Trying to start the bike...

Well I got the bike put back together, but am having some trouble getting it to run. Hopefully someone out there with more experience with bikes can hear something in these clips that I can't. The easiest thing I can think of is to replace the spark plugs, which I'm pretty sure are original (1986)...

first attempt:


second attempt:



third attempt:



fourth/fifth attempts:



so, any ideas?!

cleaning the carbs

With the carb body separated from the bike, I was able to get started at getting rid of the varnish coating the insides, which at one point in time roughly five years ago, was fuel sitting in the float bodies. The carb body consists of 4 carbs, each with it's own float body. Here's a video from youtube that explains how carbs work: click here, and please get ready to put up with the intro in exchange for a very good explanation on how the carbs work. This video is about airplane carbs, and the setup on my bike is obviously different, but the basic function is the same. If you watched the video, you'll understand how it is so important to clean out the jets! Each carb in my bike contains 3 jets: the idle jet, the slow jet, and the main jet. Each will be necessary for proper fuel flow at different rpm's. The main problem areas were the jets, the float bowls, & the valve chambers (not described in the video). The float bodies were pretty full of crud, but the jets, being small brass fittings with very small holes, demanded thorough, detailed work.

I figured it'd be smart to do one carb at a time, so I wouldn't mix up one carb's parts with another's, as I was told on some models, each carb has slightly different size jet holes & valve springs. Also keep in mind, this is the first thing I'll have EVER take apart that runs on fuel. I'm literally working with zero experience, but 100% enthusiasm to learn how to do it right the first time! For every hour of work, I've probably researched for 3 or 4 hours.

Here's the first carb about 10 seconds after opening it up for the first time. YUCK, fuel varnish. Those black parts are brass.

Here's the first carb float body after spending 3 to 4 hours of scrubbing & soaking parts! Looks almost like you could EAT off of it! I wouldn't though.


The flip-side of the float body has the valve bodies. Each was easily taken apart and cleaned out.

Each of the carbs took around 3 or 4 hours work. Where'd I find all that time, you wonder? I'd wait till the kids were asleep on nights that Amanda was away from the house working. I'd take a baby monitor outside with me so I could hear if one of the kids had any trouble staying asleep. When Amanda would get home from work I was in the garage so I'd hear her, clean up shop and go inside with her. This was already a slow process, but the ONLY thing that really put a week-long halt to my work was a stripped screw on one of the float body covers. I couldn't get the last float body lid off because of this. Of course, this stripped screw was, as they all are, in a VERY difficult-to-reach spot. I had to use a skinny-shaft screwdriver, but the head on that was too thin to fill the screw head all the way, and it was already striped anyway. Here's a pic of the screw in question:


(It's the one in the red circle)

I had to go get a screw extractor set, and some P.B. Blaster (like WD-40 on steroids), and after a couple nights of trying with the screw extractor, the P.B. Blaster had finally done its job of soaking in there, and >pop-twist<, the screw came out! I have proof:


I claim victory over all stripped screws of the world! Bring your worst, I'll take them all out! ...literally!

Here's an explanation to why the neighbors probably had chills from the laughter they heard coming form my garage at 9:30pm:

This picture is of the float right after opening it up, BEFORE any cleaning.

I'd successfully disassembled 3 float bodies and every one of them was very dirty inside. This last float body, the only one I had any difficulty opening up, was the least dirty. Just have to love the irony! When I lifted the lid open, I just laughed. Loudly! Maybe it was the carb cleaner chemicals that were getting to me, maybe it's just my nature to more often laugh at myself, instead of getting red-faced and throwing tools around (although I do sometimes)...

