Hairsy

Oh wow - my very first bike was a DT50 of the same vintage. I'll start reading now ...

Following some gentle encouragement from someone, I thought I’d start a modest restoration thread. Apologies for the long first post. Before I start, let me explain that I am not an experienced restorer. This is a hobby for me and the project was simply inspired by having some success with my improving my current bike after I bought it. I’m going to make mistakes - maybe others can benefit from that. Or get some amusement. Please though - be nice! My goals for the restoration are: 1) To bring something mechanical back to life - I hate seeing things not working. 2) To learn, develop some skills and maybe in the future do another one. Or maybe realise that this sort of project is something that isn’t for me. 3) To not lose money. This may be a fairly optimistic goal but it means that this is VERY MUCH a budget restoration. I don’t want to bodge anything but this is going to be the kind of restoration that leaves a good bike but not a perfect one. I foresee comments on this thread telling me that I shouldn’t cut corners but I just don’t have the funds for perfection. My background is that I stopped riding bikes in 1987 when I switched to cars (there's your clue to my age) but decided to come back to two wheels last year. I bought a CBR600F4i that was in OK condition but hadn't been as loved as I wanted. I gave it the TLC that I felt it deserved. It's now looking great and is bang up to date on every service job in the book. I found the process really satisfying and decided that I should get myself a project bike for the winter. So, before Christmas I picked up a 1998 CBR600 F3. It was a non runner and the chap I bought it from seemed a thoroughly decent chap. It was 'as described' on eBay but I've learned some lessons from the experience and the job is a little larger than I'd expected. In hindsight, I should have gone to have a look at the bike before bidding on eBay but, as I say, there was nothing incorrect in the eBay description so here I am. The obvious first job is to get it running. Compression seems good and there's a healthy spark. It hadn't run for some years and, unsurprisingly, the carbs were in a dreadful state. So dreadful that my initial efforts at strip down led to broken jets and my efforts with extractors couldn’t strip the first carb I attempted. I decided to replace them with a set from a recently known running bike. I’ve now received those replacement carbs and they are MUCH better. I've given them a quick check over and cleaned the sliders and choke mechanisms that were slightly sticky. I plan to see how the bike runs before deciding whether they need a full service. The reason for this is that a quality rebuild kit is going to cost more than the carbs themselves. There are cheap kits on eBay but I don’t trust them with the sort of tolerances that are needed for carbs. If anyone has positive experiences with cheap kits though, please tell me! I’ll do the full carb rebuild if I have to but I was assured by the seller that these replacement carbs were on a well running bike 2 months ago - and they certainly seem reasonable. Yesterday I attempted to reinstall the carbs but the rubber boots are really hard and I can’t get the carbs back into them. The job wasn’t helped by the fact that I’ve current got Covid and am really tired - but I hate being in bed so had to do something! However, I didn’t persevere with the job for long because impatience isn’t going to help me do a decent job. I’m left with a few options for these rubbers. The first thing I’ll try is cleaning up the carb and boot surfaces and applying a little grease and see if I can get them in. If that doesn't work then I would have hoped to buy a new set of boots but, although they’re available for the F3 for only £10, the boots changed for the 1997/1998 model and I can’t find the correct ones. Originals from Honda will cost £60. So, if I’m not successful with the grease, then I think I’m going to have to try reconditioning the current boots with wintergreen oil. Once all that’s done, I’ll hopefully be able to see how the bike runs and determine whether the carbs need more work. Or whether there’s another problem causing the non-running. I’ve already drained the tank and it’s very clean inside - my main success so far! And then when the bike is running OK, I'll then need to sort out brakes, chain & sprockets, bearing checks, etc. They're all dirty and horrible but, from initial inspection I believe they're all in serviceable condition underneath the grime. Time will tell. And then finally, there is the frame (which some of you are already aware of). There's some surface corrosion on the frame. It really is only light cosmetic surface corrosion but it isn’t pretty. Very little of the frame is visible when the fairings are in place so I could leave it as-is - it's not a new bike after all. However I do think that, by the time I've prepared it, it will be really nice. There are some small repairs to the fairings and I had to replace the tail cowl but I think that once it’s all together, it’s going to look quite nice. Which means that I think the frame corrosion will spoil the look of the bike and so I want to do something about it. I can't justify a full stripdown and re-powdercoat of the frame. I'd do that if it was a keeper and held a place in my heart - but that's not really the case. So my choices are ... 1) Take off the surface rust and leave it at that, perhaps with a healthy dose of ACF50 or similar. This would improve the look but it doesn't feel quite enough to me - and rubbing down rust and doing nothing doesn't sit comfortably with me. 2) Do a very basic cosmetic improvement - perhaps some silver hammerite, maybe just to the areas that are visible when the fairings are on (which isn't much). This of course assumes that I can get something even close to a match with a hammerite-like product 3) My preference - take off all the visible surface rust, put a decent rust-converter / primer type product on there, and then rattle can spray with a decent matching colour I’ve had some suggestions on the paint match but nothing absolute. The paint codes on the bike are for bodywork not frame. A mainly US forum seems to think that the frame colour is NH-211M but I can’t seem to find anything definite and can’t find that paint available in the UK. Someone on here has suggested NH-460M which it seems I could get hold of. This seems to be a VFR800 colour and there’s a good chance that it's close enough - I’d be happy with a close match. As with all parts of this project though, I need to watch the spend and trialling paints could get expensive! And I’m left with one other niggling thing which is insurance. It’s not today’s problem but I’ll need to take the bike for MoT as some point and I’d really like to be able to take it out to test work I’ve done. I don’t want to ride without insurance. I will call my insurance company at some point to see if they have any suggestions but they’re a bog standard off-the-shelf insurer so I don’t really expect that they’ll have much experience of the type of cover I need. I can get single day insurance for around £35 which is my current option but it’s a bit expensive for a quick test ride from time to time. Anyway, as I said at the start, this isn’t your classic restoration but hopefully it will be of interest to some. And if anyone wishes to offer advice then please do. A few pictures below including the original carb that I attempted to strip down and gave up on and the corrosion that I want to address.

