1994 RVF400R Build Project

Nice work. Parts came back looking really nice. I like your attention to details and trying to stay OEM. I can tell you have done this before.

Do you just know how it all goes back together, or do you use the Honda diagrams?

I would like to do some redo on my wife’s 86VF500, but I know parts are hard to come by. So I am a little worried about taking it apart and then not being able to find a gasket or bearing or something.

You also seem to have all the right support businesses in your area like RestoCycle.

I don’t always reply, but I am following your posts daily. Once again , you are awesome.

 

Great work as always. I've come across so many of those fucked thread inserts. Ended up doing something very similar. But I'll have to say I've had to overcome one it was so seized. But I knew I could fix it.

 

Thank you for the kind words, Karl. Much appreciated!

This is my 4th such project since 2007, so I've been lucky enough to get a decent education on how to approach it. You learn from your mistakes and try not to repeat them the next time.

As far as assembly, I take a lot of pictures when I'm stripping them down and pay pretty careful attention to things. I knew going into this one, that I didn't have access to a specific factory service manual for the NC35. I have a Hayne's manual, which is basically worthless, and I have a factory service manual for the earlier VFR400, and I have the parts manual that is a great reference for how things fit together. I use the parts manual more than anything and the Hayne's manual for specific torque settings. It isn't really that different from a VFR800 in quite a few respects. I guess that once you know the 800, you know how the eccentric, swingarm, and suspension is put together and what you need to do, in what order, so you don't end up blocking yourself and back tracking, yada, yada. It is safe to say, that most motos are put together in the same way, it's just the bits look different. If you've seen one front end, caliper, or master cylinder, you've pretty much seen them all, LOL.

I've been an acquaintance of Nils at Restocycle for a few years now, his work is very top shelf, so he knows who's excellent, who's just OK, and who to stay a long way away from. Most of the suppliers were folks I just found online and went and had a chat with them about what I was planning to do that required their specific skill set. You can tell right away if somebody is a hack or not.

This is a list of who I consider the good guys:

Nils Menten, Cody, and Alex at Restocycle USA
Rick Oliver at Rick Oliver NC30/35 UK
Matt at David Silver Spares USA
Matt and Paul at Tyga Performance Thailand
Phil Allison at Evan Steele Performance USA
Richard Edwards at Titan Classics UK
David at ProBolt USA
Darren Jeynes at Radtec UK
David Behrends at Fast Bike Industries USA
Candace Gogola at EBC Brakes USA
HEL Performance UK
Julie Salcido at KurveyGirl USA
Mark Cuellar and Paul at Precision Industrial Finishing USA
CMSNL Honda Parts Netherlands
Cas at Musselman's Honda USA
Don Tromble Cycle Skins USA
Dave at 1Motoshop.com

And last, but not least

Diving Pete at VFRW UK - My sounding board and "go to" main man in a pinch
Rob Cunningham - My utterly amazing machinist Maine USA
Squirrelman VFRW USA - Carb guru to the carb guru's

You really are only as good as those around you, let's just say I'm glad I have all these folks in my corner.

Thanks again for your kind words, Karl

 

Started the morning with a little setup to assemble the front calipers



Once again, all ti, dlc coated pistons and bolts, natural ti on the bleeder, pad pin, and grub screw. OEM seal kits and EPFA EBC pads. Took me awhile to get going....spent an hour and a half looking for the spring pads...even went trash can diving, only to realize, SHIT, they are at the plater getting plated. No wonder I couldn't find them

Almost there, both halves ready to bolt up



Done, at least until the spring pads come back...ugggh



Spent a little time on the gauge cluster, replacing some wire retainers, the rubber isolators, and collars, inspecting the harness and connectors, wrapping it back up and installing the speedo converter to go from KMH to MPH.



