Just bought a 85 VF700C need help

[Cadmandu]

Hi Guys,
Hope all is well in Texas. I will want to do some maintenance when it get's home.

1. What kind of coolant do I need? and how many qts
2. What kind of fork oil and weirgt
3. What weight oil and is synthetic okay how many qts with new filter?
4. Will a K&N filter fit a 85 Magna VF700C
5 How many ounces od sea foam per tank?

Thanks

[LateStart]

Hi Guys,
Hope all is well in Texas. I will want to do some maintenance when it get's home.

1. What kind of coolant do I need? and how many qts
2. What kind of fork oil and weirgt
3. What weight oil and is synthetic okay how many qts with new filter?
4. Will a K&N filter fit a 85 Magna VF700C
5 How many ounces od sea foam per tank?

Thanks

1.  Old school regular green coolant.  Use of DI water I think is optional.  Back then we didn't have bottled water.   Fill the rad and the overflow.  It will puke out what it doesn't need when it is hot. 

2.  my bad, I use generic orielly hydraulic jack oil.  Really cheap and it works.

3.  These bikes have wet clutches.  Full synthetic is frowned on because the additives make it slippery.  I use regular Rotella 20w50 for diesel engines and have no regrets.  Don't know about how much though.  Own v65s

4.  Don't know but sometimes those filters require rejetting the carbs because of decreased air flow.

5.  Somewhere between a small glug and a small medium glug before fill up.  SeaFoam is good stuff but will not clean carbs that have jets and circuits that are completely blocked.  Can only be partially blocked. 

[Cadmandu]

Thanks Late Start

[MagnaMan]

Coolant
Regarding the coolant... Honda specifies coolant without silicates. Supposedly the silicates eat up your water pump and other aluminum bits.

So a few years ago I called Prestone, and the other standard car coolants because their labels were not clear. I found that all of the off-the-shelf car coolants had silcates in them even if they didn't list it on the label. In the end I went with the Honda Motorcycle Coolant or the Honda Car Coolant. The car coolant is cheaper than the motorcycle coolant. If you get the moto coolant just be aware that it's already pre-mixed with water at a 50/50 ratio.

Fork oil
Fork oil is whole topic in itself.  I don't know the capacity of the 85 Magna. I would recommend you search the internet to see if you can get a copy of the shop manual for the bike. It will list the capacity and factory weight of oil. A lot of times it's 10 or 15 weight.  I've never tried using anything but fork oil. Jack oil may work well too.

Oil
Synthetic motorcycle oil is OK because it's designed for wet clutches. Generally it comes in multi-grade of 10w - 40w and 20w - 50w.  The 10w-40w is usually what you want to run in a water cooled bike like our Magnas. The 20w-50w is usually for air cooled engines.

Car oil with "friction modifiers" is what you want to avoid, whether it's synthetic or regular.

As far as the capacity, the 3rd generation Magna holds about 3.8 quarts so you can use that for a starting point and if you can get ahold of the shop manual then it will tell you precisely.

K&N
You'll have to go to the K&N website and look up your bike in particular. The 3rd generation filter is a lot different than the filters I've seen on the first generation Magnas.

I've heard many people debate as to whether you need to rejet when using a K&N. I think it may depend on the individual bike.

Seafoam
It should say on the side of the can about how many ounces per gallon they recommend.  Then you can figure out how much you need per tank. On my Magna, when I use a fuel additive, it's about 4 ounces.

LateStart is right. Seafoam or any additive, will not clean out completely clogged jets / passages.

[Cadmandu]

Thanks Jesse,
That was very good info. I do have a gallon of Honda Type 2 for my 2001 Accord.
I am in the process of installing a new PTO on my H4514H Honda Lawn Tractor can I use this same auto coolant for the bike and the mower? I read that you should use motorcycle specific coolant. We have Showa forks that are an old school design does anybody still make fork oil for this type of design? Most of what i see is for inverted fork? What do you think of the Honda GN4 10-40W

[LateStart]

