I first ran across this members bike around 4 years ago when I was researching swapping the 18" rear on my 83 VF750F for a 17".
He had done this mod plus a lot more to his 83 Ceptor. When you mod a bike like the V45 Interceptor, which is a classic, you run the risk of losing the heart of the bike in the translation.
Or not. His modded 83 V45 is in my opinion still the best take on what could have been had Honda pushed just a bit more back in 83. The bike just looks great.
(http://i433.photobucket.com/albums/qq52/FromMaine/Image4.jpg) (http://s433.photobucket.com/user/FromMaine/media/Image4.jpg.html)
(http://i433.photobucket.com/albums/qq52/FromMaine/BikeampTrain.jpg) (http://s433.photobucket.com/user/FromMaine/media/BikeampTrain.jpg.html)
Congratulations Teradyne, your red 1983 VF750F is February's Bike of the Month.
A link to the original post, the second pic is from the Show us your V4 thread in the Photo Gallery.
http://v4hondabbs.com/index.php?topic=25781.0
Well, That is nicely done.
Too many modified bikes just do not keep the idenity, but this is really well done.
Congratulations!
John
Congrats & Nice Bike, Great choice mike!!!! :beer:
I like it! I'd ride it, too! :bike:
Congrats Teradyne!
:thumb :thumb
Congrats, Teradyne! :beer:
Very nice, congrats!
Congrats!!
I love that fairing with the twin headlights. :thumb :thumb
Looks great! Congrats :beer:
Congrats! tenof10
Nice job, looks new to me!
Congrats!
:thumb :thumb
Wow.. First time I see a VFR800 fairing on a first gen.. I like the "eyes" as a headlight...
Well done...
:thumb
Well done. Congrats
Well Folks,
I'm not getting it, it seems.
We are at the middle of this month and there have been precious few posts about this machine and the honor bestowed upon it.
Is he still active and can he provide more and better images?
Does he know that he has been honored?
Are we getting to the point that Michael has too few bikes to pick from in the gallery to keep your interest and you find this example lacking?
Something is wrong here as I see it, so please chime in to help Michael and the forum to keep this forum going.
John
I don't have the answers John, neither do I know Ishould type this or not.. Anyway, whilst typing, I'm just venting..
Untill the early '80s, a motorcycle was a form of primair transportation , if not, motorcycles were rare to be seen.. And this has been changed during the end of the '80s and getting booming throught the '90's.
Could it be, that these bikes weren't build to be classics ??
Could it be that these bikes were part of the booming new generation and therefore have a niece corner on the market for just one generation ??
Economics haven't been that great to start a rebuild isn't ??
Anyway I love these first gen Honda V4's above the rest... They always had a sweet spot, but then again in 1983 I was legal to ride a motorcycle, and these were on the top of my wishlist to own. Could it be, times have changed ??
Should I enter my VF750F on the gallery section ???
:???:
Quote from: John Hilmer on February 14, 2014, 07:21:10 PM
Well Folks,
I'm not getting it, it seems.
We are at the middle of this month and there have been precious few posts about this machine and the honor bestowed upon it.
Is he still active and can he provide more and better images?
Does he know that he has been honored?
Are we getting to the point that Michael has too few bikes to pick from in the gallery to keep your interest and you find this example lacking?
Something is wrong here as I see it, so please chime in to help Michael and the forum to keep this forum going.
John
He is still active, last on the board on 2/14/14. Keep in mind that this is a slow time of the year for board participation, and not everyone visits the bike of the month forum. He may not even know he has won. Michael might want to send him and other new winners a pm telling them of the honor.
Quote from: rrwarrenvanman on February 15, 2014, 04:36:33 PM
Quote from: John Hilmer on February 14, 2014, 07:21:10 PM
Well Folks,
I'm not getting it, it seems.
We are at the middle of this month and there have been precious few posts about this machine and the honor bestowed upon it.
Is he still active and can he provide more and better images?
Does he know that he has been honored?
Are we getting to the point that Michael has too few bikes to pick from in the gallery to keep your interest and you find this example lacking?
Something is wrong here as I see it, so please chime in to help Michael and the forum to keep this forum going.
John
He is still active, last on the board on 2/14/14. Keep in mind that this is a slow time of the year for board participation, and not everyone visits the bike of the month forum. He may not even know he has won. Michael might want to send him and other new winners a pm telling them of the honor.
Michael does pm every winner
That headlight set up is very well done.
Congrats!
Nicely done, congrats!!
Am I the only one?
I would have expected the owner to have acknowledged the honor by now. This hasn't happened.
