Cruise slow to engage:

[Rob Swallows]

The cruise control works very well once engaged, but it can take up to six seconds before taking effect. I know this isn't normal and it's not consistently this long. The hose on the vacuum pump looks good with the clamps present, and once engaged, it works very well. It passes all self tests fine and readily accelerates up an incline regulating road speed as should. I usually push the "set" button about a second before releasing and sometimes the engagement is immediate, other times if the throttle is let go road speed will drop about 10mph before the cruise picks up. I've found holding the set button down for about 6-7 seconds is intermittent as far as engagement time also. It has never failed to engage, just varying times for engagement?

 

Don't really know where to start but is there an air filter for this vacuum pump installed someplace, or does it share another air filter someplace?

 

Thanks,

 

Rob

[Guest Jamsie]

after you press SET , press ACC and hold the throttle position till the cruise kicks in otherwise it takes a few seconds and speed will drop , resulting in a cruise 10 mph lower than what you were doing when you set cruise

[vzuden]

Like Jamsie said, setting the cruise is a two step process. Press set and then accel immediately thereafter. Pushing set twice in rapid succession may also work. I have done it without thinking for so long I don't recall exactly.

[videoarizona]

The cruise control works very well once engaged, but it can take up to six seconds before taking effect. I know this isn't normal and it's not consistently this long. The hose on the vacuum pump looks good with the clamps present, and once engaged, it works very well. It passes all self tests fine and readily accelerates up an incline regulating road speed as should. I usually push the "set" button about a second before releasing and sometimes the engagement is immediate, other times if the throttle is let go road speed will drop about 10mph before the cruise picks up. I've found holding the set button down for about 6-7 seconds is intermittent as far as engagement time also. It has never failed to engage, just varying times for engagement?

 

Don't really know where to start but is there an air filter for this vacuum pump installed someplace, or does it share another air filter someplace?

 

Thanks,

 

Rob

 

+3

I found pressing "resume/acc" right after setting the speed works immediately for me as well...

[Flyinfool]

As you probably figured out by now the delay is normal to this bike. After all it is 30 year old electronic technology. I just press set, then hold the throttle at a couple MPH slower than what I set it for and wait till I feel the cruise pick up the throttle you can feel the throttle move in your hand as the cruise catches up. If I just hit set and let go of the throttle it will sometimes drop low enough cause the cruise to kick back out before it gets engaged.

Part of the reason for this is that the cruise is designed to move the throttle slowly so that there is not a sudden burst od acceleration that could catch you off guard and dump you of the back of the bike. Even when the cruise is adjusting for hills it moves very slow which will allow it to drop speed on the incline and then over speed over the top. That is just the way it is. The faster you are going the longer it takes for the cruise to catch up because it has to move farther, and it moves slow.

Once you know that that is just how it is you can develop your own preference for dealing with it.

[gggGary]

It's no "BMW class" cruise for sure, my 2002 K1200LT had a rock solid cruise with easy consistent engage and 1.2 MPH adjustments up and down. This Yamaha unit is better than NO cruise but not a lot better. I wonder about a full; cable, mechanism, lube, careful slack setting etc. My bike sat in desert heat and grit for many years and has sticky switches.

[garyS-NJ]

My '84 is slow to kick in also

 

Sent from my VS987 using Tapatalk

[Rob Swallows]

I'll have to dig up photos of an adaption I did for my 76 KZ-1000 years ago which worked very well. It was a "King Cruise" unit for a diesel truck which actuated a cable to operate the throttle. I drilled and tapped the drive chain sprocket cover, and drilled a hole in the output chain sprocket incorporating a hall effect pickup feeding the unit. Worked like a champ and monitored sprocket speed regardless of gear you were in, so needed to be careful as engine rpm's went very high if engaged in lower gears with a low road speed. It would regulate well within 2% of set speed. The engine having a whole lot of power, never stumbled to keep up to road speed no matter how heavy the bike was.

 

This unit did not use engine vacuum and was a push pull comparator circuit, (basically a modified Triac).

 

Ahh, back in the days when I used to enjoy fiddling.....