Thank you both - really helpful. I didn't really think of doing a thread. Maybe I should. I do enjoy them when others do them. It would be very much at the amateur end of the spectrum though ...

Thanks for taking the time to reply - and, hey, don't worry about it! I have over 2 decades of regular forum use on various subjects and I get it. Allow me to introduce myself and my project better ... I stopped riding bikes in 1987 when I switched to cars (there's your clue to my age) but decided to come back to two wheels last year. I bought a CBR600F4i that was in OK condition but hadn't been as loved as I wanted. I gave it the TLC that I felt it deserved. It's now looking great and is bang up to date on every service job in the book. I found the process really satisfying and decided that I should get myself a project bike for the winter. Moving on, before Christmas I picked up the CBR600F3 that I've been posting about. It was a non runner and the chap I bought it from seemed a thoroughly decent chap. It's fair to say it was 'as described' on eBay but I've learned some lessons from the experience and the job is a little larger than I'd expected. It's fair to say that I'm not going to make any money out of the process. My target is to enjoy bringing the bike back to life, see it go to a happy new owner and maybe (if I'm really lucky) break even. The obvious first job is to get it running. Compression is good and there's a healthy spark. It hadn't run for some time and, unsurprisingly, the carbs were in a dreadful state. So dreadful that, after some initial efforts at strip down, I decided to replace them with a set from a recently known running bike. I now have those replacement carbs and they are MUCH better. I've given them a quick check and light clean inside but will see how the bike runs before deciding whether they need a full service. The trouble I'm having with these is that the intake boots on the bike are super hard and I can't get the carbs back in the boots - that's my current challenge. New boots for the F3 are cheap but, annoyingly, Honda changed the boots for the last 2 years of the production and none of the cheap ones for sale fit my bike. Assuming the bike gets running, I'll then need to sort out brakes, chain & sprockets, bearing checks, etc. They're all dirty and horrible but, I believe, in decent condition underneath the grime. Time will tell. This leaves the big dilemma that you've been helping me with - what to do about that surface corrosion on the frame. It's not a new bike but I do think that, by the time I've prepared it, it will be really nice. The frame corrosion will spoil it. I simply can't justify a full stripdown and re-powdercoat of the frame. I'd do that if it was a keeper and held a place in my heart - but that's not really the case. So my choices are ... 1) Take off the surface rust and leave it at that, perhaps with a healthy dose of ACF50 or similar. This would improve the look but it doesn't feel quite enough to me - and rubbing down rust and doing nothing doesn't sit comfortably with me. 2) Do a very basic cosmetic improvement - perhaps some silver hammerite just to the areas that are visible when the fairings are on (which isn't much). This of course assumes that I can get something even close to a match with a hammerite-like product 3) My preference - take off the surface rust, put a decent rust-converter / primer type product on there, and then rattle can spray with a decent matching colour The tricky thing is that this is a hobby job and there isn't enough money to enable me to afford to try lots of different things to find a match. Anyway, thanks for your input so far. Please be assured, I will return when I finally conclude my work and let future readers know what I did and whether it had any positive effect.

I wasn't asking you to do the research. I was doing my own. I was simply asking whether you had experience of using the paint you recommended with the frame that you recommended it for. And you've answered that question. My apologies that I offended you. It wasn't my intention.

Hi Tinkicker, Can I just ask - have you used these paints and know they're a good match for the CBR600F3? Just checking before I commit to the job. I can't seem to find them branded as Holts but Simoniz have the same name products and appear to be linked to Holts. Many thanks.

Hi, I'm looking to make some cosmetic improvements to areas of surface corrosion on my CBR600F3. I'm not wanting to do a full strip down and powder coat - the bike doesn't warrant it (at least for me). I've attached some pictures blow of some of the areas - these are the main areas but I may treat a few others. I'd welcome suggestions for techniques and products to use for the frame and crankcase corrosion in the picture. At the moment I'm thinking to rub down the rust, treat it with one of the various 'straight to rust' primers that are available and then spray with a suitable paint that is a reasonable match. My questions are: 1) Would you agree with this approach? 2) What products have you successfully used? 3) Any suggestions on how to get a good colour match? A mostly American forum advised me to look for Honda paint code 'NH-211M' but a Google search has not been successful in finding a UK supply. Might it be a different code in the UK? Thank you for any advice - and Happy Christmas!