I don't take exception to anything magnaman has posted. He's dead on. I'm 58. I lived through the 80s.. Purchasing bottled water to drink was laughable and purchasing it for your car would probably get you a trip to the mental health facility if there even was one in your town. Silca does pit aluminum. Known fact. Indisputable. On the flip side of that coin is the water factor. Water can exist in 3 states. It can be corrosive, scaling or neutral. A neutral state is a fleeting condition since water is always moving back and forth along the continuum. According to the Langolier scale for minimum damage to occur water should be maintained between +/- 0.03. This is done by manipulating total dissolved solids, temperature, calcium hardness, pH and two more I can't remember. Unfortunately we can only control the pH and we can't even do that because we're riding the bike when it got. Radiator cores don't get blocked because of silica they get blocked because the water is in a scaling condition and deposits it in the passages. Short of physical damage rads rust and develop leaks because water is in a corrosive condition. Silva is definitely a problem with aluminum. The bigger problem imo is when water picks is in a corrosive condition removes metal, moves to a scaling condition and redeposits it willy nilly in the engine passages.

Technology wise we are a lot more advanced than we were back in the 80s. But these bikes were built in the 80s with that era of technology. They're not the finely tuned and over sensitive machines of 2016 with OBDs to tell hapless  technicians what to fix.  This is why the dealership quotes an outrageous repair price. The technicians were born years after the bike rolled off the assembly line and have no clue how to work on these machines.

If spending more money to use 2016 technology in a 1985 bike gives you a warm happy feeling I'm all for people stimulating the economy.  I have 2 V65s. I'll add a third one Sunday night if I'm lucky. I've not paid more than $900 of any one. With a few miscellaneous parts, carb cleaner and sweat equity I've been able to get each one of them back on the road as a dependable runner. When they self destruct with the money I get parting them out plus the money I saved by being old school and cheap  I'll easily have enough money to buy another one and repeat the cycle.  And I would be 1/3 of the way there by just selling the side covers.

I sent you a pm with a link to a site with the service manuals you need.

[MagnaMan]

Coolant
I use the Honda car coolant in my motorcycles. And I've used the Honda motorcycle coolant too. I think the big thing is to be silicate free. But I'm no expert. Avoiding silicates is probably why you read that you should only use motorcycle specific coolant. As you recall all the off the shelf car coolants had silicates in them the last time I checked.

Honda oil
I have no opinions one way or another on the Honda oil. I've used it and I've used their oil filters. Mostly I run Mobil 1 synthetic 10w-40w motorcycle oil and a Purolator Pure One car filter on my Magnas. (Although Purolator recommends against it, but their motorcycle filters are made in China.) With the synthetic oil I try to change it about every 5,000 or 6,000 miles. Some people have found their bike shifts a little smoother with synthetic. I have found that to be the case for me too. Although it's not a drastic difference.

(Side note: When I bought my second Miata and I changed the transmission fluid out to Valvoline synthetic and it shifted like crap. A week later I switched to Ford Motorcraft synthetic. It was harder to get but everyone raved about it on the forums. It actually turned out to make a HUGE difference. The biggest difference I have ever noticed in a fluid change. In fact even my girlfriend said she noticed a difference when she drove the car, so it wasn't just me.) Your experience may vary with the synthetic, but you won't know unless you run conventional oil first, right?

I may switch oil filters to another brand or just buy OEM filters.  You can cross reference car oil filters here: http://www.calsci.com/motorcycleinfo/FilterXRef.html. (And also burn a lot of time reading the information on that site.)   

Fork types / oil
USD (upside down) forks / inverted forks and regular cartridge forks are becoming more common. I think all generation of Magnas have damping rod style forks. And for awhile I think there was separate fluid for each, but I think most of them say you can still use them in either. Are your fork seals leaking or do you just plant to drain and refill your forks?

Parts sources
If you end up rebuilding your forks, see if All Balls has a kit for your bike. The All Balls parts are cheaper than OEM (on Amazon at least) and may be designed better.

If you need OEM parts, one of the best places I've used is ronayers.com. You can also get OEM oil filters and air filters from them too, assuming they are still available for your year.

Don't sweat it too much
Don't sweat the details too much right now. Do the maintenance and then ride! You can't go wrong buying OEM fluids and filters online for the cheapest price. Then just do the service and ride it.