New (to me) 91 in need of serious help

First off, apologies for the double post - I started this thread yesterday in the third generation forum, but received no responses.

As of this past Tuesday I became the designated mechanic for/proud owner of a 91 VFR750 in road rash red that has been badly neglected for the past 5+ years. As far as I can tell someone laid the bike down in a fairly impressive way and took it home, threw some stabil in the tank, and then left it to sit ever since. I paid $420 for it.

As expected, it has some fairly significant issues. In order of precedence they are:

1. frozen throttle body
2. carb gaskets
3. "electrical gremlins"
4. all the fairings were held on by zip ties
5. and most of em were cracked


For item one: I noticed immediately that the throttle would not turn at all. As part of the initial evaluation I planned to do a carb cleaning; after wrestling the beast off I was unable to rotate the butterfly valves. One can of carb cleaner later, I can now rotate the valves through the expedient of a wrench applied to the linkage but they stay in whatever position they are turned to. Where should I start? Total tear-down?

Item two: again, as part of the initial evaluation and carb cleaning I realized I need to get a set of carb gaskets. I'd really not like to pay $40 a pop for a thin strip of rubber. Do I have any alternatives?

Item three: previous owner indicated symptoms consistent with the R/R problem endemic to this series of bikes. I ordered the VFRness and an aftermarket R/R and Stator from wiremybike.com but I have yet to tear into that since I got sidetracked by issue one.

Items four and five: as someone else said elsewhere on the forum, fairings for this generation are as easy to find as rabbit antlers. I have no experience doing plastic bodywork at all. A complete set of aftermarket fairings (unfinished) runs about $1000 - far more than I'm willing to spend at this point and for the foreseeable future.

TL/DR
Given the significant (to me) issues, what should I budget to get my bike into decent shape? Is it worth this much to get it working? Any feedback would be very much appreciated!

 

Dont forget to pour mystery oil into the cylinders, sitting that long would be a harsh start on the engine.
Body panels show up on e-bay occasionally,
Dont forget forks..and all fluids are probably pretty rough..

 

on the fairings, would suggest ebay pickin and paintin or airtech HONDA VFR750 1990-93, VFR 750 fairings, bodywork, fairing, upper, lower, mid, seat side, race, street, fender, tail, undertail, tank (really race plastics, a little heavy) but if you are handy... hey who knows


servicehonda.com and ronayers.com are your friends (try to consolidate orders as their shipping prices are horrendous). and here is the service manual and parts fiche
Download VFR 750F Shop Manual.pdf from Sendspace.com - send big files the easy way
Download vfr750partslist.pdf from Sendspace.com - send big files the easy way

 

Another good place is Bike Bandit. You just put in the year bike you have and they come up with all the fiche for it. I just ordered the gaskets for my carbs from them. Yes, 4 sets, $178 later (including shipping) For your carbs and the way they are, I would recommend a complete teardown. Replace the gaskets, all of them. If you do a complete rebuild, you are starting from a known, not an unknown. You said that they stick in whatever position you put them in. Do yourself a favor, tear them down. Good luck.

 

whatever you do, "dont paint it pink like tink"

 

Well the good news is that if you decided to part it you could easily get your money back on the bike by just selling the wheels! It sounds like you know what you are doing so the only factor should be whether or not it is financially justifiable to fix it up. 3rd Gens with less than 20k miles that are in excellent to mint condition typically bring $2600 to $3500. There are plenty of high mileage 3rd Gens that need lots of TLC selling for between $1500 - $2500. The 3rd Gen is a wonderful and fun machine to ride and I'm sure you'll be happy with it if you decide to bring her back to her full glory. How many miles does she have on her? Any pics of this "alleged" bike??

Rollin

 

Pictures of the alleged bike in a somewhat a somewhat disassembled state:


(pay no attention to the hammer...)

 

Just need some love......!

 

That thing is in pretty good shape. Quite the gem when your done.

 

It was probably wrecked because it has one of those cursed 8 spoke rear wheels. Lucky for you I am willing to even swap wheels and give you the one from my 6th Gen. :biggrin:

How many miles are on the bike? Are you a wrench by trade?


Rollin

 

After seeing the picture that's what I thought, too. Those carbs may take more than gasket sets and aerosol carb cleaner to fix though.

 

I'm a mechanical engineering student, so I'm not too afraid of poking around at the fiddly bits.On the other hand, I haven't messed with carbs before and I'm a little nervous about popping my cherry. I've just ordered the gasket sets and a physical copy of the service manual for the garage (don't want to get carb cleaner on my laptop - sissy, I know...) at a total cost of $175 before shipping. Went down to Wally World to pick up some Mobil 1 and a battery. I guess it was quitting time on a Friday in the Chinese sweat shop when the battery was boxed up - no screws, no filler cap, port cover tape halfway removed - so that's going back on my lunch break tomorrow. I'll keep you all posted of my progress as we move through the process.

 

Which was april 20th.

Now I get it.

Are you going to name her Mary?


Welcome to the forum. Hope you can ger her running. The gen 3 vfr is my favourite of all the motorbikes.

 

I have a set of airtech fairings if you are interested.

Here's my CL ad.

 

So I started in on my electrical gremlins this evening and I have found at least a symptom, if not the cause. The magnetic starter switch (SW, STARTER MAGNETIC 35850-MT4-000 in the parts catalog) connector has melted female connector plasticyness all over the male connector socket. The part is $70 from servicehonda.com, so instead of buying a new one (at this point) I took a small flat-head screwdriver to the connector and scraped a bunch of junk out. My question then is this: will a properly upgraded R/R and beefier wires solve the overtemp issue completely, or do I need to try and find other issues as well?

 

I have one to do this week and I am going to cut the wires a few inches back on the harness as the are badly damaged from heat and a new connector is needed.Would love to upgrade R/R but it is not my money and this should suffice for several years.

 

Deep fat fried, took quite a bit to get it unplugged.