1986 VF1000R Starting Issues

Hey guys,
I've been lurking on the site for a little while now, learning as much as I can about these VF bikes as I have 2. A 1986 VF500f that is in the middle of a restoration, and more recently, I picked up an '86 VF1000R with 22,xxx miles.

I work for a large Motorcycle salvage yard in Minnesota, and aside from having a 10 acre salvage yard, we sell complete bikes, and repairable bikes. I found the VF1000R in the Repairable section. After looking it over, it seemed very complete, only missing some hardware and one of the mesh side covers. The CDI box was missing as well, so I found one on Ebay. We aquired the bike back in 2004 with no title, and slight damage from being dropped. It's been sitting since then.

After many hours of going through and making sure the engine is ok inside (took the cam covers off to see the cams, they are perfect with no marks at all), and making sure the engine turns over fine, I turned my attention to the carburetors.

Overall, the carbs were pretty clean, but 2 of the diaphrams were damaged and needed to be replaced. Being that I work in a salvage yard, I found some slide diaphrams out of what think is a VFR800 or VFR750. The slide diameter, and length are the same, and the diaphrams are the same and fit my carbs perfect. I switched the needles from my original slides as they were different. The original needles on the replacement slides had a washer inbetween the slide and the needle, so I kept that. I also used the springs from the replacement carbs.

I'm telling you all this just so you know what I have done.

The issue now is, with the carbs and CDI installed, when I try to start it, it seems to fire out the intake. Almost like the timing is 180 off, but I know that is not possible unless the CDI box is bad, or the spark plug wires are hooked up incorrectly. I know the spark plug wires are in the right spots, and the company I got the CDI box from said it came off a "low mileage" bike that had an engine failure at high RPMs, so I believe the CDI to be good.

What would cause the engine to fire out the intake? Any ideas?

 

I had that same problem on my 85 vf700f found out it was a valve issue.
I used Lukas gas additive marvins mystery oil nothing worked till I took the head
off and did a valve job.
do a compression test on all your cylinders.
Hope this info helps.

 

Engine failure as in cut out or mechanical failure. This sentence did not sound right to me. Good luck on the trouble shoot.

 

I did a compression check and kept looking around. After I found nothing out of the ordinary, I took off the right side engine cover to see if the previous owner had done anything with the pick-up coils. It turned out that the starter clutch was not installed correctly and was sending the spark signals at the wrong time. I put it back together correctly, and now it seems to run great. Now the rest of the restoration can begin.

Thanks

 

Thanks for the education and congrats to the ongoing progress jdm

 

Awesome! I wish it was always that simple. Looking forward to following the progress.

 

Thanks. I'll try to post some pictures up after this weekend. I've thought about doing build threads for both of my 2 bikes ('86 VF500F and '86 VF1000R), but I've never posted pictures in a forum, and have always been slightly intimidated by the process. I'm a senior in college (Automotove Engineering Technology) and only get to work on any of my 4 projects (3 motorcycle builds, 1 car build) once a week, so they would be slow builds. Thanks for the help.

 

Welcome aboard!

Please consider posting. I would be very interested to see what you are up to with your VF500F and kR project bikes.

No need to feel you need to be a speedy builder here - many owners have projects that go into year (or more) long schedules.

It is always fun to see what other 1st Gen owners are up to.

 

Is that a dig?? :wink:

 

Well,,,I may have been thinking this but I'd never admit to it. ;-)

 

Welcome to the site. Good find on the starter gear. You will have to provide pic's for your projects, ya know.?

 

I'll try to get everything together this weekend and post what I have on both bikes.