Why I Removed the Top Box, Panniers & Rack From My Honda VFR 800 | 2003 Gen 6 VFR800 VTEC | 07

Why I Removed the Top Box, Panniers & Rack From My Honda VFR 800 | 2003 Gen 6 VFR800 VTEC | 07

In the last video I actually criticised my Gen 6 Honda VFR800. It is a great bike, but not perfect. One of the issues is top heaviness, but I have also added ugly top box to my list. In an effort to reduce the top heaviness and up the appearance I decided to remove the pannier fixings and rear rack. I do frequently carry a pillion passenger so I had to take that into account and fit the great Honda grab rails for them.

Here are links to some of the things I mention in the video.

Allen Key Set: https://ebay.us/mOyQkE

Overall the bike is probably nearly perfect in most aspects, but it isn’t 10 out of 10 in any area, but is definitely 9 out of 10 in most. However the top box only gets a 3 out of 10. It is a very old fashioned looking design, and is also remarkably heavy. The rack required to fit the top box is also very ugly even when the top box isn’t fitted.

I have found that by having a top box, you add a lot of stuff to carry all of the time, that isn’t really necessary, but adds to the weight even further. One thing that I had noticed besides the top heaviness of the bike is that it can start to have a bit of a weave when slowing down. It isn’t major, and I only notice when I have a very light grip on the handle bars. I think that it is caused by the weight being so far back on the bike, so I think removing the top box will improve this massively.

I have read online that the fixings for the rack and panniers can be very fiddly. However as I am not removing the part that spaces out the number plate I think that this isn’t an issue. I found it quite simple.

The rack is only held on by four fasteners and it came off quite easily. The main issue I had is that there are two different types of fastener used on my bike. A hex head bolt and a cap head bolt. I think that this isn’t the standard fitting, but I am not sure. I also found that the covers for the fasteners were not all the same. One was a little smaller than the others and didn’t fit as well.

Once I had removed the rack I could then look at how the pannier fixings are mounted to the bike. Besides the top mount which it shares with the rack, it is also connected to the rear footrests and behind the number plate.

With the rack removed the top mounting which has two bolts is free. You could keep the pannier rails and fit grab rails, but it requires a special spacer that is no longer available and rarely comes up second hand. I might have tried leaving it like this if I could have got the spacer.

The connection to the rear footrests is a single cap headed bolt and comes out quite easily, But behind the number plate there is a bracket that is part of the fixings to space the number plate out. I decided not to remove the full fixing as I will be fitting the rails back on in the future. I noticed that each rail was connected to this bracket with 2 10mm bolts, and it was quite easy to undo these.

With all of the fasteners undone, the bracket will still not just slide out, its shape means that it is held behind the footrest hanger and the rear bracket. It was easy enough to loosen the two 8mm cap head bolts for the footrest to make room for it to come out. It didn’t require the footrests to be removed.

Once the rack and pannier brackets were removed I needed to clean the area where they had been. The rubber trim around the rack mounting had left marks on the rear quarter fairing, and one of the bars from the pannier rails had left a mark on the side of it.

I T-cut the marks on the top, and the mostly came out, but where the rail had been was completely through the paint, so would require a touch up.

The grab rails are easy to fit, but new fasteners are needed and new caps would be required as well, if you wanted to have a completely OEM look. I had fasteners that would work but I will order some more cosmetically appropriate fasteners for the future, M8 Cap Head 35mm black bolts. I will also try to get some plastic caps, but I don’t expect to be too successful with that.

When I road tested the bike after removing the rack and rails and obviously the top box I could tell that the bike did feel a lot lighter. It might have been part psychological, but when I tried to get the bike to weave like it had before, it wouldn’t. I also took my pillion out on the bike, and they found the rails were absolutely fine, but she did comment that she wouldn’t be able to sleep on long journeys without the top box behind her.


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