Waking up a Sleeping VX800 in Alaska

I bought my first VX 800 back in 1994, a used '91 that I enjoyed riding for several years.
I wanted one since I read the first tests in the various bike magazines and it sounded like just the bike for me, a nice size V-Twin that wasn't a sport bike or a cruiser, just a nice looking good ride. I couldn't afford a new one so when showed up that had been well cared for I was able to buy it.

I sold it after a few years when we were building our house and I had no time to ride and didn't like seeing it just sitting there.
I sold it to a nice young guy who rode it from Alaska to Michigan where he was starting his university years.

Fast forward many years and I have a few other bikes when I saw a listing on Craig's List (CL) for a 1990 VX 800 at a good price.
I took a look at the bike and it was filthy and rusty from being stored outside but it ran well so I bought it.

Here it is the day I brought it home:



On the trailer in the background is a Suzuki V-Strom 650 I also bought that weekend.

I was planning to build each bike into something a bit different from stock because I was using our long, cold, and dark winters here in Anchorage, Alaska to play in the shed modifying my bikes to ride in the summers.

But, as happens sometimes, life interfered and the years passed and eventually we ended up moving closer into town.
The good news was I now had a two car garage for my motorbike projects!
But the poor VX sat neglected while it waited for its turn on the build table.

This winter was finally the time.
But instead of building it as a cafe' racer, street tracker, or as a scrambler, I decided to just do a resurrection and return to as near stock as I could afford to do. Mostly because I have too many bikes and I will be retiring this year, selling most of my bikes as well as all my tools and the house as we will be moving to Arizona where we can afford to live in a small retirement community. No work shed, no garage, and all that major downsizing requires.

So, on to the bike project in pictures...

In the shop and ready to begin:





I'm going to post this and see if I am inserting the pictures correctly.

Taking the bike apart for cleaning is the first step.
Why didn't I wash it first you may wonder?
Because it is well below freezing here and I don't have water or a drain in my shop/shed.
Why didn't I wash it during the summer? 
Because I didn't think of it.
























Cleaning the frame and various parts is making a nice improvement



I pulled the forks to replace the oil and shorten the springs to stiffen up the wimpy front end:



With the forks out I found a bad ding in one tube so I filed it smooth then filled it with superglue:



Once that hardened I filed and sanded it round with finer and finer grit until it disappeared:



I should say that the ding is up at the top of the slider just under the bottom triple clamp so it won't hit the dust wiper or seals, it is just appearance. 
(The fork is fully collapsed in that picture)

The pipes are a bit rusty:



After rubbing them down with crumpled aluminum foil as I had read about they came out great.
But I forgot to take a picture of the results. I was amazed at how well it worked.
I've also read about polishing rusted chrome with stainless steel wool using WD40 as a lubricant.

I modified the fork springs by cutting off about 3" of the tight coil end:



The upper layout of parts shows the spring cut and a longer PVC pipe spacer.
The lower layout is the stock spring and spacer.

Cutting a spring does not change the spring rate, it changes the effective spring rate just like shortening anything makes it stiffer.
The spring is a simple torsion rod would into a coil.
I did not do the math to figure out the new effective rate, I just figured out that cutting that much off would not let the coils bind up solid at full suspension compression. They feel much stiffer on the bike and it doesn't sag half the travel just from the bike weight as it did before.

I replaced the fork springs with stiffer ones on my first VX800 just as all the magazine tests said needed to be done. 
It seems crazy to me that Suzi would sell a bike that the rider could bottom out the forks just by hard braking. 
But they did, and still do on other bikes. Both of my DR 650's needed stiffer springs too.

Fork assembly:



A simple board with a couple holes made it much easier.




Flush with the top for now, I will adjust the spring preload if needed.







Reinstalled:






I didn't like the stock bars on my first VX so I knew I would change these out.
The bottom bars in the picture below are stock and the other bars are what I have on hand:




I decided on the bar in the middle after sitting on the bike and holding each bar in position.

More to come soon.

 

Absolutely fantastic job on the VX, its getting the love it deserves. The pics are fantastic and really do appreciate you letting us tag along on your resurrection journey. Totally understand the need to relocate to a warmer climate and have more availability to bikes shops and parts. I especially enjoy the motorcycle swap meets where you can get some really sweet deals on the rare VX parts. This coming spring I will probably service the carbs (kind of a PITA) and get them ready for the summer riding season. Like what you did on the springs, I purchased the progressive kit specifically for the VX and swapped them out and new oils and seals. Last thing I did on mine was rebuild the front and rear brakes, will purchase front and rear rotors really soon from a Euro distributer to at least have them on hand. 