[Du-Rron]

The cruise control works very well once engaged, but it can take up to six seconds before taking effect. I know this isn't normal and it's not consistently this long. The hose on the vacuum pump looks good with the clamps present, and once engaged, it works very well. It passes all self tests fine and readily accelerates up an incline regulating road speed as should. I usually push the "set" button about a second before releasing and sometimes the engagement is immediate, other times if the throttle is let go road speed will drop about 10mph before the cruise picks up. I've found holding the set button down for about 6-7 seconds is intermittent as far as engagement time also. It has never failed to engage, just varying times for engagement?

 

Don't really know where to start but is there an air filter for this vacuum pump installed someplace, or does it share another air filter someplace?

 

Thanks,

 

Rob

 

Check Throttle cable freeplay and for correct freeplay at actuator. Then perform following cycle test taking 2.5 seconds as shown on page 8-75 of manual and let us know what happens.

 

 

[gggGary]

I will add that the cruise on my 99 seems to lack "fine adjustment" I had difficulty getting less than a 4 or 5 MPH "change in cruise set speed". A shorter bump on the RES switch would give an initial speed increase of a few MPH but then then it would drop back to the original MPH setting. IE 59 OR 65MPH could not reset to say 62MPH, is this typical? I really need to clean lube check everything anyways.

[Rob Swallows]

HI and thanks. I did perform the alignments and check which were really just checks as nothing needed adjustment when I rebuilt the carburetors. I have the same problem Gary mentions with the set point and the actual road speed being different with the initial setting of the cruise.

 

I may start "experimenting" with adjustments to calibrate an offset into this thing to make it work right, or may make something better. This is the first bike I've owned with OEM supplied cruise control and am wanting it to work right. This bike having the wheel speed sensor incorporated into the drive hub would be fairly easy to pick off a signal from to drive an external unit to actuate the throttle.

 

Thanks,

 

Rob

[Condor]

Try pushing the 'SET' twice... Sometimes that'll work and it's quicker than the press and hold.....

[Rob Swallows]

Try pushing the 'SET' twice... Sometimes that'll work and it's quicker than the press and hold.....

 

Thank you and I have done that numerous times as was thinking the engagement switch had defective or intermittent contact closure. I've not taken anything apart and this may be a viable option but it does engage albeit slowly and inconsistent at times. I always hold the throttle in positon until I feel it start to roll within my hand before releasing. This was a learned trait over several iteration of attempting to engage the cruise control.

 

If there isn't a problem w/the system it sure is frustrating 1970's cruise technology is better than what's installed on the bikes if this sloppy operation is normal.

[Condor]

If there isn't a problem w/the system it sure is frustrating 1970's cruise technology is better than what's installed on the bikes if this sloppy operation is normal.

 

And you're referring to a bike that still has a Cassett Deck?? Really??

[Rob Swallows]

And you're referring to a bike that still has a Cassett Deck?? Really??

 

Yessir I am. CD players to this day unless ruggedized to military specification which are cost prohibitive in the consumer electronics market, will still skip with road jarring. The MP3, and above format is the way to go at present day, but even that is facing obsolescence at this time.

 

Won't be too much longer and all music, (for instance) will be stored on the "cloud" and one will access it much like a tuner on a radio. No more moving parts to consumer music players in this instance. I expect future automotive cruise control will be GPS controlled also for road speed and collision avoidance in motives of the future.

[Condor]

Yessir I am. CD players to this day unless ruggedized to military specification which are cost prohibitive in the consumer electronics market, will still skip with road jarring. The MP3, and above format is the way to go at present day, but even that is facing obsolescence at this time.

 

Won't be too much longer and all music, (for instance) will be stored on the "cloud" and one will access it much like a tuner on a radio. No more moving parts to consumer music players in this instance. I expect future automotive cruise control will be GPS controlled also for road speed and collision avoidance in motives of the future.

 

Really, I didn't know that..........

[Rob Swallows]

I'd wager you'd thought about it a time or two.....

[Flyinfool]

Yessir I am. CD players to this day unless ruggedized to military specification which are cost prohibitive in the consumer electronics market, will still skip with road jarring. The MP3, and above format is the way to go at present day, but even that is facing obsolescence at this time.

