Motorcycles

(Or, how I bought a VF500 and survived*)

*thus far

Genesis

Since we moved to France, living above, and well within earshot of, one of the most motorcycled roads in Europe, it's been driving me mad having to rely on a 20 year old Renault 9. After all, I spent too many years to mention blatting around London on various bikes, and the concept of being without powered 2 wheel transport is basically alien to me. So, I was looking for bikes. No matter what, really, but my preference was smallish and sporty. Of course, here the general preference seems to be enormous and traily, and mostly 'supermotardised' - i.e. with really ugly plastics, upside-down forks of dubious provenance, no speedo, projector headlamps and foul paint jobs. Not my thing really. So when I saw the ad for the VF500, it seemed like just the thing. 500cc producing roughly the same power as my old FZR, reckoned to be pretty nimble for their age, and not too ugly. So we went off to look at it.

We got there to find a rather tidy looking bike (16 year old plastics but what do you expect), with non-pitted forks, clean, non-leaky engine, runs nicely without rattles, new tyres and chain; I was pretty much sold there and then. After a test ride, I was a little less happy. Motor is fine, torquey and with enough power to lift the front wheel should we feel like being stupid, but the front brakes are about as powerful as those on a C90, and require massive lever movement to do anything at all, and the rear shock is absolutely shot. No damping whatsoever. A slight downward renegotiation of price, and away we go.

An hour and a quarter of motorway later, I'm at home and the bike has earned the name 'Tigger'. Nothing to do with stripes, but it's definitely "bouncy, bouncy, bouncy, bouncy, fun fun fun fun fun". 120mph on the motorway was easily attained, without any signs of weaving (or, worse, tank-slapping) despite the state of the shock, which bodes well for the state of the bearings and other cycle parts, but once we got onto the twisties life became slightly less amusing. The forks need more air, and I was having to drive in a way that didn't unload and reload the shock (difficult on Alpine roads) due to the massive bounces and wobbles that occurred if I did. Hmmmm.

Still, the engine's still oil-tight, not smoking or rattling, and everything else apart from the front brakelight switch works fine. It's nice to ride, doesn't vibrate, and the mirrors show more than just my elbows. Sweet. On top of all this, I've saved my 7 years insurance bonus (I hadn't been insured for a bike for nearly 2 years, and all my hard earned bonus was about to disappear), found a good insurer, and become a member of the FFMC ("Federation FranÁais des Motards en ColËre" - literally, "French Angry Bikers Association", sort of a cross between the BMF and the MAG in the UK).

Running in

So, what's the first thing you do when you get a new bike? Google like mad. The usual stuff comes up - Honda V4 cam problems, 1980s Honda camchain problems (remember, this is a V4, so it has 2 of the damn things, along with 2 of Honda's legendary cheesecake tensioners), some good reports of performance, that sort of stuff. The majority, though, is to do with the cams. And how expensive they are to replace. And how getting more oil to the top end might help. Hmmm. I'm still waiting for the service manual to arrive, so I can't really rip the engine to bits yet - It seems to be running OK without too much noise so I'm hoping the cams are still OK. We'll see, though. It could be that the last owner just shoved a load of the thickest oil he could find in to mask the noise - I have £20 worth of fully synthetic waiting to go in when I get hold of the relevant oil filter (yes, always change the oil on a new bike, even if the previous owner swears blind he just changed it) so we'll see how it sounds when that's done.

If the cams are looking iffy, it'll be another job over the winter to do an oil feed mod, but that's scary - tap into the main oil gallery and feed high-pressure oil to the head through external oil lines. I'm not at all sure about drilling holes in my crankcase, but if it's necessary...

Without the service manual, I can't fix up the shock, either. Apparently it's refillable, and I've found instructions on how to do that, but I don't currently know the volume of oil to put in. It'll have to wait. On a positive note, though, a knackered rear shock can save your licence - I wobbled my way round a corner yesterday to find a couple of Gendarmes with a radar gun - with a working shock there's no way I would have been doing below the speed limit... As it was, I smiled serenely and trundled off into the distance.

