My old riding buddy, Butch, passed away nearly three years ago, and I'm now helping his estate deal with his small collection of bikes.

The family has decided to sell on his barely ridden 2011 Suzuki DL650 ABS. With an amazing 482 miles, the bike is a real time capsule. An unfortunate garage spill added a few light scratches on the right side fairing cover, but otherwise this one is a showroom specimen.

Asking price is $4800. Contact me or click on the image for more information.

Last week I was elbow deep into two sets of carbs for a couple of current projects. After stripping a project bike of its bodywork, the first thing I deal with are the carburetors. Shown below is one of the reasons why. These o-rings and bowl gasket are from a bike which sat idle for ten years. Dried and shrunken, there was no way they would have held fuel. In fact, the owner tells me their leaking was the reason the bike was parked all those years ago.
(click on an image to enlarge)

​Here's another reason to check the carbs on your project. This green/gold color is old fuel turning to varnish. When I removed these jets they were clogged with a black, sticky goo.

And here's what old gas will do to a slide bore. Despite soaking and gentle prodding, the plastic slide was cracked and ruined as I removed it.

The obvious lesson here is to keep fresh, treated fuel in your bike and recycle it often...by riding it!

SOLD: $3200

This sale was just completed via Bring a Trailer (.com). This example is a final-year VF500 model with several modifications and shows 42,000 miles.
This is all the money for the baby 'Ceptor and shows what can happen when committed bidders face off, even in a virtual auction. Unlike eBay, BaT auctions have a provision to extend the auction by two minutes each time a last-minute bid is placed, which prevents sniping, providing a more realistic auction buying experience. That paid off for the seller in this case as several bidders upped the bids by $1000 in the final hours.

Yesterday I was removing the engine and valve covers from Project 26 to send off to the powder coater for a fresh texture finish. The painter needs the parts disassembled, which includes removing the cover and baffle to the oil/air separator atop the rear valve cover.

Honda refers to this assembly as the "breather," and its function is to separate oil droplets from the positive crankcase ventilation (PCV) system. As the running engine develops pressure pulses in the crankshaft area, those pulses, along with the oily vapor they carry, must be vented. In the bad old days, they were simply shunted into the atmosphere, but back in the 60's the PCV concept was incorporated into our cars as one of the first forms of environmental emissions regulation. The vapors are given an escape route into a cylinder head, and vented from there to the airbox, mixing with the intake air and drawn back into the engine to be burned up during combustion.

Somewhere along the line the oil droplets need to be separated to prevent oil pooling in the airbox or wetting/clogging the air filter. That's the function of this simple baffle device. By forcing the PCV pulses to "turn corners" through the baffle chambers, the droplets fall out of suspension and drain back into the cylinder head and downward to the sump. It may be a simple concept, but a closer look at the casting shows a lot of engineering involved here — no moving parts, with the thin metal baffle plate even serving as its own gasket. Simple, elegant, effective.
(click on an image to enlarge)

Last week I finished up refreshing Project 9 for my late friend's family. With the VFR safely parked back in Steve's man cave, I proceeded to load the next project, shown on the left of this photo, a 2011 Suzuki DL650 V-Strom ABS.

Steve purchased the DL new off the showroom floor but managed only 426 miles before he stopped riding. The winter after his passing a few bags of birdseed were stored in the shop and by Spring an army of mice had managed to spread the seed throughout the space...including a few bikes' airboxes.

The VFR had a bit of mouse damage, but the Suzuki was apparently designated the community warehouse (below). Fortunately, there was no nesting, just a packed airbox. A thorough vacuuming and fresh air filter took care of the issue. To bring the maintenance up to date, I also flushed the hydraulics and cooling system, along with fresh oil and filter. This bike is to be sold, so if you know of an interested party, send them my way....

In its role as the apex VFR, the RC30 continues its monetary ascent into the realm of collectors' lairs and speculators' locked vaults, along with a few lucky individuals who possess the model not for its appreciation potential, but for its beauty and significance.

It's a fitting and inevitable position in the moto world for a model never really intended as a canyon prowler, and we can be assured that the remaining bikes will be preserved.



​Some time ago I stumbled upon a short treatise on the RC30 penned by Seth Richards....

A pair of second-generation Interceptors have recently arrived at the V4 Dreams facilities.

First up is Project 26, a 1986 VFR750F. Some time ago I was contacted by Don B., and together we located a project with which to build up a nice original example for Don to add to his gorgeous collection of classic sport bikes. We found this 750 in Texas showing only 6581 miles.

Work has begun and so far everything is looking great.

Yesterday Patti and I braved the outside world on a beautiful Spring day, making the 45-minute trip to a Chicago suburb to fetch this stunning 1987 VFR700F2 in original Candy Wave Blue. Another low-mile example at 12,146.

Owner Joe M. has owned the VFR for many years, but after a local dealer botched a carburetor repair about ten years ago, the bike was parked and hasn't moved under its own power since. But, this one is special to him and he wants it back on the road.
​So do I.
​Welcome, Project 28.

Sometime last year a VFR buddy, Ron, sent me a photo of one of his many vintage VFRs, along with a question: Had I ever heard of a VFR being manufactured in the U.S.?

The reason he asked is that this particular VFR's VIN tag began not with the usual JH2... but rather with 1HF. According to the chart at right, this clearly indicates that the bike was made in America.

The VFR in question is a white 1987 VFR700F2. Ron wrote that he'd seen a photo of Shichiro himself at the Marysville, Ohio plant in 1987 surrounded by several motorcycles, including a white VFR and a blue VFR. Ron speculates that those two bikes may have been produced there, for unknown reasons, and that his bike is possibly the white one pictured. I've not been able to locate that photo.

VIN 1HFRC262XHA105031
Deciphering the VIN, we can verify that it:
• was manufactured in the USA (1HF)
• is a VFR700F2 (RC26)
• is a model year 1987 (H, all '86 are G, so this follows)
• was manufactured in Ohio (A)

The production number is a little confusing: 105031. All the 1986's I've come across begin with the number 0, while all the 1987's begin with 1, so that checks. But the largest production number I've personally seen is 1279, a blue model. A jump all the way to 5031 production number seems a little extreme, but who knows?

Ron later came across a blue 1987 VFR700 for sale in Las Vegas...also with a "1HF" VIN. He speculates it may have been the blue bike in the Ohio photo. Unfortunately, it's the one that got away, as Ron was never able to make contact with the seller.

The back story on Ron's white "1HF" bike is that it was purchased from the widow of a Honda plant manger in Ohio who kept it secure in his living room. Did he know how special it was?

(Below) Just to deepen the mystery, a comparison of the two VIN tags shows the "American" bike (left photo) seems to be kinda handmade, while a Japanese production bike (right photo) is more refined. Will we ever know the true details of the "1HF" bikes, or is this historical footnote lost to time?

What: VF1100-powered trike
Where: Corpus Christi, Texas
Why: I have no idea
Price: Auction, $1000 opening bid

I'm continually amazed at the contraptions people will build, often at considerable expense and commitment. I'm reminded of a judge's admonishment to the hardened criminal he's sentencing to consecutive life terms; "If only you would have put your evil genius to productive use...."

Here's a perfect example, with a twist — it's powered by what appears to be a VF1100 engine driving the rear wheels through a swing axle differential. The substantial front suspension looks like something from a road grader and, if the yellow paint doesn't get your attention, maybe the plastic skull mounted atop the roll bar with its glowing red eyes will. To add yet another layer of horror, there's a trailer hitch installed (!). The rear-facing signage is prophetic; "Know Fear."