So, I
saw this bike listed on Facebook Marketplace for sale, right before
the owners were moving to TN. I had seen the bike for sale on
Craigslist and eBay auctions in the past year, then it disappeared
for a while. Now it was back...
Ad
text:
This
is a very clean bike. You could ride it down Ortega or park it in
your man cave. Over $5,000 went into making this bike so pristine.
It has been garaged, It has CA plates but currently in Non Op status.
I have pink slip.
Well,
with the Coronavirus thing happening, all there is to do is work on
motorcycles and/or buy/sell some. I had worked the herd down from 5
to 2, but that situation doesn’t last for long around here. My
brother, Jim, had a 1984 VF500F Interceptor for a number of years and
I wound up working on it a few times. Honda changed the carburetor
calibrations several times, plus put out a TSB on “drive-ability”
for the 1984 models, which carried 102-105 main jets and even
different needles between front and rear carburetors. In 1985, the
main jet sizes dropped to 90 front and rear with all the same
needles. I tried to get the update kit for my brother’s bike, but
Honda wanted to know if the bike had excessive leak-down, which this
one did, probably due to lean jetting affecting the valves. I wound
up buying one of the takeout engines (Honda had some bearing problems
with early models and replaced whole engines under warranty) and
replaced the heads with fresh parts and put a DynaJet carb kit in it
at the same time. Wow, that bike was fun to drive after those
upgrades!
So,
back to the little white shark 1985 VF500F Interceptor for sale….
They dropped the price down a few hundred dollars on the ad, but when
I spoke to the owner, he offered it for an additional $300 off,
considering I was making a 180 mile round trip from San Diego to
Mission Viejo, CA in Orange County. I was lead to believe that the
bike had been running a few months back and that he put stabilizer in
the gas tank. He offered a OEM shop manual and tons of receipts for
work done in the past, including new head gaskets from Cometic being
installed.
Dazzled
by the amount of work done to the bike and the overall look, I
over-rode my internal guidance about not buying dead bikes for too
much money and drove up and bought the thing. You could see that
massive amounts of work had gone into the bike over the years. The
whole chassis was powder-coated as were the engine covers and even
the water tubes that transfer coolant across the engine. The wheels
were powder-coated and the bodywork was all refinished in “Shark
white” paint. Well, what the heck.. how bad could it be, given the
story behind the build from the owner who had had the bike for 5
years. Well, it was worse than I thought, but somehow expected.
The
battery was stone-dead, due to a lack of battery acid/fluid which had
never been maintained. I bought a battery from the local auto parts
store and had to service it before use, so it sat overnight on the
charger. The next day, with a fresh battery installed, I checked the
gas tank and found it empty! I went to the 7-11 and bought a couple
of gallons of premium fuel and filled the tank. I turned the ignition
switch on and moved the petcock knob from OFF to Reserve and hit the
starter button. It burbled to life after a few moments, but then I
noticed a pool of gasoline beneath the bike! I turned everything off
and looked carefully at the carburetors for signs of an overflowing
float valve, but nothing was noticed there. Looking further back, I
saw fuel drooling down the rear cylinder, right below where the
petcock would be located on the tank. Off comes the seat and the two
bolts holding the tank on and with the fuel line disconnected, it was
obvious that the fuel leak was coming from the petcock seals.
I
had to drain out the gasoline and then turn the tank up to access the
petcock body. It is held on with 2 bolts and comes right off once the
fuel knob is removed. I first thought that the little sediment bowl
was leaking, but with the petcock on the bench I could see that the
normally riveted petcock plate was held on with a couple of screws.
The internal gaskets on these petcocks are the same 4 hole gaskets as
were used on the 1960’s Honda Super Hawks and Scramblers.
Fortunately, I had an aftermarket kit in stock and borrowed the 4
hole gasket to use on the Interceptor petcock. It didn’t fit quite
right, at first, but with a little bit of pushing, it finally seated
down in place and the outer plate was reattached. I put gas back
into the tank, while it was sitting on the ground and there were no
leaks, so I put the tank back on the bike.
It
fired up again, with no leaks, this time. I put the seat back on and
decided to try the bike on a test ride around the block. While it
sounded throaty with the little cone mufflers attached, it seemed to
be running on all four cylinders until the throttle was cracked open.
