It was my wife’s 60th birthday t’other week and she had been going on for a good while about wanting a dog. I didn’t really want one as I found it really hard to get over losing the last one. I guess we had waited long enough and it’s always good to have a workshop companion popping in and out so we ended up with the cutest little puppy the world has ever known. I have to say it hasn’t increased my work rate any.
Anyways, in between having my feet bitten, the floor being peed on and everything soft being stolen I managed to get a bit more work done on the VFR. I received the new pistons and seals for the front calipers so they got put back together and put on the bike, they got bled and the old fluid was flushed through as it looked pretty nasty. The lid of the reservoir was a sod to get off as one screw was rounded and even the impact driver wouldn’t shift it. I squirted some WD on it and left it for an hour before heating the body up with a hot air paint stripper and it then obliged and loosened.
Both calipers bled fairly easily and I now have a good, firm lever. Just one comment here – when you do this job you may notice more brake lever travel than before – this is due to the new seals causing the pistons to retract when the pressure is released. With old seals that cause the brakes to bind the pistons do not retract and so the pistons requires very little travel before the brakes are hard on. With the new seals causing the pistons to retract the lever has to be pulled in further before the pads contact the disc. I mention this as I know a lot of people spend hours trying to bleed the system so the brakes felt like they did before – they won’t because now they are working properly.
Last time I mentioned about the rear brake switch bracket that was missing. I ordered one off ebay – a switch complete with the bracket as I couldn’t find a listing for just the bracket. Sadly the seller couldn’t find it so cancelled the order – no big deal, these things happen. I ordered another one and sadly the guy told me that the switch he had shown as having a bracket with it didn’t. So another refund, I gave up and made one. Very simple bit of stainless sheet with a 14mm hole for the switch and a 6mm hole to fix the bracket to the footpeg hanger.
Next job was to fix the broken bolt in the engine cover – it had snapped quite deep in the hole. Another handy hint here – find a drill that is a tightish fit in the hole – this will guide the drill in such a way that you can be sure it is central. All you want to do here is create a v shape in the end of the broken off bolt – just go in about 2 or 3 mm. Now you have a good starting point for the tapping size drill. You can find the tapping drill size by way of google or whatever, don’t be tempted to use one that looks about right – only one size is right. Too big and you will have a thread that is easily stripped, too small and there is a very good chance of breaking the tap in there and then you are in a whole world of pain. The tapping size drill for a 6mm bolt is 5mm, so that is what I used. It was then tapped and a bolt of the right size bunged in and the job was a goodun. I have probably made it sound harder than it was, the whole job took less than 15 minutes.
That’s about all I will do on this one for now, I don’t see any point in even trying to sell it much before next spring, they just don’t sell at this time of year unless you give them away and it’s now to good a bike to do that.
I bought a Honda Vigor 650 single cylinder the other day so I thought I would have a bash at getting that running – it had been off the road for a while and had a flat battery. It took me a while to work out how to get at it as the seat was held on by two bolts rather than the more usual lock arrangement. The bike is a single owner low mileage example and was in surprisingly good condition, I understand the owner had fallen ill and been unable to ride it so it had sat idle for a couple of years. I put some fresh fuel in it, connected up a battery and she fired up first prod, these Hondas are remarkable things really.
I will give that a full going over next time. Seeya.
