1983 Magna VF1100C Engine Rebuild

A 'face' only a mother could love. This poor bike has seen better days, as has the garage. After the fiasco with the rustoleum spray bomb job on the 750, I decided to hold off and do this one right. Basically I ground out all the old bondo work and glazing putty and sanded the tank down to bare metal. Then I added my own bondo and levelled it until I thought I had it. I primed it with the black epoxy primer and using one last skim coat of thin icing levelled this tank smooth (the results can be seen below).

I use the skull and crossbones magnet to mark the next restoration victim. Too bad Courtney lost the son of a bitch after she spilled gasoline for the umpteenth time. Members of the 'Darth Squad', Wolverine and Army Sniper, ensure this is the next cycle to be restored. You can tell just by looking this bike has sat in the garage collecting dust for a long time. The electrical system has been working for at least a year, waiting for an engine to charge it.

The controls leave much to be desired too. The tachometer case had a big spot of road rash on the top front edge that I sanded to match the original contour. The grips will be replaced with ones like the OEM 700 style. New mirrors await the completed handlebars and controls, but for now sit idle. Note the infantryman poised to teach a lesson to anyone further damaging the brake lever.

The crankcase halves, crankshaft, heads, valves and springs, cam chains, pistons, piston pins, piston rings and conecting rods have all been cleaned and measured. I keep a rebuild record for the engine. Since half the original pistons and rods were missing, I've substituted a used set from eBay. I ended up with another set from the used engine we bought from Jack's Cycle Salvage. Between the two engines, I chose the best parts to build one.

To the left is the lower crankcase. It needs painted, but I'll wait until it's all together first. You can see what's left of the 700 countershaft and bearings in the background. The gears are actually the original 750 gears on the original 700 countershaft. Spares. What's left of the countershaft bearing is still installed on it, pretty much just the races and locknuts remain though.

To the right is the upper crankcase (cylinder block) with the crankshaft. Notice the plastigage on the crankshaft journals and crankpins. The Honda procedure to measure oil clearances calls for installing the bearing inserts and torquing them down with plastigage to measure. All the parts are within tolerance, excepting the cylinders. They all have quite a bit of taper, but the other engine sat out in the junkyard with the valves open for so long the cylinders rusted. Otherwise, looks like it was a low mileage engine and would have been perfect. You can also see the engine heads in the background.

The front engine head to the left still needs to have the valves, keepers and springs removed. All the parts wre cleaned and measured. This is the head from the junkyard engine, an '85. The cams appeared to be redesigned, adding extra lubrication ports, and from what I've read, Honda also began to line bore the cam holders to help reduce the wear. From what I've seen on all these engines, the cam wear doesn't appear to be from oil starvation, but rather a result of abrasive material in the oil from the unfiltered supply the oil pump provides to them.

The pistons, piston pins, rods, rod caps and bearing inserts are clean and ready for measurement. You can see the 'C' clamp I used together with a special socket tool I made to remove the valves, keepers and springs. I cut 'windows' in both sides of a socket to push down on the valve retainer while allowing access to the keepers with a jeweler's screwdriver and needle nose pliers. The white and green striped cover to the plastigage is used to judge the width of the squeezed plastigage, yielding the oil clearance values.

The rear engine head with valves and some rocker arms and shafts still installed. On the left in the picture are the water pipes that connect the water pump to the block. In the back by the flashlight, you can see the internal shift linkage, externally in this case. On the right is one of the water pipes that connect the heads to the thermostat and radiator. The cam chain guide is also poking up on the right. Even the set of water pipes was chosen from two.

Here is rebuilt 1100 engine. The head covers were loosely installed to keep the engine paint out of the engine. They need polished and buffed here. The engine covers haven't been installed yet, they still need buffed too. I was happy with the overall outcome. The crankcase halves first needed to be cleaned and degreased. I used the solvent based House of Kolor Pre-Sanding cleaner, scuffed the paint with a 3M red pad and followed it with PlastiKote's engine primer and semi-gloss black engine paint.

Here's the clutch cover ready buffing. The entire polished area used to be covered with black paint. I sanded and polished that area, leaving the black in only the ring and letters. Notice that you can still see scratches from the sandpaper polishing. The buffer will take these out and make it shine like chrome, demonstrated by the after pictures. This was also cleaned and degreased, scuffed and painted after the buffing was completed and those areas masked.

Here's the alternator cover polished and ready for buffing. This entire part was covered in black paint. I sanded it off and polished it as you see here, again leaving the black in the ring and letters. When I buffed this one, I not only used the buffer, but also had to use the shaft drive and mini-buffs to get into the radiused areas around the mounting bolt towers. I find the larger buffs have a hard time getting into those areas, so I save the older, worn down ones for use here too. The larger ones will cover large, flatter areas quicker, so I sometimes use both.

The paint job using the PPG professional primer, base coat and clear coat came out a lot better than the rustoleum spray bomb job. It's not perfect, but I'm surprised at how well it turned out and more than pleased with the results. Just getting the body work right took a good deal of time. The right front corner of the tank was caved in and there were a number of other smaller dents. Smooth as a baby's butt now.

The side covers and the rear cowl were one big job. All were washed with (dawn) soap and water, followed by the pre-sanding cleaner. It took at least a week of hand sanding to get these down to the bare plastic. I again washed them with soap and water. After a wipe down with water based post sanding cleaner from Eastwood and a quick blow dry, I primed them with PPG black epoxy primer. One of them needed some cracks repaired, so I used a two part semi-flexible repair material. The primer was left to cure for a week, then scuffed with 220 grit sandpaper and sprayed with 3 base coats of royal blue pearl. After allowing some flash time, I sprayed 3 activated clear coats.