Project VF500F2

One day at a time these days! Good progress and the frame looks fantastic.

 

Cheers Jim! Yeah I'm really glad I went ahead getting the frame done, it's really refreshed it and is meant to be quite a durable finish.

 

Glad to see that engine will get used. It had outstanding compression when I measured it.

 

Yeah having that engine sat under the bench it really didn't make much sense to keep stripping down the original. Truth be told a lot of the original parts won't be going back onto the bike, it's going to be a lot of the spares we got from you.

 

A couple of parts orders arrived this morning so we've made some good progress this afternoon. We started with getting the swingarm and rear shock back together. This was held up slightly by the suspension knuckle being shown as fitting the wrong way round in the manual! After turning it back round the right way it all went back together without much trouble. The rear shock is a new Hagon, when I spoke to them trying to get my old seized one rebuilt they said they were unable to service that model anymore, but as it was sold as a rebuildable unit they gave me a decent discount off of the cost of a new one.



We also got the front end back on and now have a rolling bike!



I've made a start this week on spraying some of the parts that didn't go to be powdercoated. I've used the clip ons as a bit of a test piece and I'm pretty happy with how they've come up. There's a few runs in the lacquer but they'll get hidden under the grips. I'll give them a couple of days to make sure they are fully dry then get them fitted too.



I'm not sure what's the best thing to focus on next. We were thinking it might be a good idea to try and get the wiring harness back into the frame and routed correctly whilst there's not much else in the way. If anyone has any recommendations please let me know!

 

Nice!

Do you have the rear exhaust down pipes mounted already?

 

looks like it, I see them in the first pic

 

I would yes. Ive typically put the harness in pretty early

 

Oh, duh, yeah.

Inner fender and harness next.

 

Very nice work ! by the way..

 

Yeah, looking like a very nice start.

 

Thanks all, wiring harness next it is! Yeah the rear down pipes were already on the engine when we got it and I saw no reason to take them off... look like they’d be a bit of a pain to try and fit back in after anyway.

 

looking great... waiting on next update..

 

I'm looking for a decent condition VF500 Interceptor engine too. Is the RC13 Sabre engine interchangeable with the PC12 Interceptor engine?

 

No, not at all. VF500C Magna engines can be used.

 

Thanks. I sourced a (hopefully) good Interceptor engine in the end.

 

I've had a few weeks away from the bike with work but my Dad has got quite a bit done. The main bulk of the wiring is routed through the frame, the rear mudguard is all in place and a few other bits cleaned up and bolted on.



I ended up with the entire front end back off the bike today as the steering seemed extremely tight. Everything had been done up to the specified torque in the manual but it didn't seem right. I had been waiting to get the bars on to be sure it wasn't just the lack of leverage. I noticed as soon as I loosened the top lock nut the steering freed up completely. I decided to double check everything whilst I was there and took the front wheel and forks out and re-torqued the steering adjuster to the lower end of the torque range.



Having replaced the top yoke I torqued the lock nut, to the lower end of the spec as well. Again the steering seemed very stiff, but I wanted to check if the weight of the forks and front wheel made any difference so put them all back in. It was still tight so I cracked loose the top lock nut. As at the start this instantly fixed the issue. I then tried torqueing the lock nut to the specified torque but with the forks and wheel already in place, and now the steering seems spot on! Is there any issue with tightening it in this order, as the service manual seems to suggest that the lock nut is torqued with no weight on the front end?

I've also taken the centre stand off the bike. It was too tight in the frame and wasn't returning under the spring tension (I think due to both it and the frame being powdercoated) so it needed to come back off anyway. It also seemed to have a bit of a clearance issue with the 150 width rear tyre, I know this is a common mod so I presume there is a way to run the wider tyre and centre stand together? I have my Abba stand to use for maintenance so not overly worried about refitting it if not.

The rest of today has been some slow but steady progress looking for the correct bolts for parts from various boxes... our (lack of) organisation on the strip down coming back to bite us a bit!

The plan for tomorrow is to fit the front fairing frame to allow us to sort the rest of the wiring routing. It was pretty rusty with lots of paint flaking off. Most of this came off pretty easily with a wire wheel and I put a bit of 'rust converter' on the worst rust patches. Here it is before painting, it is now drying after 3-4 coats ready to go on the bike tomorrow hopefully!

 

I got the front fairing frame installed and think the wiring is now pretty much complete. The switchgear is pretty worn out and doesn't look great amongst everything else freshly painted.



Is taking it all apart and trying to respray an option or is it likely to never all go back together? If it is possible has anyone got any recommendations/ideas how to apply the yellow paint to the markings? I was considering doing a yellow base coat before spraying it all black and then carefully rubbing back the raised parts to yellow but I'm not sure how well that will work.

I've looked for replacements on eBay and they all seem in similar if not worse condition. The only other option would be to go for a different model that's aged a bit better. There's quite a few nice condition switchgear from CBR etc that seem to have aged a bit better however I'd guess this wouldn't be a plug and play option and may take a little bit of work.

 

That plastic doesn't "like" paint. It is very porous and just keeps absorbing it. Some Krylon Fusion might do a better job, but it's always going to look painted. I've tried a couple times. Best bet is to find something newer and re-pin the connector to match or cut and splice. I've done that A LOT.

 

try KleenFlo HoneyGoo Rubber care spray. Ive resurrected many a switch gear that were almost white with UV damage and it makes them like new again. Just spray and soak, spray and soak, repeat

http://www.kleenflo.com/products/809.html

for the yellow paint, you can wrap a piece of fabric on a small block of wood, dab it in yellow paint, then dab it on a scrap piece of paper to remove any excess and then dab on the switch gear to apply. make sure its a SMALL piece of wood and make sure the fabric is stretched tight.

Id recommend applying the paint before you use any product like the Honeygoo on the black plastic.