Received a new Dzus fastener kit from Julie at Kurvey Girl. Choice of anodized D-rings or ti allen fasteners. I will go with the allen head fasteners, D-rings are just asking for trouble. Drilled out the old corroded ones from the lower cowls so the were gone during the prep and paint starting next week.





Started doing a little clean up on the badly oxidized gas cap assembly, still have a little to go on that. Still need to decide what's going to play out there, considering a keyless cap. Time will tell.



Last night, I got around to cutting out one of the engine protection flaps that goes between the engine and the fuel tank. Used translucent 1/16" industrial grade silicone, good to a max temp of 500*. Not only that, I thought the look would be a nice change from the OEM flappy thing.



Still have one more to go, it's going to be a bit more of a challenge, as it's deformed and not in great shape. Tomorrow is another day and I will prolly attack it in the morning. Just trying to get all of the time consuming little details handled before the engine comes back and I can start hanging the engine and getting rolling on the chassis.

 

It was a day of finishing up the tedious details that needed to get finalized. Wanted to get this little nitnoid stuff off the list...they were the last three on that list.

Prepped the inside of the upper cowl to add a little structural epoxy to make sure the mounts didn't blowout, after the mounts were damaged by the shop removing the headlight during the failed fairing swap

Got the area cleaned up real good with degreaser and stainless wire brushes in the rotary tool, to give the epoxy something to get a good grip on. Gave the areas a bath in acetone to ensure solid adhesion and painted on the epoxy with small paintbrushes.



Wanted to give it a good long cure before dropping it off at the painter on Wednesday. The last thing I wanted was to have the weakened mounts blow out and have the headlight come loose, after it was fully assembled. Some of the roads in my neck of the woods are a bit rough, tarmac doesn't like sustained 105* temps.

Moved on to finishing up the 25 years of oxidation from the gas cap. Turned out better than I initially expected. Had considered a keyless cap, but ya never know what some evil person might do, figured it was best to have it lock. Cleaned up decent, gonna take it to my man, Don Jose, to have him see about putting a good polish on it.



Next I proceeded to trudge ahead with cutting the last engine shroud flap. The OEM piece was deformed and brittle. Made up a template first, out of cardboard, just to ensure a good trace.



Used the cardboard to trace the outline onto the silicone sheet and cut 'er out



That should do quite nicely as a replacement piece. You can't buy them, Honda fiche shows them as discontinued. If ya can't buy 'em, make 'em.

And that was all that got accomplished in 8 hours of effort, but it had to be done. did I mention tedious....

 

NorCal, thanks for the list of preferred vendors.
I also like the parts diagrams to for assembly. To bad they don’t put those pictures in the shop manual.

 

Been mostly waiting for parts and service providers to finish up with their stuff, so that I can get on with it.

Been cleaning a few pieces of the carbs, checking out a couple processes to see the level of effort it's going to take to get them cleaned up nice.

Got the air cleaner base vapor blasted this morning and got it back where it belongs, replaced a few of the screws with stainless and ti pieces.







I also pulled a bunch of the brackets and soda blasted them to check how effective it is and it worked really well. I believe I will now be soda blasting the carb bodies instead of vapor blasting. I'm concerned with getting the residual slurry cleaned out of all the passages. Soda is easy, it dissolves in water, so you just blast, rinse it off, and stick the carb body in an ultrasonic cleaner to get the passages spotless. This is the direction I'm going to go. The bowls, tops, air cleaner base, the choke parts, and a couple brackets are already done and bolted back up. Have a new ultrasonic cleaner on the way just for this task, now, and in the future.

Have a big order in for replacing most of the OEM air and fuel tubes, bushings, springs and screws, and I have a Lite Tek complete seal kit waiting for that. I received a Factory Pro jet kit, but don't think I'm gonna putz with that until the machine goes on the dyno. The kit uses staggered main jets and different types of needles, so tuning it on the dyno is really the only good way to do it. Waiting on some HRC replica velocity stacks for the rear cylinders, new float needles, pilot jets, and emulsion tubes in transit from the UK, as well. Once all that stuff arrives, Squirrelman has accepted the task of disassembling everything and sending it to me for blasting, then reassembling everything when I'm done.