Looking forward to read more about your bike.
-Bill

I've been working on it at my  usual limited time speed but I declared it completed Saturday evening when I fired it up and ran it for a few minutes. I got a new battery for it even though the 10 year old one still cranked the engine over when I tested it a few times.

Here's more progress pictures and a few comments:

Putting things back together







That's the front fender I am going to use, (or did use actually since I am behind in posting) but it is just sitting on the tire, not in the actual position.




That fender is narrower than the stock VX fender so the fork brace fender mount holes would be too wide to use. The choice was to drill new holes in the steel mount or make a new mount out of aluminum and drill new holes for the fender. More holes in the stock steel piece would be quick and easy. So of course I had to make a new one out of 1/4" aluminum...











That will work I decided, so on to the next step, carb cleaning!

Great work on your front fork brace, many years ago there was a gentleman on another VX800 board by the name of "Tinbasher" that made various parts for the VX800. One of them was a front fork brace milled out of a solid piece of aluminum. Its actually quite a neat looking piece and it was a group purchase by a bunch of VX owners. I believe he is in Australia. I just checked to see if the VX800 Forum.com was still available and unfortunately its no longer around. Such a shame too, tons of information was on there plus lots of tips/tricks.

Nice work mate.    Well done.

Not bad, just some dried residue to clean up.
The real issue is the old o-ring is broken so I ordered a new one for the front carb and a new gasket for the rear carb.


This is the paint I use, SprayMax 2K (2 part). I'm going simple and just painting it black so two cans of black and two cans of clear gloss. The paint is not inexpensive, four cans came to $128 which is about the same as buying the paint and additives to use my gun, but it is easy and the spray nozzle is amazingly good. I wish the nozzle would fit regular spray cans. Both the color coat and clear coat is fuel proof catalyzed two part paint mixed in the can. It has a short life once the inner seal is broken and the two parts mixed so they are a single use spray can. Plan accordingly.

To paint the tank I made a block-off for the removed petcock (valve) out of a little scrap aluminum angle and a bit of gasket sheet so that I could clean the tank inside:



And screwed it in place:




I always find a way to make a mess and this time it was doing the white vinegar soak treatment:



I put 4 gallons in and let it sit for several days then poured it back into the bottles through a filter in a funnel to see what it looked like:



Unfortunately I overfilled the first bottle so my shop smelled like vinegar for a couple weeks.

There was a lot more rust than I expected so I repeated the soak several times until there was few particles in the filter, then I put a length of chain inside the tank with two gallons of the vinegar and slowly slid the chain back and forth inside while rotating the the tank to get every inch scrubbed several times, including the top.



While the tank was getting cleaned inside I rebuilt the petcock.
With the rebuild kit on hand I was ready to open it up and see how it looked:



Surprise!



It was fine inside. I have never rebuilt a vacuum controlled petcock before so it was very interesting to see how it works by taking it apart.

It has two sides, one is for the vacuum operation and the other is for the fuel flow selector.
With no experience and no instructions I figured out the rubber diaphragm has to be squeezed through the fixed plate center hole...

If you can see that?

With the vacuum side reassembled I took apart the fuel side:


 
That looked more familiar and it was also just a little dirty and the rubber parts were showing age:


While it probably would have worked as it was it was good to replace the old parts and give it new life.



The rubber o-ring to seal it to the tank was the only bad piece and it did need replacing.



With that done it was time to build the paint booth in the shop.
I use PVC pipe and corner connectors to make the inexpensive temporary shelter:



I have less room in the shop since my last project (too many bikes now) so I could only make it half the usual size and that did make the results not as good because I got a lot more overspray on the parts...
I use a box fan to exhaust the fumes outside under the garage door. I put a regular furnace/ac filter in front of it to keep the paint off the fan. I use cardboard to block the bottom of the garage door opening when painting.


LED light tubes help visibility and cheap plastic sheeting closes it in:





I hung the parts from the lights.
I had to wait a week for the temperature to get warm enough that opening the garage door 21" for the fan (in the box with the filter) to slide out under the door didn't lower the inside temp too much. Once the outside temp was in the mid 20's F I was able to spray....

Time for me to go to work now, more later.

I missed one picture I see, the paint can picture:

Time to take a seat.
And recover it....
I had returned the replacement I got on Ebay since it was just a flat piece of vinyl, the darts they had stitched in not only didn't match the shape of the seat, once the cover was pulled tight on the foam none of the darts even came near the foam or base.

But Robyn made one for me from the grey vinyl she bought locally.

The old and new:





I started at the break and worked both sides back:



Then forward:



The finished look:



On the bike:





In that picture you can see the test tank for gas hanging on the left grip.
It's an inexpensive plastic minibike gas tank from Amazon.