I have replaced the brake light switch - I suspect the prices here vary on how English you are, as a result of which I ended up paying Ä20. Boooooooo! Fixing up the brakes is another priority - I'm fairly sure the previous owner (who had changed the fluid) hadn't bled the system properly, hence the sponginess. Brakes worry me not, though - bleeding brakes is something you get rather good at after 5 years in London with an FZR400 - 1980s Yamaha calipers seize up annually under London conditions requiring a complete brake stripdown.

Otherwise, it's running me in nicely. The (1980s Honda) gearshift is as clunky as expected - it's not quite a Harley, but... - and not helped by the fact the sidestand is too close to the shift lever, a combination of long legs and duff design. Handling is sweet enough, although the steering could do with some sharpening - I'll wait until I've sorted the shock before I start dropping the forks in the triples (common enough practice) and I may have to get on the lookout for some progressive springs for the front, given my love of hard cornering. The rubber (Bridgestone BT45s) seems well enough up to the job, although with the suspension as it is I haven't pushed it too close to the edge (there's still 2mm of virgin rubber on each side). I always loved Bridgestones before, so I see no reason why these shouldn't be equally nice to use. They're a bit skinny, though - 110s on the rear - but the only simple solution to that is swapping the wheels with pair from an early CBR600 and that is going to be expensive, as well as messing with the geometry in a way I'm not at all sure of.

Those big ugly (stock) indicators are going to have to go, though, and be replaced by a set of nice teardrops. Along with the excessively blue Ermax screen, which, as I may have mentioned, is very, very blue. And despite the stock exhaust being technically fine (except for a bashed about collecter - looks like some fuckwit used it as a jacking point), it sounds like a hairdryer, so I'm looking for a nice aftermarket one in the breakers. Need noise.

Servicing - some notes

OK. I changed the oil and filter, which was a lot easier than expected - a simple oilchange can be effected without even taking the fairings off, although the filter does need the lowers dropped out. All in all, about a 10 minute job, and that included finding and cleaning my oil tray. The oil that came out was filthy black as expected, looks like a couple of thousand miles worth of usage at least, but of the correct consistency (i.e. not soup) and had practically nothing in the way of metal filings in it, so this bodes reasonably well for the internals of the engine. As ever, though, we'll see when I take the rocker covers off. With new oil she runs up the rev range faster and generally feels more 'eager', although with the continued awful state of the suspension, eager is not necessarily a good thing...

Finally received my Clymer manual from Amazon (4 weeks from order to delivery) but it doesn't give all the details needed for refilling the shock - apparently the only thing a rider can do with a shock is take it out, look at it, replace the o-rings on the schrader valve, and deliver it to a dealer for refilling. Bugger that. So, out she comes, and the oil is being replaced by me. Some notes follow...

Removing the shock.

Followed the Clymer manual instructions pretty much, with the following additions / deviations:

Didn't support the motor on blocks - rather suspended the rear subframe from the beams in the roof of my garage. More solid, and can get the rear end higher. I suspect the job could be done with the bike simply on the centrestand, but removing the shock is going to be more tricky.

Manual calls for removal of both silencers, but the only one that actually needs removing is the right hand side. On top of that, if your bike is like mine (and, at 16 years old, I suspect it will be), removing the silencers is going to be a bloody awkward job, involving industrial quantities of WD-40. Basically, remove the clamp bolts, soak liberally with WD-40, leave, wiggle, clout (gently) with rubber mallet, more WD-40, more wiggling, more WD-40, it will come off eventually. Be careful not to feck up the collector box.

When you're messing with the shock itself, be careful. They are delicate, and easy to dent or otherwise bugger up. Don't drop it, hit it with hammers, etc.

Remove the shock top bolt first. That way the swingarm and wheel drop, and you can get to the bottom shock bolt from the right hand side with a socket and a couple of extenders. Again, this is going to be tricky with the bike on the centrestand, as the footrest hangers will be in the way, but I think it will be possible.