Received some terminals, wire and other bits to fabricate new cables for the battery and the starter motor.



Got those all made up and ready to go. Crimped, soldered, and shrink wrapped. Used 8 gauge, oxygen free, 100% copper wire, with brass open barrel terminals. Reused some of the boots and replaced the ones that were ripped or torn.



Received the terminals to replace a few that I wasn't liking the looks of on the main harness and I'll knock that out tomorrow. Turn signal wiring and one of the coils, mainly.

Received a bearing I had to order for the shifter cover and got that installed. Also received the Factory Pro shift kit, so when the engine comes back, I can work on getting everything buttoned up for the covers to go back on.

Bearing installed in vapor blasted cover



The shift kit I've been waiting for....



I have new OEM guts for everything behind the cover, so the shifting should be pretty decent.

A new stator and turn signals have cleared customs, and when the stator arrives, I'll be ready to pull the old one and plug in the new one. Get to test out my new Motion Pro rotor holding tool.....

Dropped off the new OEM exhaust studs with my engine folks and they should be finishing up their efforts shortly, hoping, by the end of this week. I would love to be able to start doing my part of the engine stuff so it's all ready for the covers.

The polishing folks are done with the fuel cap assembly, so I'll pick that up tomorrow, interested to see how it ended up.

The biggest news was that I dropped all the bodywork at the painter today and we went over the small repairs that were needed to one of the mid panels and the upper cowl, paint codes, and the clear over the decals. The quote he gave me for doing everything, including the tank, was a LOT less than I expected....almost half.

I had to bring them the windscreen, when it was noticed that the upper cowl was damaged at the end bolt hole area of the spars on both sides and will have to be repaired. I thought it was a big deal, my painter Don Tromble, looked at it as a minor thing and easy fix. They were already peeling the stock stickers off of everything, and searching for the correct paint online, when I got back a half hour later. The complete decal set is on it's way from the UK and the single seat Tyga Performance rear cowl has made it through customs at LAX and should be arriving shortly. The number plates for that will be painted on and not decals. I got to see a Kawi H2 set of bits he had finished painting yesterday, for Nils at Restocycle, in a custom metal flake purple...it was truly amazing work. I know I'm in great hands with Don.

Need to pay a visit to my platers tomorrow....they were supposed to be finished up last week and I'm hoping to get a call from my coating folks telling me the engine cover cerakote work is done. Sure would like to hang the engine in the frame, even if I'm still waiting for the damned swingarm bearings to ship, killin' me.

 

No worries, Karl. Hopefully, you can put a few of them to your own personal test.

 

You should have bought the Abba Skylift - LOL

 

Yep fairly common - one of my bikes has this repair to do - all done to over-tightening that last bolt (& it being a weak part of the fairing)..

 

I have to believe it was done during the fairing swap....the breaks were very fresh. I'm sure Mr. Tromble will make it look perfect. I saw a couple of pieces that he's repaired for Restocycle projects....the guy is very impressive on the plastic and fiberglass reconstruction side. Going to pick up the single seat cowl this morning, arrived from Tyga yesterday afternoon. One more thing off the list.

Just found out...2 weeks out on the forks...my guys are swamped getting ready for the first MotoAmerica race next weekend....poor timing on my part, thanks to the late delivery of the trainwreck. The gift that keeps on giving.

 

Best news ever...carb parts and swingarm bearings shipped this morning, so that means I can actually get going on the process of reassembly....as soon as the engine folks are done, hoping tomorrow or Monday. I can't actually believe it, it's been a long, long, time coming.