 

Won't be too much longer and all music, (for instance) will be stored on the "cloud" and one will access it much like a tuner on a radio. No more moving parts to consumer music players in this instance. I expect future automotive cruise control will be GPS controlled also for road speed and collision avoidance in motives of the future.

 

COOL

My chevy has a ruggedized MIL spec CD player because it never skips even when off road on washboard or jumps.

But you say MP3 is on its way out? MP3 can't go out yet, I just got in with my first MP3 player.

Music in the cloud only, Not gonna happen, at least not for me in my lifetime. Way to many people like me that will not pay for a subscription to a service to listen to music.

I think it is headed in the other direction. Cars will be getting less smart once it is realized how many people are getting killed because people are to busy playing and not driving.

[V7Goose]

There has always been a slight lag in cruise engagement on this bike, but "slight" means just about 1 second. If your guess of around 6 seconds is anywhere near accurate, that is absolutely out of line and means something is wrong. Most likely it is simply old rubber hoses that have gotten harder with age and heat and developed slight cracks. this system uses an electrical vacuum pump to hold the throttle in position for cruise, and if there is any slight leak in the system at all, it will take longer for the pump to build up the necessary vacuum (and it will tend to not hold speed well on hills).

 

I personally have found that all the common advice to play various games with the buttons to attempt to "solve" the less than instantaneous engagement is just pointless (and somewhat comical). I put over 100,000 miles on my RSV in five years, and the cruise always engaged just fine with no drop in speed more than just 1 or 2 mph, depending on just how instantaneously I let go of the throttle after hitting the button. The bike is now over 10 years old, and the cruise is showing me it needs attention to the hoses!

Goose

[Rob Swallows]

There has always been a slight lag in cruise engagement on this bike, but "slight" means just about 1 second. If your guess of around 6 seconds is anywhere near accurate, that is absolutely out of line and means something is wrong. Most likely it is simply old rubber hoses that have gotten harder with age and heat and developed slight cracks. this system uses an electrical vacuum pump to hold the throttle in position for cruise, and if there is any slight leak in the system at all, it will take longer for the pump to build up the necessary vacuum (and it will tend to not hold speed well on hills).

 

I personally have found that all the common advice to play various games with the buttons to attempt to "solve" the less than instantaneous engagement is just pointless (and somewhat comical). I put over 100,000 miles on my RSV in five years, and the cruise always engaged just fine with no drop in speed more than just 1 or 2 mph, depending on just how instantaneously I let go of the throttle after hitting the button. The bike is now over 10 years old, and the cruise is showing me it needs attention to the hoses!

Goose

 

Hey Goose, thank you very kindly for responding. I have researched many of your past posts and really admire your desire to help folks with legitimate problems to facilitate corrections. In honesty I'd thought you had left the site given the prevalent "soap opera" theatrics mentality to remain popular from some of the older participants I've seen. Your postings of several years ago and tips and tricks helped greatly with rebuilding my carburetors just last month. Discovering you are still an active participant I get to thank you personally and openly. "Thank You" for your past and present assistance.

 

This cruise control problem I know is not normal and is out of design criteria for when the bike was engineered. My analysis of up to a six second engagement cycle is accurate and proven through many iterations, as are the other symptoms. I can design around it if need be, but would rather not reinvent the wheel so to speak. It can and will work better but I'm not accustomed to working on these type things so solicit active feedback from folks whom may have suffered the same quandary. Maybe we can all learn this way. Instead you can witness the rhetoric posted to the original question by those whom don't know anything, nor want to learn being of a "closed minded" mentality with only personal website popularity being their guidance. I would prefer these types didn't respond to my questions as I won't to theirs.

 

I rode three of these bikes when they were brand new; 2004, 2006, and a 2007 as I was very good friends with the Yamaha dealership at the time. These bikes performed flawlessly and were just final assembled from their shipping containers. I know how they are supposed to perform and when I bring up a problem or concern, it is of a legitimate nature with my bike.

 

If acceptable I would like to converse with you personally or through PM's. I've seen far too much preferred rhetoric and responses of late to questions posted on this website and is serves no purpose other than irritation when trying to solve problems.