So I finally got all four carbs & jets and valves cleaned up, and it all seems to work properly now. By the way, about the problem-screw... The way the screw extractor set works is two reverse-turning drill bits (i used a hand-held screwdriver, not a power drill). One bit drills a clean hole into the screw head, and the other had reverse-driving grippers which grab on to the new hole in the screw head. The custom is to throw this screw away and replace it with a new one. I could have done this, it would have been as simple as going to the hardware shop and spending some spare change. Instead, I clamped the screw in my workbench, got my jigsaw, and cut a groove across the top of what was left of the screw's head. I took the screw, and used a flat-head screwdriver to re-use the screw in a different hole of the float body lid (one which was much mroe easily accessible by a screwdriver for next time! Next up on the list, is I need to test the carb body for leaks (I will wait for some warmer weather to do this), then take care of reinstalling them and get the bike running! ...after some other problems on the bike are solved, of course.

step one: get the seat off...??!

When the bike was brought to my garage, it was tied down on a trailer, seat & side panels removed. What was the first thing I wanted to do when I first got it in my garage? Of course, I wanted to sit on it and get a feel for it! I picked up the bike's seat and figured out how to put it onto the frame. It clicked into place nice & secure. I sat onto it and it felt good. Then, my friend who was giving me the bike wanted to show me some parts of the bike which were under the seat... which brought me to my first question for the online forum I spoke of previously: how do I take the seat off?! If I'd had any more than a couple hours of experience owning a motorcycle, I would have been ashamed of asking, but seriously... the seat removing levers are really hard to find: a piece of grey metal on either side of the frame that don't look like they do anything at all! So after a couple days I had that figured out.

My first goal with this bike was to clean out the carburetors. The carb body has 4 float bodies, one per carb. The float body contains all the jets through which the gas flows, the floats, and float valve.

The way the float body works is very similar to the way a toilet water tank works. The fuel is fed via gravity from the fuel tank down into the carb float bodies, and once it fills up to the desired level in the float bodies, the floats - get this - float, and since they're attached to the float valve, they shut off the supply of gas. Then while the bike is running, the fuel is fed from the float bodies through the jets, and when the level in the float body decreases, the valve opens up and lets more fuel in, and so... forth...

The problem is: if you run the bike, then let it sit for 5 years without draining the float bodies, the fuel will have become a gooey green & crusty yellow varnish, coating the insides of wherever it was sitting, and horribly clogging all the jets and other small passageways through which the fuel needs to smoothly flow. The bike I had been given did not have it's float bodies drained. I knew I could count on the carbs being a complete mess, plus IF the carbs turned out free of varnish, it couldn't hurt giving it a cleaning, since this had never been done since it's manufacture in 1986.

In the service manual, te steps to remove the carb body form the bike are 1) remove seat & gas tank. 2) remove air cleaner box. 3)pull up on carb body, removing from rubber boots connecting it to the engine heads. 4) remove throttle & choke cables. 5) remove carb body from bike.

In my head i was thinking 1) well I figured out the seat thing, thank God for that! And the gas tank, shouldn't be too hard. It's already missing one bolt, so I just undo the other and pop, it'll come off... right? 2) Looks simple enough. 3) pull up on carb body... how far? Why? 4) what the heck do these cables look like, how DO I remove them once I find them, and why don't I see any instructions in the entire service manual about removing these cables? 5) I have to get those darn cables unhooked before I worry about removing the carb body!

So the way it went down was:
1) removing the gas tank.
The tank bolt unscrewed very easily, and I was ready to pull it away, when... hmmm... it won't lift up too far... I checked for more bolts I'd missed, but soon realized >duh< I had to disconnect the fuel lines!

2) remove the air cleaner box.
two simple bolts to unscrew, the airbox lifted right off! Easy!

this photo was taken just after removing the air cleaner box, looking down into the valve compartments of the carb body. Notice the yellowed varnish which was once fuel. This isn't even the inside of the float bodies, and there's already signs of gunk to clean!