Only have one issue left to deal with, the forks...my suspension guy won't be able to get to my forks for 2 more weeks. They are in the process of getting all of their supported riders ready for the MotoAmerica season kickoff next week, as such, I'm in the back of the que. They have been working 12-14 hours a day, 7 days a week, since before the Daytona 200. I feel for them, the arrival of the bike was at a bad time of year to try to get services done that might be race related. I'm sure I won't be ready to fire up before then anyway...carbs and forks will take time to finish.

Went by my coating folks this morning and picked up the engine covers that were done in Desert Sand cerakote. The color mimics the HRC color that they have used off and on for decades now. I was impressed with the finish and I think they turned out really decent. They did a perfect job on them, no overspray, everything masked perfect, not one thing to clean up.





That was officially the last of the coating work, so I'm pretty relieved that is all done and that it turned out better than I expected. If Mr. Plating Guy would get his shit together, that would be the last of the parts I need to really get moving.

After picking up the engine covers, I swung by my polishing folks and picked up the fuel filler assembly...I'm kind of blown away, this thing was an absolute train wreck of oxidation and rust when I started out on it. Really happy with the results and I'm glad I just didn't opt for the keyless assembly.



Swung by my UPS mailbox and picked up the Tyga Performance single seat cowl that arrived from Thailand yesterday. I'm very happy with the quality of the piece. Didn't take any pics of the raw piece, but I dropped by my painter and left it with him. He is already well along with the repairs and preparations for paint. The rough repairs on the snapped upper cowl spars and the broken turn signal mount was already completed, turned out great so far.



Don has been painting for almost 50 years now and his work is excellent. He painted Audi's, Porsches, and Mercedes cages for a long time, before committing himself to painting race cars and motorcycles. He was going to do the epoxy on it this afternoon and get it all 100% ready for the respray. He had already stripped all the stock decals off of everything and the tank was masked for media blasting already. I hope the decal package hurries up and gets here...it's in transit right now and I would like to have all the bits and pieces in his hands, as he seems to work pretty rapidly. I think the finished product is going to be stunning.

This is a custom Kawi H2 paint job he is working on for Nils at Restocycle. The pic doesan't really do it justice, as it is a metal flake with gold flakes in it and it really pops.



After running around all morning, I got home and started in on finishing up the wiring harness wiring. I had worked myself out of terminals and stuff earlier and I wanted this done, as I will loop it through the frame and get it in position before I hang the engine, much easier that way.

Finished the front coil wiring, all of the turn signal wiring, and the stator plug got refurbished. Crimped, soldered, new sheathing, and shrink wrap.

Front turn signals





Rear turn signals, also received the new subharness for the taillight, the original was really corroded and not worth salvaging





Coil wires



The stator plug was pretty rough, so I extracted all the wires, removed the terminals, crimped on some new ones, and soldered it up good







All ready now for the new stator, RR, coils, and turn signal assemblies. Shouldn't be having any electrical issues....

Did I say how badly I need those bearings and other bits to show up????? I shouldn't complain too much, have gotten a lot of stuff done in almost exactly 4 weeks. It's only going to pick up steam from here.

 

Things are starting to align, got a call from the plater that the brackets were completed

The rear hub was looking pretty rough, but they told me they could clean it up, without having to re-plate the entire piece. Well, they were right



All of these brackets and the engine mount bolt were a corroded and oxidized mess, again, they told me no problem at all. Had them re-plated in nickel. Night and day difference...these guys obviously have a few tricks.



This exhaust mount for the Tyga system was poorly sprayed in, what looked like, flat black spray paint. Had it nickel plated too.



All I can say is, if you're looking for a good plating company, I recommend Royal Plating in Tucson, AZ. They may not be fast, but the results are very hard to argue with. I think it all turned out really decent.

That will be it for today..MotoGP is back on in Argentina. Going to spend my day watching Moto3, Moto2, and MotoGP free practice.

 

Love nickel. Has a great hue and quality without looking "chromed". Nice.

 

Thanks, I am NOT a fan of chrome. Chrome is for big American V-Twins, IMO. They did an impressive job of making a pile of rusted and corroded bits into something decent.

