So I picked up an F4i and the work begins
 

I picked up this 01 F4i about 2 weeks ago now. Shes in desperate need of some love.Since I do not have use of my garage right now(its basically storage), its been slow going in between the ice/snow/rain storms.

But mother nature has given me a day or two to tinker.

This is how it looked when I picked it up.

https://cbrforum.com/forum/members/f...more-21694.jpg

She doesn't look bad at a glance but it doesn't stand up once you look up close. Note , the fairings were not hanging like that , I removed the fasteners.

The previous owner had a short exhaust on it with pretty much no mid pipe basically just stuffed into the header wedging the bottom of the fairing out, and you all know what that leads to.
https://cbrforum.com/forum/members/f...ring-21693.jpg

The mid pipe in the pic isn't the one that was there, thats from the Danmoto remote sound exhaust I picked up for it.

Just a shot of the left profile.
https://cbrforum.com/forum/members/f...side-21692.jpg


I want to change the scheme of the bike to make it cleaner/nicer but I have to find out for sure first, if that alpinestars is a load bearing sticker I think its holding the tail together :icon_shrug:
https://cbrforum.com/forum/members/f...-lol-21691.jpg

One nice thing is when I took that covering of the rear seat, it was still in nice shape under that white material. So one little bonus. The grease/dirt stains are from me (for the most part). The paint on this bike was so porous and grainy that it immediately absorbs anything that comes in contact with it. When I removed the tank and started sanding it to get ready for paint , it was more like sanding dry wall mud than paint.

Getting her clothes off , to get ready for the new outfit.

https://cbrforum.com/forum/members/f...aked-21690.jpg

While I have the fairings off , I want to clean up the wire harness and touch up little marks here and there. I still have to find a few good pics of the sub frame/trunk area so I can try to reconstruct the rear compartment.
Kind of like putting together a puzzle when your not sure what the picture is supposed to look like.

Left side / rear profile.
Couple of my favorite tools as well, wrench and Tim Hortons coffee :icon_razz:

https://cbrforum.com/forum/members/f...ench-21689.jpg

I lucked into some aftermarket fairings for a good deal, I originally intended on ordering a set in orange/black or yellow/black. Then found these for CDN $400.00. So that saved me a couple of bucks and a few weeks of time. Not to mention making my color choice easier.

https://cbrforum.com/forum/members/f...thes-21688.jpg

Just a little test fit. Ive still got a lot to do before they actually go on. Just checking fitment to see if there was going to be anything to address before I got ready to put them on.

https://cbrforum.com/forum/members/f...-fit-21687.jpg

https://cbrforum.com/forum/members/f...ight-21686.jpg

As I mentioned, Ive only had 2 days of decent weather and one of those days was spent doing the wheel bearings, so not much progress yet. Living in the sticks means everything I need , has to be ordered from somewhere else. Even heat shielding for the fairings , cant walk into any local store to get it. At this point Im considering myself lucky I don't have to order the freaking gas.

If anyone does have some clear images of the tail section with and with out the tail on it , I would appreciate a link. I haven't been able to find any clear close up pics.
Anyway , looks like the rain may be letting up a little, I'll see if I cant get something else done.

Good start Mike!

Let's hope the rain keeps away for you. :icon_rain:

Cheers, SB

Luckily the warm weather is coming.

Ever consider purchasing some sort of awning or gazebo type deal to put the bike under? Could help you out with working on it. With how the exterior looked, I'd be really worry about the engine internals and go about some checks for that. Especially a valve adjustment.

Well the friend that Im letting use my garage as storage says he'll be able to have his stuff out in the next month or so. He's a good guy so I'll tough it out (for now lol)
Im actually going to kick my brother out of half of his garage until I get mine back. Cant count on the weather , another blizzard this morning , figures.

As for the internals I whole hardheartedly agree. Ive noticed a little chatter from the clutch side. As soon as I touch the clutch it stops. No need to actually disengage the clutch just take up the slack in the cable. So Im assuming at best its the clutch basket , at worst ? well haven't thought about the worst yet, broken disc maybe. Thats next thing Im checking out.
Definitely want to check valves out. I have to familiarize myself with the service manual.

Is there much to the valve adjustment on these things? Im not a bike guy. Give me a V8 with the transmission in behind it like it should be , and I can pull it out and install a new one in about 8hrs. Or mantain the engine adjust valves , rebuild it etc..
Just no experience with these (yet). I plan on trying to baby it through the season and look at freshening up the motor over the fall.

I paid 1800 for it fully expecting to dump 1k or so into it. So Ive still budgeted another $700.00 or so for misc engine work etc.. A smarter man would have likely just spent the entire 3k on a road worthy bike. I needed a project though. and when Im done I'll know my bike better.
Any thing else I should be looking at ? along with the valves?