It stumbled and bucked and felt like it was running out of gas, so I
pulled some choke on and it improved slightly. A few more blocks down
the road and the bike continued to run rough and irregular. Even with
full choke, it wouldn’t take full-throttle, so I marched it back to
the garage, knowing I was about to face what I feared the most;
carburetor cleaning!
I
have had horrible experiences with a 1988 VF400 NC30 JDM bike a few
years back and it never really ran well, even after several
dis-assemblies and parts replacements. Those carburetors have a pivot
bolt that holds the bodies together, but allows the V to be flexed a
little bit in order to fit them back into the manifolds. The VF500
does not have that feature and once the mounting plate is removed,
the whole rack of carbs kind of falls apart, losing the connection
tabs that synchronize the carburetor shafts. I threw the whole pile
into a drain pan and pulled each float bowl, cleaning the jets and
checking float levels. I noticed that the main jets were #94 from a
Dyno-Jet kit, designed for the 1985 model carburetors. The needles
had no marks and the clips were at the #2 notch from the top. There
were notes in the shop manual about the jetting and needle clip
settings, which verified that this was a kitted carb set.
I
really didn’t find a “smoking gun” problem with the carbs,
although you could see that old fuel had been left in the bowls for
an extended period of time. The bike’s registration ran out in
2018, so that was probably the last time it ran, anyway. I moved the
clips down a couple of clicks and reassembled everything again.
Getting the linkages back together was a challenge and I finally put
the mounting plate back on the carbs, to help hold everything
together. Unfortunately, the throttle cables are difficult to install
with everything connected, so I eased the mounting plate back off to
allow the carbs to reconnect to the manifolds, but then the linkages
came adrift and the whole event just got very ugly. It probably took
an hour to get the carbs into the manifolds and get the linkage tabs
reconnected with the little springs set just right. Finally, at 7:30
PM I got the bike to fire back up again, but I left it set with the
air filter housing removed and gave it all a rest until the next
morning.
The
next day…
After
reassembly, the bike fired up on choke, sounded “okay” and it ran
for about 10 minutes, but then suddenly lost power and stalled. I
checked the gas cap for signs of a vacuum blockage, leaned the bike
over to the left side for a moment and then it started back up,
limping back home slowly, stalling twice more before finally
returning home. I had only put 2 and a half gallons of fuel in it and
had run it around on several trips, but when the fuel tap was opened
to ON or RESERVE, I could see some fuel flowing through the inline
gas filter. Still, something was seriously wrong. Was it dying
electrics or some kind of fuel flow issue?
As I
pondered the possibilities, I noticed a couple of harness wiring
connectors that weren’t connected to anything. Finally, it dawned
on me that these bikes came with an electric fuel pump one of which
was sitting in the parts box that came with the bike. Despite what
appears to be a gravity-fed fuel delivery possibility when you look
at the relationship of the tank to carburetors, Honda thought
differently and put a pump in the system. I fetched the pump, read
the book about how to jumper the fuel cut relay connector (fuel cut
relay was missing, unfortunately) and the pump rattled to life. The
next task was to re-plumb the fuel lines from the petcock, back to
the pump which is located a couple of feet away, then return the fuel
lines back to the carburetor fittings. Honda has an elaborate system
of pre-curved fuel lines, fuel line connectors, an in-line filter and
other fittings, all of which were missing.
I
tried to work out a deal with an eBay seller who had the whole used
fuel line system, but he wanted $35 for shipping the fuel lines and a
tool box. We wound up in a stalemate, so other options were needed.
Some 1/4” hose from the auto parts store started the process and I
discovered that some 10-12 gauge electrical butt connectors could
make fuel line connectors to use in the interim. Perhaps, that the
whole issue, all along, was just a lack of fuel feed to all the
carburetors. I had used an infrared temp gauge to check the header
pipe temperatures and both right side cylinders were colder than left
side cylinders. Being that the coils fire front and rear cylinder
pairs, that eliminates a lack of spark to the ignition system.
In
an effort to eliminate other possibilities, I removed the radiator to
access the spark plugs and allow the use of a compression gauge to
check engine health. The speedometer was also not working and when
the fairing cowl was removed, the speedometer showed signs of being
broken and 1984 VF500F was written on the back of the meter unit,
consistent with coming from a salvage yard. Instead of a nicely-built
custom bike, it was looking more like a bitsa-bike instead. More eBay
shopping turned up a good used speedometer and a few other necessary
items.
