Hey ya'll. New to the forum; bought my first CBR (96 F3) a week ago and so far I'm loving it. I've had two older Hondas (a built 84 VT500 Shadow and an 84 Honda Shadow Ascot) as well as a bobbed Yamaha. Located in northeast North Carolina near the Outer Banks, up on the VA line. Looking forward to meeting some other F3 guys, maybe in my area to ride or do a meet or something. (Because you know CBR stands for Carolina Backroad Riding...)

Anyways, onto the bike. It's a '96 with 41,000 miles, new clutch, guy claimed it had a built motor but I don't know. Picked the bike up with a brand new Bluetooth helmet all for $800. Missing the tail fairings and that side cover, and I don't know what happened to the front fender, but the bike rides very well for the age. (Rides much better than it looks, pulls very well throughout the RPMs and idles perfectly.) I would like to do a newer tail but I don't want to cut anything so I'm hoping to find a good writeup or something for that.

In the truck on the way home. (All I have for now.)



And just for fun, my other el cheapo bikes:

Honda VT500 (Bored, stroked, cammed, love and miss it.) This was my first bike. Ugly...but very comfortable!



Totalled it when a Chrylser 300 stopped in the turn lane like she saw me but then pulled right out in front of me. Had a Bronco in the lane beside me and nowhere to go but a turn lane full of traffic, T-boned her and went over the car. Put the motor in my next bike, a Honda Shadow Ascot. (Another ugly thing...but so cheap and reliable...and surprisingly quick.)



And my last bike before the CBR, an '81 Yamaha Maxim 550. Bobbed, struts, peanut tank, another cheap but fun bike.



That's it! Thanks for lookin!

 

welcome to the forum! there should be several good write-ups around the forum on tail conversions: slit-seats, banana-seats, rr tails...


sweet chopper!

 

Welcome to the forum Backwoods!

"Carolina Backroad Riding"...that's good stuff! ;-)

Congrats on getting your F3. Glad you are enjoying it. They are great old bikes. We've got a huge group of F3 riders here on the forum. As Regen said, there are many write-up & modification threads to be found. Sounds like you're ready to give it some TLC. Hope you get it like you want asap.

Good to have you w/ us.

 

Thanks guys! Apologies for the ginormous pictures...dunno what's up with that. Anyways, some things that have to be addressed ASAP on the bike:

-Fairings are rough to say the least. Missing bolts, zip tie holding the bottom together, etc. I will probably eventually buy a new set. What to stay away from? Do eBay kits fit well?
-Mirrors are floppy...recommendations anybody? Looking for the best fit and fuction for the money.
-Exhaust...the guy "custom made" a header from exhaust tubing and welded it right to the Yoshimura muffler. It sounds and runs great but the welds are terrible, the clamp is loose around the muffler, and the swingarm just does touch the muffler.
-Guages. The guages are not properly mounted and tend to bounce around, and the reset ****/button is gone. I may do the F4i swap, but need to do some more research as I'm curious to see how much wiring is involved as well as how accurate the water temp display will be...I know nothing about these guages until I take this thing apart.

This is all I can think about except tires and cleaning all the super thick grease the guy put on the chain. Oh yeah and getting rid of the 47 Honda stickers on it. Way too many stickers.

Anyways...put a five minute wash on the thing today and snapped some before pics.

 

Thanks! I never got around to making the highway bars for it...but it was a fun comfy little bike. A bit small for me (I'm 6'1") but I really liked the riding posture on it.

 

Backwoods, copy your post above w/ the questions over to the F3 section & hopefully you'll get a good amount of feedback.

I like your enthusiasm diggin' into it!

 

Thanks! I had planned on it next time I was on the computer (Droidin it right now.)

I've been out of bikes for a while so I want it to be in good shape after a winter of tinkering.