I mentioned to Phil at Pyrénées Motorcycle Tours and mentioned that I was thinking of buying a used VFR 750 for the trip, and Phill replied: "Good choice of bike there, I have a 94 VFR which is now my spare bike, but still get a great deal of pleasure from riding it because it is such a good motorcycle". Encouraged, my mate Neale and I looked at very nice example 1997 model (reg in '99) up in Chesterfield which was very good value for the price but a bit more than I felt ready to shell out. I was probably dazzled by all that shiney plastic and equivocated too long - it was sold to another buyer.
Back to ebay! I found another, older and cheaper VFR but got sniped in the last 20 seconds. I wrote to the seller a couple of days later asking him to let me know if the sale didn't work out for any reason, and long story short, got a second-chance offer on a 1991 VFR - the current owner is going back home to Sydney in a couple of weeks. The bike has only done 29k miles in its 21-year life, which is nothing for one of those if its genuine and not been too abused by its previous owners. We'll see how that works out....
Sunday 22nd Jan saw me head down to Swiss Cottage to buy it. I almost missed my bus down, and I rather wish I had because the bike died (of lack of battery) in Thetford! I had to abandon it and hitch home.
Monday 23rd The following evening my friend Neale and I went out to see what we could do about getting the bike back. We were able to jump-start it from his car battery and I rode it about 15 miles but then all the electrics (and so the engine died too) died again so I pushed it half a mile to a pub where we had some light. There we we loaded it onto a little trailer that Neale designed and built - it folds up into his boot! Despite having never been intended to take such a big and heavy bike it actually did a sterling job and we all got back safely to Neale's house in Besthorpe/Morley. I don't have to worry about it being safe there, so a big result: I can forget about it till the weekend.
Googling around shows that there is a very common problem with the rectifier/regulator on quite a few Honda including that model, so at least I have a clue where to start looking. I'm just glad the problem showed up now rather than in the Pyrenees!
I'm also glad I stopped to refuel and put on a sweater and overtrousers at Thetford rather than on the outskirts of London, where I first felt the cold and was tempted to stop - trying to recover it from there would have been a bit of a nightmare!
A friend commented :"What a disaster!", but I disagree. Neale and I occasionally get together for a beer at Micawber's Tavern in Norwich on a Monday evening; his wife Penny sometimes fiddles there with a folk club. So instead of our more usual - and eminently forgettable - Monday night in the pub we had an exciting night of problem-solving; I got a great cardio-vascular workout, and Neale had the satisfaction of seeing his previously untested trailer design exceed expectations and handle double its projected load-carrying capacity. How can you call any of that a disaster? The glass is nearly always more than half full if you can but see it.
I contacted Brian at B & N motorcycles in Norwich and he said he's been seeing Honda Rectifier/Regulators fail for years; he fits a heavier-duty unit with better cooling and has only ever had one come back to him. I'll try to ride the bike back in to Norwich on Saturday - we reckon it should befine in daylight without the load of lights putting an extra load on the charger & battery - so he can check it out and go on to do a full service on it.
Saturday 28th - I just got back from Neale's house in Morley. I caught a couple of buses
out there in the expectation that I would be riding the Honda back, but it was not to be. Yes it started first time; we confidently unloaded it from the
trailer, I donned my gear and set off homeward.... and got about five
yards. The same problem, whereby all the electrics just cut out, so I
caught the bus back again.
When fitted with a freshly-charged battery, or put on jumper leads
to a car, the electric clock and all the dashboard lights
(neutral indicator light,
etc) illuminate correctly, and the bike will start and run for a
while, then there is a 'click' (seemingly from towards the back,
below the seat) and all the electrics, including the engine/ignition
circuit, die completely.
I was tempted to think a short has caused a fuse to blow but if
the system allowed to rest a while the electric clock's LCD will
come back to life, so its not a fuse. The electric clock's LCD goes out
again as soon as the ignition key is turned back to the 'On'
position, even if the bike is hooked up onto jumper leads.
The length of time for which it will run appears to be getting
shorter - 70 miles when I picked it up in London, then maybe eight
miles when I tried to ride it back from Thetford after the first
failure, and yesterday just a matter of metres when I set off from
Neale's house in Morley. I suspect that the time required to
reset/recover after each failure is getting correspondingly
longer.
Sunday 29th - Having slept on it it is clear that I'll have to get the bike into a workshop and let someone
who knows what they are doing to sort it out.
Saturday 18th Feb - Collected the bike from Brian, and it is rather good. Well-mannered in even slow turns, and very happy in quick ones. A quick test up and down Gurney Lane over Mousehold Heath - not exactly the Pyrenees, but still great fun. I've fallen for a 21-year-old redhead! I've paid the deposit on the tour.