Dusty rat pee smelling VTR rescue

[lazy feck]

This old VTR was in the storage unit for a few years and needs bringing back to some kind of semi decent state before it can be sold on it's owners behalf

I remember it's owner storming all around the place on it years and years ago, and it was in better nick than now

Out of storage with an old rats nest inside







Tried the optimistic route first: battery and start, but the bloody rat had eaten some wiring to starter solenoid and main fuse

[lazy feck]

So, I reinsulate/replace as necessary with this mess below:









And get ignition, no start

After quickly pulling the carbs and seeing the state of the bowls I stuck them back on after a spray of cleaner, got it to run enough for the 3km ride to my house

It ran badly, but I was more concerned with the two soft hardened tyres, the lack of brakes and clutch action to care particularly about that

and I needed it at my house where I could wash all the rat piss and sh1t out of it before skinning my knuckles on it, or get the kid to do it





looks better in daylight and with some water spraying

[lazy feck]

The fuel was old and smelly


And the tank is a mixture of rust, varnish, red dirt and all sorts


The small filter wouldn't come out in one piece




The carbs were next; definitely got to be one of the easiest bikes to remove carbs from I've ever seen, less swearing than on a Kawa





The front carb is noticeably more nasty







There was bug under this diaphragm,


And I cut off the useless carb heating pipe and looped it from the waterpump to the thermo housing, as they were both rotted and blocked

[lazy feck]

I don't have an ultrasonic cleaner or much budget for this bike, so I tried a 24 hour Coke bath with just a light toothbrush scrub with carb cleaner before and afterwards




For $1.50 on the coke it wasn't bad at all, plus there was enough left over to have some too

Cleaned up nicely

The sticky thread here with the pics was a big help for these carbs


Really don't know where the owner was going with his jetting; found this in the front carb main:



Why would somebody wrap this copper here, is it to raise the main, or to try and lean the cylinder out? I removed it anyhow

This bike is running 162 front, 140 rear and 45 pilot, I do know that isn't stock but I don't know how I should expect it to behave with this jetting - any ideas appreciated

[lazy feck]

The fuel tank is a disaster zone, but a bunch of old springs and coins and other junk in there with diesel stripped much of the very worst out

Now it's chiefly just rusty, but too dirty to even run with filters, so I went the budget route again and splashed out on a bunch of bottles of kitchen vinegar for just under $8

got the kid to fill the tank with it

bubbling away,


It has had 24 hours already, I could see it coming up well earlier, should shine again tomorrow hopefully

[lazy feck]

I mentioned earlier that the clutch was not engaging, it was taking fluid also and not building pressure


I suspected the slave seal, because I could see the damage from the fluid



yup

ugly gunk indicates this issue predated the storage of the bike




Luckily I found both seals in a local motor parts place for $7, and cleaned up and rebuilt, the clutch works fine.

I also painted the cover of the clutch slave, forgot pics sorry

[lazy feck]

The cooling system is a bit of a mini disaster also, did the owner fill his radiators out of a wombles muddy river?





Somehow, the cooling system actually holds pressure but I will be surprised if this bike runs cool with all of that crap insulating the cooling channels from the metal.

I think a budget rad flush solution is in the works for this

[lazy feck]

More general cleaning, 2nd layer degreasing, wire wrapping and subframe rattle canning taking place here






Definitely beginning to get a bit better than it was

[lazy feck]

Looking at the front cylinder plug got me thinking that it's quite coked up/rich



Also front cylinder had not ran for me while riding it home from the storage place

And front carb was in a much dirtier condition than the rear

And I was told the owner mentioned checking the plugs a few times to my friend who is our go between

I suspect the owner had these carbs out a bunch of times and either he, or some local untrained mech wombles with the jetting as I saw earlier




Anyway after cleaning the plug I re-fitted the carbs and gave each carb in turn a squirt of fuel and had each cylinder run by themselves for a few seconds to verify and then I gave both a squirt and kicked it in the guts

[lazy feck]

I wanted to replace the brake fluid, but that was easier said than done, due to some monkey over torquing the screws on both brake fluid reservoirs

I had the total pleasure of drilling the screw caps off so that I could reuse them and not splash on new items

This must be a Honda issue; every single rear brake fluid reservoir on a honda from 50cc to 1400cc has the very same problem




Ofc, it also meant extra bleeding required as I had dismantled the system, but all well in the end

[tony.mon]

Excellent work so far, well done

[sirch345]

What a state that bike was in

You've done really well to get it working again

Chris.

[Kev L]

Lot of work there mate, well done. Just goes to show how badly the various fluid bearing components deteriorate when left to their own devices.

[gilson]

Excellent write up. Excellent work.

Where are you based?

What is going to be your budget rad cleaner?

[alanfjones1411]

You've done a great job to get it running at all.Keep up the good work.