You only actually need to remove the bottom electrical connector - after that you can swing the whole assembly out of the way, remove the CDI boxes and hang them out of the LHS of the frame, and (almost) simply lift the shock out through the top of the frame. A lot easier than wiggling the shock out through the side of the frame.

The Clymer manual recommends photographing the routing of the airline. At least on the interceptor, that seems to be bollocks - there's only one way it can go and still fit in its clip...

Draining the shock.

What you need:

Biggish (1/2 litre) measuring jug that you don't mind throwing away (or at least retiring from kitchen duties) after the operation is complete.

Newspapers and kitchen roll if you're doing this in the house.

10mm, 12mm and 14mm open ended spanners (ring spanners are difficult/impossible to fit)

First off, bleed the air out of the shock. Make sure the shock is upright before doing this, as you may well get a face full of old ATF if not. Might consider doing this while the shock is still in the frame ;-)

Remove the schrader valve at the end of the shock airline. 10mm & 14mm spanners here. Check and, if necessary, replace, the o-ring on the valve. Probably worth replacing it anyway, but mine loooks 100% good so it's going back in.

It may well be worth putting the shock on top of a radiator for a while at this point, to help thin the old oil some more. If you do this, make sure the airline's pointing up, empty of oil, and the schrader valve is not installed. Line pointing down == ATF all over the floor, valve installed == possible explosion, or at least more pressure in the shock when you remove the valve (and therefore ATF all over the face again).

Remove the airline from the shock body. 12mm spanner here. Be very careful not to mangle the shock body - shock absorber bodies are delicate items. If that line really doesn't want off, don't force it and risk having to replace the entire shock - you _can_ drain the oil through the line but it's going to take more time, mainly due to the fact that the line will be all bent into the shape it needs to fit round the frame. Assuming you get the line off, check the o-ring at that end as well.

Set the shock absorber damping switch to the minimum. We want to get the oil through the valving as fast as possible, to avoid fatigue and throwing the whole damn thing out the window in frustration.

Hold the shock at 45 degrees or so with the air inlet at the bottom ;-) over the jug. A trickle of oil will run into the jug. 'Is that all?', you think. Rotate the shock body through 90 degrees along its axis, so the air inlet faces you, then turn it back. Another trickle of oil will come out. Lather, rinse, repeat. This will take some time, and by the time you're finished you'll be 100% pissed off with the operation....

FWIW, my shock contained 250ml or so of _completely_ fried ATF. This is good news, as it means that I should be able to refill the shock and both forks with a single 1 litre bottle of fork oil. According to my source with a honda shop manual, they should take 190ml of ATF, so something's wrong. I'll refill with the amount that came out.

Refilling

Now, if you've followed so far, you'll realise that we now have an empty shock body with a small hole through which we have to get the better part of quarter of a litre of oil into. You will also realise that as the shock body isn't really empty, but actually full of air, we also have to get the better part of a quarter of a litre of air out through the same hole at the same time.

Looking into the hole, we see that it is actually very restricted, which means that getting oil in and air out promises to be a very, very, slow process. Web reports of 12 hours using a gravity feed and a heater to thin the oil begin to sound quite realistic.

So, in a random spurt of common sense, I got thinking - if we've got the schrader valve off to get the oil in in the first place, what's to stop us using the natural movement of the shock to blow the air out and suck the oil in? Now, of course I don't quite have the strength to push in a detached shock by myself, and I don't have a hydraulic press, but what I do have is a rather good shock compression device, adjusted to this particular shock, and which I'm going to have to replace the shock in once it's filled. "Use the bike, Luke!"

Assuming the seals on the shock are OK (mine were, but if they're fucked you're probably going to have to get the thing rebuilt or replaced) we can go ahead with the refilling operation.

