VF1000RE rear cowl fittings

I have been using the long hex drive screws to attach the rear cowl. I see from the seat exploded diagram that another cowl screw can be screwed into the hex screw as it has an internal thread. This makes sense as one screw holds the seat strap on and then you can screw the cowl on with 2 short screws without needing to undo the strap.
What doesn’t make sense is that the long screws protrude too far out to fit the cowl over them and then the 2 small screws to attach the cowl.
The gap between the seat and the head of the long bolt is perfect for the cowl.
What is the small screw for then??

Has your seat cowl been repaired in the past?
The long hex bolt has a flat face for the cowl to rest on and two shoulder bolts(same as fix the front edge of the seat tail unit)fix it on.
Perhaps a repair near the fixing point,it’s common,is holding the cowl out from it’s proper location

Thanks for the reply , Bif. You confirm that the 2 long bolts hold the strap on and that the cowl is attached with 2 screws into the long bolt. Without the long bolts in place the cowl fits well but with the long bolts installed the head of the bolts are too far out and hold the cowl open. Could the seat hooks be installed incorrectly and swapping them over would enable bolts to screw in further? I will have to check this.
I must say I have never seen an R that has the 2 fittings - all have just had the long bolt to hold both strap and cowl??

Something is assembled incorrectly or they are seat strap bolts from another model. All of my 1000R use regular shouldered cowl hardware threaded into the seat strap bolts. And all of my 86 VFR are the same.

Is this maybe an 84 1000R that they did it that way and then changed?

Thanks for the reply Capt. Per the photo attached you can see how far the long bolt protrudes ( even with strap fitted) when fully tightened thus holding the cowl away from the lower fairing.
My long bolt has the unthreaded shaft at 20mm. Is this the correct bolt for an RE or is there a shorter version??
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It’s like its not going all the way thru the seat and bottoming against brackets that are bolted to the seat.

Or like I said, they are the wrong bolts. The originals are unique to the 1000R (pretty damn sure) and maybe somebody fitted these when they couldn’t source them.

The bolts are an MBX125FD part

Yep - part no.90146-KK-000 is what is given for all R years plus some other Hondas as you mention.
As the bolt screws into the seat hook bracket and tightens against it it should allow the rear cowl to fit properly.
Attached photo shows the bolt in place but seems to protude too far even with strap in place. Can anyone confirm this is what their setup looks like and that the unthreaded section of the bolt is 20mm.
If I remove both bolts the cowl fits nicely and the bolt can be used on the outside as I have seen on so many bikes??
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The same fiche that shows that part number also clearly shows:
SCREW, FAIRING SETTING 90112-MC7-000

Going thru the seat cowl to engage the seat strap bolt.
SCREW, BAND SETTING 90146-KK4-000

If your seat brackets that hook the loops on the frame are original, than I don’t think your strap bolts are. The shoulder is too long. Very un-Honda like to make you try and engage both the seat cowl and strap and locate the threaded bracket to secure it.

Let me see what a 1986 VFR750 strap bolt measures at. Those were not available separate from the seat for some reason. Maybe somebody installed those.

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I have no idea what the deal is with your seat. Here’s a completely stock setup. Shoulder measures 20mm.

Take a pic of your seat brackets from the bottom.

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Thanks for the info Capt.
My seat looks identical to yours (see photos) but my bolts seem to stick out more? Do your straps have any play at the bolts or are they tight? When I slot the seat over the bolts the cowl has to bend outwards to fit over the bolts and then the cowl doesn’t align with the lower fairing. The seat is marked MJ4 -000 and the date stamp is right for an RE. ( seat has been recovered). Checked the lower fairing and all bolts hold it onto the seat correctly.
If you measure from the top of the long bolt to the top of the other long bolt, when mounted, the distance is about 283 mm.
As Bif mentioned it could be a repair botchup and the lower cowl has been repaired. The crack has been fixed exactly where it cracked. The bolt holes line up perfectly so I assume there isn’t a problem here.
Guess I will have to leave it as is.
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My seat cowl had the same problem but not to the same extent, I suppose you could always reduce the shoulder length by a few mills…

Yeah - I have a friend down the road with a lathe so I think I will get the bolts machined.

That is so fucking weird. Must be something that is slightly different on the RE. Pretty much has to be the seat pan and where it locates the brackets. You mentioned that you’ve seen other 1000Rs that are the same way, are those all RE too? Honda changed a bunch of stuff after the RE and maybe this was one. The U.S. never got the RE.

My strap is tight by the way, the bolt cinches everything down pretty snug before bottoming.

If you want to compare any other measurements, let me know.

May be captain, I will be removing the seat unit from my rf shortly so will measure distance between the seat hoops on the rf frame and the seat hoops on a re frame, on another point it may be an idea to tone the language down a bit mate, it’s a good thread and we wouldn’t want to offend anyone :+1:

I certainly will, but it wasn’t directed towards anyone. If somebody is so turned off by one instance of salty language, motorcycles might not be the best hobby then.

Looking forward to finding out what the difference is. Thanks everybody for your input and time on this. Even though it doesn’t directly affect me, I love finding out little sh… er…
stuff like this. ; - )

Cheers!