And thanks for the input by the way. Like I say I'm out of my element with bikes right now. So there may be other things Im not aware of.

If you're hearing chatter then yeah, it'd be worth taking the cover off and investigating. New plates aren't too pricy compared to something going wrong and exploding. Have you ridden the bike yet to see how the ride quality is?

You can find the service manual online, and it's about 100MB worth. A bit thick and the PDF I've found doesn't have proper text searching due to a relatively poor scan, but following the table of contents (old fashioned) worked just fine. For a quick and dirty guide, to be absolutely supplemented with the official service manual, try this: Valve Adjustment for Honda CBR600F4i, Not for the Novice - MotoWiki

I did my valves for the first time ever about a month ago, and it went without any real problems. Just pay attention to what you're reading, measuring, and go about it slowly. The valves in the case of the CBR is shim under bucket, which is supposedly the hardest to adjust but I didn't find it all that bad when I used a strong magnet in a plastic bag to lift the buckets and shims out. For $1800, that's not half bad. If you do the work yourself you'll be saving a ton of cash.

Take the bike out for a ride and see what you think before you consider diagnosing anything else. See how the clutch and throttle operate, and if it clicks through gears smoothly. Make sure the engine doesn't lose power at any point, etc. After doing a valve adjustment, you're going to want to set the idle properly with the adjuster on the left (stator) side, and do a throttle body (starter valve) sync using a manometer. It's all in the service manual - although you're going to need the manometer/carb sync tool. I bought a Morgan Carbtune and it went beautifully.

Keep us posted!

Thanks for the link, I think I have the same manual your speaking of , pretty poor scan but doable.

The bike runs smooth , it goes through gears nicely , clutch seems to be right there. it pulls hard and no apparent dead spots seems straight. Now having said that , it was damned cold out when I got it home and the bike wasn't put under extreme stress testing because of the cold pavement and tires. but It did perform well on a 3k run.

Funny thing is my brother was trying to talk me into an R1 (guess what he's got lol ) , told me I would out grow this bike way too fast. When he got off the bike that night , the first words out of his mouth "Never mind you probably won't outgrow it at all "
The drive/power train seem strong. But yeah I haven't really ran the bike after I noticed that rattle just to be safe.

My brother ended up putting a crank in his R1 because of something breaking in the clutch case. Didn't really notice the sound until I got the fairings off. So I figured I'd leave her down until I get a chance to peak inside. Besides theres no shortage of other areas that needed attention in the mean time

I thought you only had to worry about syncing with the carbed versions. You have to do this with the FI models too?

edit
See this is why people have to read the links people provide. the answer to my last question was in the first paragraph of the link you gave me lol

How many miles on the bike. If its low enough I wouldnt worry about valve adjustment. They're probably fine. Relatively easy to check though. Pain in the neck to adjust. The cams have to come out to change shims. As far as the clutch, if it dont slip etc, its fine. All my Honda's clutches makes a chatter when idleing in neautral. Even the brand new 08 1000 from day 1 in 08 til now. As soon as you barely touch the clutch lever the noise quits, the clutch is fine.

well its got 50k km on it. Just looking over that site , thats doable but ya what a PITA.
Oh and I don't know if it means anything or not , but when I give it a few quick revs there doesn't seem to be any emissions from the pipe no back fire no smoke haze etc.
Does smell a little rich.
see Im used to my older cars so much easier , remove valve cover get your gauges and start adjusting a little turn in or out and away you go.

With regards to the clutch , sounds like what Im experiencing barely pull it with one finger and 0 sound.
Im off for the next couple of days, I'm going to check some of this stuff over. Its killing me sitting there like that.

With FI bikes, it's not as super important but does contribute nicely to a smooth idle and less vibes. You can tweak the tune a bit by revving it to around 4K when you're done syncing, and make those levels balance out a bit more. If you're cruising along, it'll reduce the vibes a tad bit there - although it'll never be perfect.

I went from a CBR250R to an FZ6, now to these bikes we're talking about - and it's gotta be one of the best all around machines I think I've ridden. I've done a lot of test rides too... And only the Gixxer was this smooth, albeit a bit less comfy.

If the bike was cold when you revved it, expect to smell more crap. Not to mention the lack of a catalytic converter. To do your valves, you can purchase a 7.48mm shim kit (I think it was 7.48... It was 7 something) like the one Hotbodies sells. Alternatively, hit up your local Honda dealer once you know what you need and have them order in individual shims for a couple bucks a pop.

Valves are easy peasy if you can adjust a small blocks valves. Getting to them actually isn't very difficult either. Overall I find working on a bike much easier then cars.