Hi guys
Just bought a 1996 VF1000F2 Bol D’or in red. It’s in need of a little bit of cosmetic TLC, but seems to run fine. It’s covered just under 20k. The front brakes are a bit spongy - still original hoses I reckon. The breather pipe was missing off the battery and there is a black breather not attached to anything to the left of the battery which I think might be from the radiator overflow? The headlamp seems to be missing a clip to hold it tight in the fairing housing at the top and one of the lugs holding the V-shaped rad fairing is broken. I don’t think any of these things should be too traumatic.
The bike has got newish tyres and laser end cans. Am I mad for buying the bike? or are they not as bad as all the ‘knowalls’ out there say. I also run a Honda X11, which feels like a C90 in comparison!
Just change the oil/filter regularly and don’t let the engine lug at low revs. The oil supply at low revs is barely sufficient. They are 20+ years old but they got more character than any in line 4.
Stick with any reputable brand, but use a semi synthetic, 10w40 and ALWAYS let it warm up fully before riding and change it regularly, like every 4-5000 miles, not 8k as in the manual. I used Silkolene Comp4. As for the crankcase breather pipes, there are three of them, about an inch thick. First there is a long pipe from the airbox casing that runs across the top of the motor to connect onto a plastic breather bottle under the seat. Second is a short length from the top of the inner sprocket cover to the back edge of the rear rocker cover, and lastly one from the top of the rear rocker cover to the same breather bottle as the first.
Thanks Scratcher.
What foxed me when I removed the side panel was that there wasn’t a breather pipe attached to the battery, but there was a clear pipe not attached to anything pushed up by the right hand side of the battery. There is also a small black breather pipe to the left of the battery which isn’t connected to anything. Do you think it is the original battery breather pipe? I’ve put the clear one on the battery at the moment.
The clear pipe could be the engine breather bottle drain tube, fitted to the bottom of the engine breather collector bottle, it’s only an 8 inch long pipe and with a bung in one end to drain the fluid, it normally lays under the coolant reserve bottle behind the left sidepanel, so if you have a loose clear tube on the right side, it’s probably a battery breather tube that was fitted along with a replacement battery sometime in the past, which may have had the breather stub on the wrong (r/h)side of the battery. The original battery breather pipe was black and fitted to a stub on the left side of the OE battery. It then ran through a hole in an extension to the left side of the bottom of the battery tray and then another wire loop welded to the inside of the frame, above the swingarm spindle. Hope that all makes sense!
You can upload pics on here but I’m too thick to know how. You need one of the other guys to explain that mystery to you!!