May 2023
I’d been looking for a project bike for a while, I needed something to get my hands dirty on again, something to play with, to fettle with, to enjoy tinkering with but also a bike I would enjoy riding in the winter, so basically a winter project bike.
By pure fluke a good friend of mine mentioned that he was thinking of selling his bike as he hadn’t ridden it for a few years and would I be interested in buying it, it took me about half a second to respond with an overwhelming yes, to be fair I had been pestering him for a couple of years to sell it to me anyway.
A deal was struck and that’s how I became the owner of a 2000 5th-generation Honda VFR800 (RC46) with only 20,331 miles!
The bike had been standing for a few years and while it didn’t have a current MOT it did start and run perfectly with just a prod of the starter button, looking over the bike I was very happy it’s condition, while there is some corrosion in a few places, most of the bike looked in excellent condition.
Once the bike had been delivered to Chateau RigsVille, it was time to give it a good clean and spend some time checking it over as well as getting an overall feeling of the bike.
One of the first jobs I did was to test the stator, the regulator/rectifier and the battery charging voltage as these bikes do have a certain reputation for the Reg/Rec killing the stator and battery, thankfully everything tested OK (YouTube has loads of videos on how to do this)
The next job is to perform a service on the bike, this is something I like to do on all my new bikes, so a quick look at the Wemoto website and I ordered one of their service kits
The Wemoto service kit contains a Hiflo HFA1801 Air Filter, Hiflo HF303 Oil Filter, 4 x NGK Spark Plugs, a Sump Plug Washer, 4 x 1 Litres of Vision 10W40 Semi-Synthetic Engine Oil and even a pair of latex gloves to help keep your hands clean, Wemoto also threw in a few freebies sucha as a sticker, key ring and notepad, so pretty much everything you need to perform a service (clues in the name really)
Doing the service only took a couple of hours and I didn’t find any surprises or nasty problems.
Many of the original Honda fairing fasteners had lots of rust and corrosion on them, so after a quick check of my favorite suppliers for all things stainless (I know, I know) website (Biker Bling) I noticed that they did a complete stainless steel replacement kit for just £35, the original Honda parts would have cost £3 each and then still corroded after a while.
This weekends job was to change the coolant, there wasn’t any issues with the bike over heating but I like to know that it’s been done so I purchased some genuine Honda Type 2 coolant online and and Holts Speedflush and spent a few hours draining, flushing, draining and burping the coolant until I was happy that there were no air pockets and that the radiator fan came on and off at the right times.
Photo of Vera with her clothes off!