The
newer 1986 Speedometer came in and installed fairly easily, but the
first test ride yielded the same outcome; no speedometer function.
Pulling the lower fairing allowed for use of a small floor jack to
fit underneath the oil filter and provide a lift point to pivot the
bike on the centerstand. Removing the front wheel hardware just
enough to remove the speedometer drive brought clarity to the
problem. The plastic/nylon speedometer gear teeth were stripped along
the edge where the spiral gear contacts the drive sprocket teeth.
It’s not a commonly found part, but Partzilla had one that arrived
with a $30 price in a few days. Meanwhile I decided to order a new
set of tires and a pair of good used OEM mufflers to take some of the
roar out of the exhaust note.
In a
now-normal bit of confusion, I wound up with a pair of right side
mufflers and nothing for the left. The eBay seller who had mislabeled
the muffler, took it back for refund and another left side was
tracked down and purchased. New muffler packings were also ordered as
they seldom survive muffler refitting.
The good news is that the bike fired up and loves having a fuel pump in the system. It pulled to redline in lower gears, pulled well at mid-range, shifts well and rides with authority. This was the bike I remembered from back in the 1980s!
Really
“tired” of this…
The
May 5th tire order, from Chaparral Motors in San Bernadino, via eBay,
seemed to go well at first, with promised delivery in a couple of
days. What showed up was ONE rear tire with labels attached, and some
Fed-Ex messages about a damaged bar code, which was apparently
reconstructed. There were no notes about the second tire. I tried to
contact Fed-Ex via phone but was put on endless wait times. I tried
to contact Chaparral Motors to find out what had happened to the
order. Three times, I was on hold for 30 minutes, then gave up using
the “call-back” option with a selected time for the return call.
Well, that didn’t happen for over a day. I tried to use an old CS
email message to hit them directly, but that didn’t have any
response. I was assuming that Fed-Ex had somehow lost the other tire,
but usually, when a pair of tires are shipped to me, they are banded
together, which these were not. Finally, Chaparral called back from
the automated system. The woman didn’t know who I was or what the
issue was as there is no tracking of the calls in as to what the issues
are. She said that there were only three people available to return
calls and they were backed up for over a day, so far. She pulled up
my order account information and noted that “We didn’t have the
16” tire in stock, so I’ll have to order it now.”
So,
now I have lost 2 days waiting with the bike off its wheels waiting
for fresh rubber. A couple of hours later, another woman called from
Chaparral off of the second “call-back” message I had left and I
asked her to verify that a tire was ordered for me. She said that it
was coming from another vendor warehouse in California, but the
invoice had been sent for the purchase. From that point, things
spiraled downwards for several more days. You can see that the tire
was ordered and shipped, via UPS this time. It had to come from
Visalia, CA which is a good 300 miles from San Diego. Tracking showed
it coming down to LA overnight, then stalled out due to unexpected
delays.
05/12/2020 2:14
AM.
|
Chula
Vista, CA, United States
|
Destination
Scan
|
||
05/11/2020 1:30
PM.
|
Chula
Vista, CA, United States
|
Delivery
will be delayed by one business day.
|
||
05/10/2020 10:34
AM.
|
Chula
Vista, CA, United States
|
Arrival
Scan
|
||
05/09/2020 9:53
AM.
|
Vernon,
CA, United States
|
Your
package has been delayed due to events beyond our control. We're
adjusting delivery plans as quickly as possible.
|
||
05/09/2020 8:07
AM.
|
Vernon,
CA, United States
|
Departure
Scan
|
||
05/09/2020 12:53
AM.
|
Vernon,
CA, United States
|
Arrival
Scan
|
||
05/08/2020 9:16
PM.
|
Visalia,
CA, United States
|
|||
|
Past Event
|
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|
The tire shipped on Friday, stalled in LA, then arrived in Chula
Vista (12 miles away from me) on Sunday morning. I had gotten
delivery messages from UPS, first for a Saturday delivery before 9PM.
They don’t work on Sundays, so I expected the delivery on Monday,
which was indicated in the next UPS message. That didn’t happen
either, even though the tire was sitting in the depot. Every time I
checked the delivery information, there was only an arrival scan, not
a destination scan or out for delivery message. Later on Monday, the
“delivery delayed by one business day” message showed up on the
tracking log.
