Well, its been a bit over a year since I first saw the advert "VFR Rolling Chassis" for sale.
I'd like to take this opportunity to thank a number of people who have contreibuted one way or another to getting it from the original buch of boxes that I found it in, to what you see below.
First to Fish. There were at least three different items that I couldn't seem to find at all. And I don't think the machine would be going nearly as fast if it were still missing the sprocket mounting and cush drive. This is not to mention the help figuring out the problems along the way.
To Ben who saved me something over $200 in not having to buy complete carb kits.
To Kenn Engstrom who's ongoing comments and sense of humour make the idea of staying with the pack more fun.
You can click on any of these smaller pix for the full resolution version if you want it. You'll have to use your 'back' button to come back.
A little history here, for those of you that haven't heard my sob storyies to date: After riding a '93 VFR back when they were new, I was hooked. I've owned nearly 20 motorcycles to date, but most of them have seemed like second class next to the VFR.
In what I think was August of '99, I decided to get serious about getting one for myself. I started collecting all of the local advertising publications. Reading about twenty different motorcycle classifieds available through the net, and asking around for people who might know of one available. I quickly learned that the VFRs had held their value a little better than most of my other bikes. A newer one was outside of the budget unless I bought a wreck and rebuilt it from the ground up. This didn't keep me from calling on the wrecks, but they all sounded like they were going to be well outside of my capabilities; either financially or mechanically. I didn't want a bent frame, and I didn't want damaged forks.
It was about November that I came accross the ad in AAA Motorcycle online for the '86 'Rolling Chassis'. I tried calling the telephone number, but it was disconnected. I sent off an e-mail; but when I didn't hear back in a day or two, I kind of forgot about it.
I kept looking for the different ones, and joined the main list. Work kept me busy, and the list traffic got too big, so I resigned, and joined the smaller lists (that I'm still on).
Christmas came and went. In February of Y2K, I got an e-mail back asking me if I was still interested in the VFR for sale. I hadn't any idea which VFR it was referring to, so I sent back asking for the price. "Ohhhhh about $700" was the reply.
Two weeks later, a truckload of VFR parts was sitting in my garage. It seems that the bike was purchased new in the Sacremento area, ridden about 3000 miles, and low sided on the right. The owner, a novice rider, got scared, and parked the bike. It sat in a shed for the next six years. Then a second owner bought it with plans to fix it back up. His work schedule kept him and the bike on the move. He transfered from Sacremento to San Diego to Portland to Seattle, packing the bike into a truck and moving it along each time.
He then bought a Ducati, and lost interest in the VFR. Parts began to dissapear. The upper fairing went. One of the lowers. The headlamp, seat, airbox, windscreen, subframe, and more. Then I got it.
I don't want to pretend that it is perfect, or that it is completely stock anymore, but I'm damned pleased with it. The non-stock paint work is obvious, but also different are the seat cover (Sargent's), the front turn signals (lockhart philips), rear turn signals (Hurricane), and mirrors (aftermarket replacement for CBRF2). I did a tonne of bodywork, and fabbed mounts for the mirrors that connect into the front fairing stay, and for the rear turn signals. I've tried to show a couple closeups of the final mirror mounts. If anyone is interested in duplicating them, I have a drawing of the bracket that I made.
At this time, the bike has just under 5K miles on it. It needs the carbs synched up a little better than I could do by ear, and the right rear carb runs a little too rich for some reason. Overall, however, it actually runs out very well, and has been a fun project
As always, comments are apprecieated and flames are cheerfully ignored. You can e-mail me: rh@pcez.com
Older info
When I went looking for mirrors for my "Mongrel VFR" I had two kinds of luck: bad and worse. The bad luck was that there did not seem to be any aftermarket mirrors made to fit my '86 VFR700F2. At least none that were available through my local dealers. The worse luck was that the only place that (I called that) could find stock mirrors in the time frame that I needed my bike ready was Mike's Cycle Salvage of Salem, OR. They only wanted $8.00 more than Honda wanted for them new, and they had the advatages of being "broken in", and Mike's wouldn't let me pick the color. Attempts at sarcasm asside, I was at Rose City Motorcycle, talking to George (one of the parts guys, and a real nice guy), and we got to wondering if there really was enough "meat" in the VFR fairing to support the newer VFR style mirrors. In the interest of learning, George made me a "real good deal" on a set of Emgo aftermarket mirrors that claimed to fit the 90-96 CBR, and 90-93 VFR. I won't say it was easy, but here they are. I kinda like 'em. They also stick out far enough to actually see something behind my 6'2" 220 lb frame.
Here is a closeup of how the Emgo fits up to the fairing. As you can see, the plastic cover does not mate as close to the windscreen as I would like. From what I have heard, this is common even with the bikes that these mirrors are supposed to fit. After I get the rest of the bodywork done, and the new paint on, I plan to replace these with original Honda mirrors. Several of the wrecking yards that I called said that they had the CBR mirrors available, and the price was very close to the Emgo aftermarket price. I think the black mirrors are kind of sexy on the bike. Just wait 'till you see it with the custom blue paint job that I have planned.
For those looking for the how-to; the basic approach was to put a spacer under the faring to support it at the height of the original mirrors. I made mine out of a couple of spare bushings that originally held the stock mufflers up just below the passenger pegs. A fender washer cut to fit the shape of the fairing, and painted white to sorta match with a 1/4"-20 screw down through the middle then nutted on the bottom made them quite stable. Enlarging the last windscreen mounting hole to fit the spacer of the mirror was no problem, but measuring (accurately) the distance to the hole that would fit forward of that was a bit more of a challenge. I first tried just measuring it by laying the mirror in place, but I wasn't getting the line right, and then measuring with calipers failed because the angle needed to tilt slightly down. I finally settled for the "fudge factor" and drilled the hole undersize where the calipers said it should be, and then reamed it out in the right direction with a file. I put a couple of 1" washers on the inside to help distribute any stresses that it was putting on the plastic, but I'm not sure that it is really needed. When I take all of the plastic off to paint it, I think I will make a one piece steel support that will wrap around both sides of the windscreen, support the fairing, and bolt to the stays all at once. If there is sufficient interest, I could fab a few of these for folks on the list. Right now, the mirrors are stable up to about 100 MPH. Above that, they begin to flap with the wind; not enough to damage the plastic, but enough to make them difficult to see out of. I have had the beast to 130 indicated, and they didn't come off or crack the plastic, so I consider the experiment a success
