January 9, 2010

The 'viffer'

Here is my 1986 Honda vf500f, or Interceptor.



As delivered by one of my best friends. 23,000 miles, which isn't bad considering that's less than 1,000 miles per year on average. It had unfortunately spent 5 of those years sitting in a barn, without being drained. The first project I had was to spend a few days just looking at it and figuring it out. Thankfully, the friend who gave me this bike, out of an interest in getting me involved in something mechanically fun & rewarding, also gave me the service manual (without which I would be lost completely). I found it was missing a few screws, some bolts needed replaced, cracks in the plastic fairing & cowling covers, etc... cosmetic things.

One of the main problems the bike was presented with to me was a damaged side engine cover, the clutch side cover.


The bike had been dropped by a previous owner while riding, so as it scraped along the road it shaved off a lot of metal, and put a few cracks in this metal cover. The previous owner had used J.B. Weld or bondo to glue it back together, and I think it had worked for a while; but while it was sitting for the 5 years, the oil had worked its way through and started leaking.

This was only the tip of the iceberg, but as I'm a little way through, every part I've needed has been embarrassingly cheap (embarrassingly, because most of the time the shipping charge is much more than the part costs). The other 'big' items will be a new battery, might need a new r/r unit, a new rear tire (both tires had dry-rot [dry cracks around tire walls] but my friend also gave me a new spare front tire), and whatever else I haven't found that I need yet!

stay tuned...

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