Looking for advice and opinions on what to do with a 83' vf750f

Hi, I just got myself a 1983 VF750f.

I've been looking for a donor for a "cafe racer" project for a good few years and this finally turned up.

Got it for 1000 euro and the intention was to immediately strip all the plastics and go to town on the frame to convert it to a classic cafe look with a short tail/single seat.

But now I'm kind of torn.

The bike is "complete", like it's got a full plastics set in really good condition, the frame (painted badly with a brush) is in good condition for the most part, I kind of don't want to ruin it now.

The suspension is dead — both front forks are leaking badly, fork tubes have rust holes on them, just in general beyond reasonable repair, similar with rear suspension. Front brakes were swimming in oil for a while.

Carbs are in a bad need for a rebuild, both engine banks are leaking, so it's gonna be basically completely taken apart anyway.

So what do I do? Maybe it makes sense to swap the running gear (forks/wheels from another model? maybe there's some compatible options?) Any advice will be appreciated.

 

many of those bikes had problems with cam wear, so check on that first.

 

Squirrelman speaks the truth; check the cam lobes and rocker arms for wear before you go too far. Personally I would encourage a sympathetic resto-mod to keep as many of the 1983 features intact as possible, including the gold Comstar wheels. Don't ruin another classic with a cafe-racer back end, or if you do, don't hack the subframe, and keep the old parts for the next owner. As a former owner I am a little biased.

 

I don't really know what "check on that" means specifically, although I did a fair bit of googling, just can't seem to find a ELI5 explanation on what to check and what to actually do.

The bike is now being taken apart to check compression before a carb rebuild...

 

Some VF750F's suffered from accelerated wear to the cam followers and cams. You would be looking for scoring on the cam lobes. Funnily enough, very similar to what is happening to some KTM 790s now.

Have a read here: https://www.motorcycleproject.com/text/v4_cams_what.html