1. Put the shock back together, making sure to tighten up the airline / body connector properly, but not worrying too much about the schrader valve. Leave the damping dial at the lowest possible setting.
2. Refit the shock, taking the opportunity to grease up the linkage and generally give the suspension some love and attention. Even with this, it still takes less time than removing it, as putting the RHS muffler back on is much easier than removing the damn thing. If you're going to completely disassemble the linkage, you'll need to have either lifted the back of the bike right up, or removed that other muffler. And if you do, it might be worth considering drilling and tapping the linkage and fitting grease nipples. Why manufacturers don't do this in the first place is a mystery to me - after all, what additional cost would 3 or 4 grease nipples put on the bike, that wouldn't be paid back a millionfold at the first major service? Maybe it says something about the power and reach of that shady organization, the international brotherhood of expensive bike mechanics. But I digress.
3. Remove schrader valve, put somewhere safe and in reach. Replace the motorcycle seat, but leave the LHS side panel off, put the machine on its side stand.
4. Get length of clear tubing, either just big enough to force the end of the airline into (preferred), or just small enough that with a little 'whittling' on one end it can be put into the end of the airline and screwed into the schrader valve fitting. Either way, make sure it's on tight, and then wrap an assload of electrical tape around the joint. At the other end, attach a funnel. Pull the airline / hose upwards as far as it will go, and tape the bottom end to the tank, to make sure the air can escape the shock and continue up the hose. Suspend the funnel from the ceiling, or something quite high. Don't think about doing this handheld - you'll need your hands, and your arms will get sore. I used 2m of hose, you could probably get away with a metre or even less.
5. Measure out the same quantity of fluid as you took out of the shock body in the first place. I used 10w fork oil, I would probably use 15 or even heavier were I to do it again.
6. Pour enough of the fluid into the funnel to half-fill it, and wait for it to start to run down the tubing. this is going to take some time, as the fluid is viscous and there is a tendency for the tubing to air-lock. When it stops running down the tube, refill the funnel as necessary (but again, only to about 1/2 full.
7. (This is where things start getting fun) Depress the back end of the bike, either by pushing down on the seat, or better by using a ratchet strap over the seat and attached to the floor. You will notice that the air in the tubing will start running up towards the funnel, taking fluid with it. hopefully, some air will exit the funnel (bubble, bubble, bubble), at which point you can let the back of the bike back up again. Suction will pull the fluid back down, and any remaining bubbles will slowly make their way back up the tubing. Eventually, you will have got fluid down to the shock body.
8. Do the same as the previous step, only this time you will be not only expelling air from the tube at the funnel end, but also adding air at the shock absorber end. Once you've expelled as much air as possible from the funnel end, and some fluid has managed to trickle past the bubbles blown out of the shock at the air hose end, let the back of the bike up again. Fluid will be sucked into the body of the shock, the bubbles will be slowly working their way up the tubing, and you can start depressing the back of the bike again. Repeat this step, topping up the funnel from the measured-out fluid from step 5, until all the fluid is in the shock.

This took me about 1 1/4 hours, so I'd recommend some music, a beer or two, a pack of snouts and preferably a heater in the garage. A shorter length of larger bore tubing should speed things up - the limiting factor is how fast those bubbles can move up the tubing - we're not relying on gravity too much, so I'd go for tubing that fits over the airline to get as much fluid and air moving as possible, and you could probably do the whole thing with a couple of feet of hose attached to a funnel taped to the bars, pumping the shock by sitting on the bike.

Whatever - Once this is all done, bounce the back of the bike a few times to suck in any remaining fluid in the airline, then untape and detach the tubing from the airline, refit and tighten the schrader valve, pump up the shock to the relevant pressure, refit the side panel, make sure there's no fork oil on the tyres, take for a test ride and adjust air/damping to fit.

It's a boring procedure, but it's easy and it works.

FWIW, 10w oil is too thin. Ridden solo, my bike is bouncy with the dial set to 1 or 2, I'd certainly recommend using 15w, or maybe even 30w. However, 10w is better than the crap that came out, so it's an improvement, and one that's cheap and easy. 4 hours in all, and one of those was wasted buggering about trying to remove the RHS muffler. Cheaper than a full rebuild, easier than adjusting the valves, and takes a lot less time than convincing the wife you need to spend £250 (or local currency equivalent) on a new shock.