Zealot
The Village Idiot
Quick question for those who've hopefully done this before: I'm trying to grab a lower displacement and/or slower track bike for next year - and keep it on the cheap side. For what will be my first year of consistent track riding, I'd like to get something slower so that my corner entry and exits are required to be perfect to keep up with more powerful bikes (meaning I hopefully learn more than just being able to go hard in the straights - I learned this after being passed by a CBR250 who was nailing me in corners on my lap day, until I improved towards the latter half), and something cheap since it's my first year and I'll probably go down at some point.
I'm looking at an 86 VF500 for $400 which is really enticing, but when I saw it today - while it was in decent enough shape for a 30 year old bike, there were some problems. Namely - rust in various places, including inside the tank, old hoses, and the bike while it supposedly ran, only runs weak after the guy went on a ride and suddenly lost power without any weird noises.
My question is, to those who've restored an old bike, what sort of things should I be accounting for? I like the VF and think it would be an excellent choice, but I'm looking to track it and it's definitely well out of spec for what I'm going to put it through. I'd need to invest a fair chunk of money to get it all back in spec, and it was quite a headache the last time I tried to do it with my much newer 2002 CBR600. I'm thinking I may just hunt for an older SV650 and pick that up instead, since it'd be less work from the get go, but I'd like to hear some thoughts on restoring a 30 year old bike back into prime shape.
I'm looking at an 86 VF500 for $400 which is really enticing, but when I saw it today - while it was in decent enough shape for a 30 year old bike, there were some problems. Namely - rust in various places, including inside the tank, old hoses, and the bike while it supposedly ran, only runs weak after the guy went on a ride and suddenly lost power without any weird noises.
My question is, to those who've restored an old bike, what sort of things should I be accounting for? I like the VF and think it would be an excellent choice, but I'm looking to track it and it's definitely well out of spec for what I'm going to put it through. I'd need to invest a fair chunk of money to get it all back in spec, and it was quite a headache the last time I tried to do it with my much newer 2002 CBR600. I'm thinking I may just hunt for an older SV650 and pick that up instead, since it'd be less work from the get go, but I'd like to hear some thoughts on restoring a 30 year old bike back into prime shape.
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