Next up was to bleed the new ss brake line:



Another inexpensive Amazon buy, the bleed bottle with check valve and magnet glued to the bottle to hang it.

Next up is paint!

It warmed up from zero F to the mid 20's so I got everything ready to spray, including myself:






The garage door open 21" with the box fan stuck out under it and cardboard blocking the rest of the door. Unfortunately that leaves the opening above the door all the way across to let warm air out and cold air in. The shop heater (gas furnace ceiling mounted) stays on all the time. The temp paint booth has a filter for make-up air coming in. I also have a small electric heater inside going the whole time. Not ideal but we do what we can, eh?





No pictures while spraying so here is the end result:



Multiple coats a few minutes apart as the instructions call for.



I let it dry for a few days, Mostly because I can only play in the shop an hour or two on maybe two nights during the week and maybe 5 hours total on the weekend.

How did it turn out?

Stay tuned...

How it turned out...
Easily my worst paint job ever.
There was a lot of dry overspray, dust, and other trash in the paint.



I should have sanded it with 1000 first but I stuck with the 2000 and sanded all the pieces





When it warmed up again I sprayed the clear coat:





The clear turned out better but also had more trash on it then usual so when it was dry I pulled the plastic off and set up a buffing table to clean it up:



After I was done and reading more online about my paint issues I realized I had made several mistakes.
1. I put the makeup air filter in the top plastic instead of at floor level where I had always placed it before. My reasoning was to not pick up floor dust. The reality was that with the intake above it created a swirling airflow in the booth. There was paint overspray on the light tubes! And my face mask. And everything inside.
2. The small size of the booth left not enough room to hang or place parts far enough away from the part I was painting.
3. After seeing the results in the black I should have figured out why and how the trash was getting on the paint instead of using the same setup for the clear.
4. I should have waited a few months for warmer temperatures but I wanted to do it now.

Fortunately the SprayMax is very good paint and it is easy to make look very good.
All it takes is progressive wet sanding then buffing and polishing:



The pieces are just sitting loosely in place to see how it is going to look with the grey seat.






Those pictures are before sanding and polishing the clearcoat so when I say it was a poor job it wasn't terrible. 

Sanding the imperfections:





The sequence in one area:









What I used:



So, what's next?

Stay tuned.

WOW!!
You've been very busy. I can definitely relate to not wanting to wait for the weather to get better when you have a project going, made that mistake respraying the hood of a 67 Mustang coupe and paid for it. When I redid the VX in the Green color I never bothered to put any of the stickers back on. People have often asked if its a V-Twin BMW. Did you order some new stickers for your bike or will it be "Au Natural". Whom did you order you SS brake lines thru?

I got the decals (I call them stickers but the gent who makes them calls them decals) from the island of Malta.

The white backing gets carefully peeled off and it requires some care to keep the lettering attached to the clear facing to apply them to the surface:





After rubbing it on firmly the plastic facing peels off:



And that's how it looks:






And the VX800 goes on:












And finally I rolled it off the lift:









I'm happy with how it has turned out and I want to get it outside for some better pictures and to start it up and let it get warmed up.

Unfortunately the temperature was -11 F this morning and only warmed up to -4 F in the heat (?) of the day. Monday we got another 14" of snow and I need to clear a path from the shop out to the garage. But that's on hold because the gas heater in the shop died sometime Tuesday so when I went out to the shop after work on Wednesday it was only 24 F inside. I have a lot of cans of spray paint as well as cans of latex and oil paints as well as dozens of bottles of various liquids that should not be frozen. Argh! I worked on the heater with no success and after 3 hours I called the pro's and got an appointment asap which turned out to be tonight. Far too cold for me to work out there and the tech wasn't able to figure out what the problem is and will return tomorrow. Supposed to be -15 F tonight.

I set up two electric space heaters in the shop Wednesday and they are able to keep the temperature a little above freezing. 
The joys of living in Alaska are many but the cold isn't one of them.

I am hopeful the heater will get fixed tomorrow. 

Bravissimo, grande e ottimo lavoro e a temperature che non aiutano.

my bike suzuki VX800 93' with sidecar EML CT 2000

Your combination is fantastic! I'm sure the leading link forks give you a much better steering feel since the bike doesn't lean. They give it a proper castor angle instead of the excessive rake of the tele forks? A very unique bike and a joy to ride. Thanks for posting the pictures!

Hi, yes the earless type fork is good for sidecar, as it does not sink in braking and is much lighter to maneuver. the sidecar is from a company that makes them in Holland, it is made of fiberglass and suitable for carrying two people.
The coupling to the suzuki VX800 is very well done, I am thrilled.

I congratulate you again on your fine work and great patience.