3) pull up on carb body.
The carb body is connected to the engine heads by four rubber boots, each of which has a metal ring clamp on the carb side & engine side. So I loosened all eight ring clamps. Easy enough. I got a good hold on the carb body and pulled straight up. This is where most of the discussions I'd had with people online, and where in the service manuals, and on youtube, the carb body lifts up out of the rubber boots and makes it easier to reach the cables removed in the next step. My carb body didn't budge. I pulled again, harder. I'm not one to be boastful, but if you've seen me, you know I'm anything but scrawny. I was pulling so hard I was starting to think I was going to hurt myself!

I went to the forum where I could go further than just watching video tutorials or reading in the service manual how it's supposed to work. I posted my second question: "why won't my carb body budge?" Turns out, with the older models the rubber boots go all hard and don't like to flex open to let the parts free. Plus, it was about 40 degrees. Luckily, someone had a solution: fit a fullsize wonderbar (a flattened metal crowbar - fortunately I have one) between part of a frame and one spot on the carb body which could withstand the force (and not to slip and hit the delicate parts which would break and force me to spend hundreds on a new carb setup), and pry it gently out from the once-rubber-but-now-concrete boots... and it worked! I got the carb body separated form the engine heads after hours of 'gently' forcing it up and out!

4) remove throttle & choke cables form carb body.
My next few weeks were spent lifting the carb body as far up as I could and just looking around to see what these cables were and how they connected, and which screws I had to undo to get them detached, I spent a lot of time on the online forum asking all sorts of questions, and getting lots of answers telling me to "just look at it, and it'll make sense". This was the opposite of helping! To keep this long post from becoming ridiculously long (too late?!), I finally figured I could rotate the carb body up to one side, exposing the bottom of the carbs, making the cable attachments more accessible. I detached the choke cable first, it was easier being just one cable. The throttle cables were two cables that connected to a small wheel on the carb body. I had to loosen the bolts actually ON the cables to loosen them, allowing some slack so i could simply unhook them. In retrospect this was actually quite easy. The only thing that made it difficult was the fact that I have '0' experience and had to learn everything as I went! I'm convinced that the hardest part will be reattaching these cables when I want to reinstall the carb body.

The small wheel with the horizontal cable attached to it is the throttle wheel, from which I had to remove the cables. Very very hard to reach, but very rewarding once I got them out!

5) WOOHOOO! I was walking away from my bike toward my work bench for the first time while carrying the carb body with me!

I took these pictures as I disassembled the bike and ran straight to photoshop so I could label each tube / cable so when I woudl eventually be putting the whole thing back together I would be able to figure out what tube connects where. This was about 2 months ago now, and I've already forgotten, so I'm very glad I thought to do this!

labeled where one of the tubes connects to the air box.

The fuel lines that hook up t the fuel tank.

The fuel lines- where they connect to the petcock valve assembly.

My new dilemma: Now that I have the carb body away from the bike, I have to figure out how to clean this sucker out...

Getting a little help from my friends

There's always google & youtube for figuring out how to tie a tie or how to complete a perfect 180 degree hand-brake turn, or most other things I've needed to figure out in the past decade, but...

vfrworld.com is the best online forum I found for answers if you're working on a Honda interceptor of any age; new or used or 1st generation. If you're working on a vintage, it's well-known that the only economical way to run smoothly is to do ALL the work YOURSELF! This is my first bike, and I haven't more than one or maybe two friends who I can call for advice. A lot of info I needed was readily available in the service manual, but when the instructions are "1) pull carb body up. 2) disconnect throttle & choke cables. 3) remove carb body from bike", I needed a little extra help... like "what do the throttle & choke cables look like?" "What do I need to do to disconnect them?" And then "Now that I've got the cables disconnected, why won't the carb body budge when I try to pull it out?" This website was a life-saver, a money-saver, and all though I spent quite some hours in the garage, my wife appreciated it because we both knew without all this help, I'd still be on step #1, and grumpy ALL the time!