 

We have quite a few plating / coating places in the area but I havent been that impressed. More aerospace and industrial. You would think aerospace (my industry) places would be good at attention to detail. Not really. Need a place that does motorcycles and rods. I kinda gave up on most places after a few experiences and blast and paint/coat my stuff now. But I'm building 3 to 4 bikes at a time, costs and logistics would soar.

Anyway, great job NB. Loving it.

 

Thanks, Cap. I've been very impressed with the service providers in my area, it's the first time I have worked with most of them. They all have some type of personal connection to motorsports, custom cars, or custom motos, and they all seem to know each other. They aren't super quick, but the work they do is worth waiting for. That just tells me that they are busy, and usually, that means their services are in demand. It took three weeks just to be able to drop off the bodywork for paint.

I'm kind of itching to see what my upholstery man Pancho does with the seat I gave him to do some work on. I got a quote from a shop in your area...I started laughing when the quote came back at $450-$500 for a single, race type, seat. What a fucking joke, Pancho is doing the same job, new foam, gel insert, and a solid black alacantra (suede) cover for $150.

$500 for this? No freaking way.

 

Which upholstery place? I suspect its either Rich's or Ballard Motorcycle Upholstery. I've laughed too when I hear what they want around here for motorcycle seats. Problem is everybody just keeps paying them like it's their only option. I've had some good luck with some car guys but I install my own covers now and do light foam repair and shaping.

Rich's does good work, but $$$$$.

 

Mac's Upholstery. I couldn't believe it, it's a small seat...what I actually thought was "you gotta be @#$%^&* kidding me", didn't even justify the quote with a response. %$^& off. A custom measured and fabricated seat, from someone like Rich, is understandable for someone who drones along with extended freeway cruising. I don't do that type of riding, so I don't need it. I was fine with a Sargent on my 6G.

Pancho was worried about quoting $150, LOL. Just the gel pad alone is $60. he started to explain it all to me, as to why it was $150, and I just politely interrupted him and told him $150 was fine. He has done a couple things for me in the past, always been happy with the outcome. Last one he did was a stepped seat for my sumo build. I already had the cover, he just replaced the foam, built in the step, and installed the cover. Just looked up the receipt, he charged me $40.

 

Started in on the carbs yesterday. Although they looked sort of OK on the exterior, I had a feeling that there were some nasties lurking in the details and where I couldn't see. I had decided on doing a complete teardown and refurbishing anyway. I purchased an ultrasonic cleaner and cleaning concentrate and ordered up all the tools and parts to tackle it.

I plan on soda blasting the bodies, running them through the ultrasonic cleaner and then reassembling. As I suspected, they were actually pretty nasty. The monkey's that worked on it had cleaned the bowls, just to make it look like they had done something...but it's what's inside that really tells the truth.



Ripped them down and separated everything

Figured I would be methodical about it and not just tear them all down at once and have a pile of parts scattered all over the place. I always try to start carb work with an info sheet, so I can keep track of who's doing what to who. I think this helps when it comes time to reassemble and to get a an idea of general condition and it's always interesting to see where they end up when the tuning is done. Initial float height measurement was 13.81 mm, setting should be 12.5 mm, indicating a slightly lean float condition.



Started in on numero uno, sure enough, pretty nasty. Luckily, all of these parts are getting, soda blasted, ultrasonically cleaned, and/or replaced.



Main jet, emulsion tube, and pilot are all shot, the pilot is completely deformed on the end from using the wrong screwdriver. All in the trash. Based on the overall condition of the machine when I got it, this is exactly what I expected to find. I'm very surprised that it ran as good as it did. The good news is that the diaphragm is in great shape and the fuel tubes were good, even though they are getting replaced, always nice to have an extra set.



Have to head over to the Freight this morning and grab a bag of soda to get the party started, hoping to have a couple cleaned up by the end of the day today.