I for one would like to see more images of his machine. All of that red has me thinking of a Duc type of bike which on this one looks to me quite good.
John
I'm with you, John...at the very least an acknowledgement of the honor bestowed upon him... :???:
I have PM'd Teradyne twice, once when I posted this and again about 5 days ago. I'm on the ship so maybe its our internet provider messing things up or possibly its not getting through his e-mail filters.
We'll give him some time before we call in the internet calvary.
I would also like to see some more pics and details of his bike.
Nice job, looks like it could have come from the factory like that.
Wow, I just logged in and found out my bike was BOTM!
First I'd like to say a big thank you for this great distinction. I know there are allot of really great bikes on here and it's a great honour to be selected.
I'm really surprised and this was the last thing I was expecting especially on a Monday. I gotta check my Email more!
Wow, where to start.
Well I picked up this bike when I was helping a buddy of mine work a his car in the back lane. While we were wrenching one of the neighbours came up from down the street and asked us if we knew anyone who wanted to buy a motorcycle. Well we looked at each other and neither one of us had much interest but I figured what the heck so we headed out to the guy's garage to take a look. That's where I found the Mighty VF. Well I never had a bike before and never really had any interest in one but for $300 bucks I figured I could pick it up and make some cash. So I picked it up and got it running. I gotta say, this was my first bike and after the first ride I was hooked!
I loved the bike but the one thing that always bothered me about it was the way Honda noched out the side covers instead of flowing them into the tank. That and the fact they didn't give it a full fairing. So after about a year of ownership I got to work. The first thing I did was start learning about fiberglass to fill in the side panels and flow them into the tank. I've never worked with fiberglass before and I have to say it's really wonderful stuff. I learned allot from this project and used that knowledge later on later builds.
After the fiberglass was done I moved to the fairings. I spent allot of time thinking about what I wanted and looked at what was available from other makes and models. The V4s are pretty slim compared to the inlines and I was worried about the overall width. In the end I decided to go with the Gen5 VFR. I got the parts from a couple of different vendors off E-Bay. I removed the original stays and mounting hardware and mocked up the new fairings on the VF. It took a while to get the spacing and the angle down but once I got it I took the final measurements and made spacers out of wood. I wanted to be able to take the bike back to original if I wanted to so I didn't want to weld directly to the frame. I removed the original stays and bolted up some flat iron tabs to the original stock locations. Once I got the tabs on as a starting point I tack welded some round iron to the tabs and started bending. It took some time and allot of trial fitting but in the end I managed to get it. I thought for sure I'd have to do some cutting and fabbing to the plastic but I was really surprised how well the fairings worked out. Didn't have to mod the plastic at all and even the tab under the kickstand managed to fit. Really worked out great.
Next was lighting. I spent allot of time trying to get a VFR800 headlight but they were really few and far between. I looked into getting one from Honda but they were just to much. In the end I decided on a couple of aftermarket fog lights until I found an original. So I picked them up for $20 bucks and put them in. At first I thought they looked kinda frankenbike but I have to say, they really grew on me :) Didn't have any side markers so I went with some aftermarket pickup cab lights. They were a little smaller that the originals but with my new fiberglassing skills I managed to make them work.
I spent some time thinking about the paint and color. I don't like allot of the striping and decals that are on most of the sport bikes so in the end I went with a solid red.
I have to say the bike creates allot of interest. I've had people pull into the parking lot just to chat about it and take a look. Allot of people think it might be a Ducati but so far only one person has managed to identify it.
I've had it about 8 years now and it's got a permanent place in my garage.
Thanks again for the interest and thanks for putting it up as Bike of the Month!
Cheers
Thanks for the input and the explanations of how you got to where you are.
This must be the latest response from a winner to date. :lol8:
I'm surprised that your trophy didn't get to you before you noticed the E-Mail about this. Er, is Michael still sending these out?
We could be more pleased with more images of course. :thumb
So, I'm not the only one that likened it to a duc.
Well done at any rate.
John
Great you found the post before the end of the month...
I like the looks, but as a Dutchy I have some Q's as well..
How on earth is the cowl following the frameline that excellent, whas it a fluke ??
Those exhaust cannasters look larger from Original... Bassani ?
Does it need a new shock on the rear ??