Not only has this forum helped me by providing advice on how-to's, allowing me to tap into their collective millenia of experience, a few members of the online community have gone a little further. You remember I mentioned the busted clutch side cover? Not only did a member on vfrworld.com help me figure out which part this is, but he said "dude I have a cover I'll give you, just pay for shipping." $15 for shipping, and he GAVE me a close-to perfect cover... a part which is over $100 to replace. This is what the 3 lb. chunk of metal looks like:
(This isn't THE cover I received, mine's actually in better condition than this one pictured from ebaymotors) So I was pretty happy about that!. The next piece of equipment I got through the users at this forum was a rear lift stand. This wasn't a donation, but I gained a great lesson from the deal... which ended up being a good one in the end. I'd spent 4 or 5 hours working on the bike the night before, leaning it on its kickstand. This one has no 'center stand', which is like an extra kickstand only with two feet, propping the rear tire off the ground and holding the bike upright, instead of leaning to one side. I was looking at my options, which were to either buy the parts and install a center stand, or, I could just buy a 'rear lift stand', which is more like a large lever with wheels which uses leverage to lift the rear end of the bike up and onto the flat side of the stand, working essentially like a center stand. Except it's a BUNCH easier to use, you don't have to ride around with it attached weighing the bike down, and if you can haggle the price down on ebay or an online forum, isn't too bad a hit to the wallet.

I'd been online all day looking at these rear lift stands. I didn't find a single one that would work on my bike model for under $140. I decided to write a post on this forum and someone offered me one they'd only used once or twice and asked me to make an offer. I replied: "how's $60 sound?" Him: "Well I think I spent $120, but $60's a fair offer." Then he went into how he needed my address to ship it to me, after he received a paypal payment. I wasn't afraid of the paypal stuff; paypal's only rough if you're trying to SELL something. And I'd pretty much already accepted the reality of having to give him my home address, I was after all asking him to send me something! What kind of hit me as a red flag was that he said he spent $120 on it, had only used it once or twice, but $60 is a fair offer...?! Either something was wrong or damaged on the stand, or he didn't spend $120! e mentioned the brand name of the stand, so I went to that brand's website and found new ones for....... $60... oh no... This is when I learned the lesson, "NEVER MAKE AN OFFER UNTIL YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE BUYING!" Now remember, I had been searching all day and hadn't found any for less than $140. But I guess that still doesn't excuse me for not asking him what he was trying to sell me before I said "DERRR, HOW'S UMMMMM $60 SOUND, DERRRRRRR?" So anyway I thought I had to find a diplomatic way to fix this or break this off; I didn't want to just not reply and tick him off. So I'd made my dumb offer, and he'd accepted it, and we were on our way towards scheduling a payment.
Me: "Hey, would you mind sending me a link to this manufacturer's website? I'd like to see what it is I'm getting from you."
Him: "I'll send you a photo of it once I get home tonight of you want."
Me: ok, he doesn't want me to see what he doesn't know I've already discovered. Why else wouldn't he just send me a link to the item on the manufacturer's site? Later on, "Hey I've found their site, and based on your description of what you've got, they're selling those new for $60. I see they are selling front and rear lift stand sets for $120, is that what you were thinking of?"
Him: "Oops, I guess I remembered $120 but only spent $60. My bad."
Me: "Well this is awkward, I wish I'd never made my original offer without seeing this website. Would it be out of the question for me to request to lower my bid to $30? Otherwise I might as well buy a brand new one."
Him: "I'll take that."
After this, I spent some time chatting with him about bikes, gained some common ground, cheered both of us up, etc... He was willing to take my deal, and I was willing to take his equipment for half the price of what they usually would be, and slightly less than the price of installing a center stand on my bike. Here's what arrived in the mail 3 days later:
a nearly perfect, fully functional rear lift stand, capable of lifting 700-800 lbs. My bike's around 400, so it's real easy on the stand, and I can lift it up it all by myself.

As they say in star wars, "This is where the fun begins!"

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...