but this doesn't feel right, so I decided to check.

I searched online a bit and found one post advising to specifically use "light jumper leads (lighter than car jumper leads)". I was using pretty heavy duty car jumper cables. I didn't think one could use cables that were too heavy duty for any given application. Could this be my problem, or is a ton of sparks to be expected?

 

its not the cables. if the starter spins, it should be good. if its on the bench, blow out the carbon dust around the brushes and check their lengths are ok.