Yea, sorry about the late response. I don't check my mail that often. I missed seeing it in the BOTM thread and don't remember seeing a PM. I'm feeling like a putz :(
Anyway, to answer some questions:
About the fairings: When I was looking at what was available I looked at a ton of pics from all bikes on the net. One of the things I paid particular attention to was the approximate angle of the side of the frame and approximate width of the bike. Pics from the Gen5 looked like it was close so I pulled the trigger and sourced some out. When I first put it together I was really surprised how well the fairing worked and how close it followed the stock frame of the bike. I had to play with the angle a bit and drop the front down when I had it in mock up but it was really, really close.
The rear shock seems to be performing well but I put a 17" rim on the back to get some radials so that might have dropped it down a bit in the back.
As for the cans, those are the originals. They had a bit of rash on the one side so I had them done with grey VHT in the first shot and re-did them in black for the second.
Also had to rebuild part of the collector as it rotted out where it connects to the cans on both sides. Don't have pics of that but can take some if interested
All in all it went fairly well with no real hickups. Actually learned allot on this project and really got me into bikes.
Right now my garage is home to my 83 VF, 90 VFR (just painted Starfire Pearl white last year) and a 96 VFR (soon to be painted if I ever decide on a color).
Anyway, I'm going to see if I can find some pics of the build and post them up.
Sent you another PM, but if you see this first please send me your name and a mailing address.
Thanks.
Any pics of the project would be great!
Thanks for the updates! I really want to see the Pearl White one!! :wub:
So here's some pics of the bike. Before, During, and After
Had to resize them so I hope they turned out OK
Anyway, Here's what she looked like when I started. Got it for $300 bucks and named her "Olga"
Here's some shots of the beginning mock up stage.
First started using copper pipe for the fairing frame using zip ties to hold the plastic in place
The copper and Zip ties were great for moving around the plastic and making fitting adjustments
More Pics of the initial mock up
More Pics of the initial Mock up
From there I went into the fiberglass
First shot - Filling in the notch in the side panels and flowing them into the tank
Second shot - Working out the fairing to dash
Another shot of rough fairing to dash fiberglass work
Well I found the copper pipe wasn't going to do it for the fairing stays so I took the measurements and made something more permanent
In the first shot I repainted the bike and was driving it naked for a while
Second shot is starting the final stays. I wanted this to be reversible in case I wanted to go back to original so I didn't want to weld directly to the frame. Instead I made some short tabs from some steel flatbar. Drilled a hole in them and bolted them up to the original mounting point. Once they were attached I welded steel round stock to the tabs and started bending
More work on the final stays
Took some trial and error with the welder but we're getting there
Second shot shows the flatbar with holes I used to work as a mounting point for the headlights. Worked out well and gave me something to bolt to
More welding work
This is where it all comes together. Had to do some final tweaking to the frame work to get the alignments right...
Here's how it turned out after the final welding and iron work
Got the lights in and got it together
Shot before final paint
The fairings I got were used and needed some work. I had a broken hole in one that needed to be filled and had to do some work around the signal light area to get the aftermarket light to fit. Previous owner also painted the cans and engine aluminum silver
On a side note: all the hardware fairing bolts used to fasten the fairing was bought at Home Depot. They are all Flush mount allen flat heads. They're a standard stock item and they worked out well. It's surprising where you can find stuff when you start looking around
Here are some pics of the final product after paint
Painted it myself in the garage and it didn't turn out to bad..
You know it's funny, I didn't put on any markings or decals. I get some people thinking it might be a Ducati but I actually had a couple of people ask me if it was a Harley!
I had to go with it... and told them it was...
The last one is one of my favorites and I use it as my desktop wallpaper
It gives me inspiration in the dead of winter...
I call it "The Bike and the Road"
Well that's about it for the post
Hope you enjoyed the buildup pics and thanks again for all the info I found here to build and maintain it.
Thanks again for putting it up as Bike of the Month
Cheers
tenof10
Also had a request to see pics of my White VFR
Posted them up and put them in the Gallery here:
http://v4hondabbs.com/index.php?topic=66337.0
Well,
Responding and back to being a real member is certainly appreciated by me if nobody else cares.
You have done really good work and I like what you have done though opinions such as mine are just that.
John
Very nice work on that frame, are you planning to repaint the engine, or was that done already?
I'm not sure why but the previous owner painted the engine and exhaust an aluminum silver. I left the heads because they really didn't look that bad and because you don't see them much with the fairings on but did redo the side covers with flat black VHT Paint. Prepped them properly when I painted them and baked them in the oven. They turned out really well. I gotta say, being single is GREAT! Don't have to worry about wifey getting all upset and cutting you off...
Everything seems so easy according to your pics, but I also see the time that went in to it.
I love the mock-up part, where/with the copper tubing you determined the spots for fixing the cowl..
Great stuff.
:thumb