1985 VF500 Interceptor

scott s said:
Can you put in a clutch master cylinder rebuild kit with the m/c still on the bars?
Mine is cleaned, flushed, bled and working, but seems to be leaking a little.
The Allen head bolts are stuck tight and starting to round out. It looks like I can install a rebuild kit in place. Possible?

Maybe it would be easiest to use an easy-out on that Allen head bolt and then just reassemble w/ new bolts.
 
Drill the head off the allen bolt?


Also, about your throttle cable adjustment question - install / adjust the cables before you slot the carbs back in the boots.
 
The bolts holding the master cylinders to the bars were hopelessly stuck. The clutch master was dry and full of crystals, but cleaned up, bled and operated properly. HOWEVER....it eventually started leaking after a few days.
The bolts just rounded out, and the ones on the brake side were going to be just as bad.





A friend came over and used his Matco extractor set to get the bolts out. They were stuck TIGHT. Funny thing is, only one of the four showed any corrosion.
I had ordered rebuild kits for both, but canceled the order because new master cylinders are less than rebuild kits.
The clutch is 14mm and the brake is 16mm. Most replacement sets I see are both 16mm. What would that mean for the clutch side?
 
hillsy said:
Drill the head off the allen bolt?


Also, about your throttle cable adjustment question - install / adjust the cables before you slot the carbs back in the boots.

See post above.

I also read about doing the cables and adjustments before installing them into the manifolds. Slightly less terrified now.
 
I also degreased the engine and took some sand paper strips and cleaned the exhaust. I read a tip about using aluminum foil to mask the engine. I'll let the exhaust dry out a bit, treat it with rust converter, then spray it down with ceramic heat paint.

Be-fore:



During:



Before:



During:

 
I hear about people wrapping their bikes....am I doing it right?




At least the aliens or the government can't see me know. 8)

Nah, I made a brief attempt to loosen and remove the rear exhaust nuts and quickly decided that IF I could get them off, I'd probably never get them back on. I read about this on the internet and gave it a try. I think it'll work OK. The exhaust was sanded down and now has three coats of ceramic heat paint on it. I'll cure it in once I get the bike running.
Oh, and got the oil and filter changed today, too.
 
Got the valves adjusted on today. Man, that was.....fun....



The good news is that the lobes, cam chains, etc., all look beautiful. No wear at all that I can see, Everything internally that I've seen on this engine is awesome.



The job would have gone even quicker if I didn't have to spend an hour trying to fish out this damn wrench. It slipped, dropped, slid and fell....RIGHT into the oval hole on the INSIDE of the swing arm! My buddy was actually successful in fishing it out for me using a couple of magnets. I was thiiiiiissss close to removing the damn swing arm!

 
Carbs should be done tomorrow. To be honest, it gives me the heeby-jeebies seeing the parts like this. I would have used Tupperware, ziploc baggies, etc., but my carb guys knows his way around these things and is something of a mad scientist. I've yet to get a set of carbs back from him that weren't flawless.

He said I made a good call in pulling them. All O-rings, bowl gaskets and fuel tees were shot. Otherwise, not too bad. "After" pics coming soon.


 
The cowl had a couple of broken tabs. One was already missing, the other was only held on by the bolt. My Dad did a couple of repairs for me....




... and I hit it with a little white paint. Both of these areas are pretty much invisible when installed, but now they're fixed!

 
Heard from my carb guy tonight. Carbs are done! Now you see why I use him, especially on carbs this complicated. I still do some carbs at home, but if they're even a little bit iffy I just drop them off.
I plan on picking them up in the morning and hopefully getting them back on the bike in the next few days.

Before:





After:







 
Carbs are in! Now to just get the cooling system back on and filled and install the new battery. You might also notice that I cleaned up the Kerker mufflers a little bit, too.


 
The good new is, SHE LIVES!!!! And once it was running, all those weird electrical things started working. The headlight is still a little hinky. It's got something to do with the little switch inside that turns off the headlight when starting. The little spring/pin doesn't spring back as it should. I sprayed a little WD40 in there and I can make the headlight work. Hopefully, it'll get better in time.
The engine sounds smooth as silk with zero valve train noise. No smoke or leaks. I'll keep tweaking the carbs 'til I get them just right.
I had to bypass the fuel pump to make it run. I'm seriously considering leaving it bypassed and just unplugging it, unless someone can tell me why I shouldn't.
It feels good to have a few things go right!
 
scott s said:
I had to bypass the fuel pump to make it run. I'm seriously considering leaving it bypassed and just unplugging it, unless someone can tell me why I shouldn't.

great job! I cannot give you any first hand experience on not running one, but I did a good amount of research on my 1000 about deleting it. its a mixed bag on opinions, but many say that if your hard on the throttle you will starve it of fuel, it just cant keep up gravity fed. I ended up replacing mine and running it anyways to be safe. I guess best option would be run it without and see what happens. Very nice job on the clean up, its really a neat little bike!!!
 
The fuel pump doesn't seem to work. I'm OK with bypassing it, but I'd like to know the proper procedure for doing it. What to unplug, etc. Or....if it's really beneficial to run it, what replacement are you using?
OR..... now that I've primed the carbs and made it run, should I try hooking it back up? I don't hear it doing anything. Didn't even see fuel in the filter until I bypassed it.

Also, I've only got ~1700cc of coolant in it so far, including the overflow. I've ran it, burped it, squeezed the hoses, etc. It's full to the rim of the neck when not running and drops down some when it is. Should I continue trying to get the last ~300cc in there?
 
I rode it today! Stayed in the neighborhood and kept it under 5K RPM, but so far so good!
The replacement front master cylinder works great but the switch is crap. Brake light stays on most of the time. And still no neutral light (and neutral is a tiny bit hard to find when coming to a rolling stop).
No complaints, though. I think I'll like it!

Even though I tested the fan during the rebuild and know it works, I never heard it come on. The temp was slow to climb and never reached halfway across the gauge. I did make several short trips and it's overcast and cool here today.

And I noticed that even though the '85 calls for 2 turns out on the mixture screws, it seems to like 2.5 better. I'll go through the procedure in the manual for setting them later on. At two turn out, there's a fine line between a 1,000 RPM idle (or barely above) and a 2,000 RPM idle. No air leaks...I checked. At 2.5 turns it sounds better and I can get an ~1,100 RPM idle or a tick more. I'll keep adjusting them until I can get 1,300 RPM or so, per the manual.




 
scott s said:
The cowl had a couple of broken tabs. One was already missing, the other was only held on by the bolt. My Dad did a couple of repairs for me....

Can you go into any detail on how you repaired the plastic on the cowl? I have some plastics to repair for a restoration and not sure of the best way to go about it. Those repairs on yours look pretty solid.

Bike looks great.
 
I'd have to ask my Dad. I know he used an ABS repair kit and some scrap ABS.
 
Fixed (for the most part) the front brake switch and neutral light. I was about to take a break from this thing yesterday, today I'm loving it!
 
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