 

Again, I really appreciate and thank you openly for being one to openly share and offer knowledgeable guidance to keep these aging machines going. A huge side benefit of saving folks $$$ goes far too unappreciated also. So many of your caliber have departed the site which is a terrible loss of talent. Some I still speak with and I'm not alone in my thoughts.

 

After what I've seen from some of the older participants of this website; my participation is going to be cut back as there is little here of interest.

 

Thanks again,

 

Rob

[videoarizona]

 

After what I've seen from some of the older participants of this website; my participation is going to be cut back as there is little here of interest.

 

Thanks again,

 

Rob

 

Rob, sorry to hear you are not pleased with this site. In all fairness, the responses you have received so far are the result of experience. My cruise control does not engage immediately and the cure is as I stated... for me.

That said, I don't see where you tested the hoses for vacuum leaks, tested the cruise diaphram for vacuum leaks or tested the bikes vacuum for weak or poor vacuum... all of which will cause any cruise operated by vacuum to be very slow to engage and weak to respond at best in hilly situations.

If I misunderstood the tests you did run, then my apologies. If you haven't done these tests, please do and get back to us with results.

Stick around, we'll figure this out...

[Guest Jamsie]

Rob , the manual states . press set/dec to activate the cruise control . then press acc/res to set the speed.

this is the method i use and it is much better than pressing set/dec and waiting for the cruise to set its speed itself , as the speed will drop off .

when i firsty got the RSV i used to press set/dec and found speed would drop off by 10mph from when i pressed the button . then i looked at the manual and i can now set the cruise with little or no speed dropoff

[Freebird]

I have stayed out of this discussion so far because I really have nothing to offer than hasn't already been suggested at this point. Now V7Goose is a wealth of knowledge. I think the world of him and he knows that. That does NOT mean that he and I actually agree on every single thing and that is something that I think we both accept. I am actually happy enough with the cruise control on this bike. I've had two 99's and now the '05 and they have all worked pretty much the same way.

 

Now Goose says that he finds the combination of button pushes that people use to be comical. Maybe they are but I can tell you for a fact that it works for me and has on all three of the RSVs that I've owned. I get to the speed that I wish to be at, I push the rocker switch down once and then immediately push it up (accel) once and it sets exactly at the speed I want. If I just push it down then it will lose a little speed and I have to tap it back up to the speed that I wanted. Comical or not, it works that way every time and is very simple to set that way. This method may seem comical but it is quick and easy and after a couple of times, becomes second nature. If Goose was here I would let him see for himself because it is provable and repeatable every single time. Now it may be working exactly as he stated. The drop in speed may not be more than a couple miles per hour, I don't really know. I just know that by using the button combination method, there is no drop in speed at all and that is what I like.

 

Now I suspect that this could be corrected or at least improved by adjusting the cable free play at the actuator but it is so simple to do it with the combination button push that I have just never bothered. Maybe when I get some time and the desire to take a look, I will see if it has too much free play but I'm in no hurry to mess with it. It is also very possible that the cable is set properly but that it just takes a couple of seconds to build the necessary vacuum. Maybe if I held the throttle exactly where it is then it would eventually build the vacuum and stay right there. Probably family quickly but the double toggle method works almost instantaneously and like I said, is now second nature and gives me the result that I want.

 

The bike maintains a pretty decent steady speed when set. The exception is when you get in the mountains or some long hills and running in 5th gear. We all know that 5th is an overdrive and the bike just doesn't always have the torque needed in 5th gear in some situations to maintain the set speed. If it drops off too far, the cruise will disengage. Dropping down to 4th gear in those cases will greatly improve the cruise control performance. In my opinion, this has nothing to do with the design of the cruise control but simply the nature of the engine and gearing trying to propel this heavy bike in an overdrive gear. I had a VMax rear in my '99 and it performed much better under these conditions.

 

Now from what you are saying, none of these things work for you so you apparently have an issue with your unit. Goose gave you some good tips on what might be causing it and I hope that you find the problem.

 

A lot of people gave you honest feedback here on their experiences and how they have compensated for them. I was really a bit shocked that you chose to slam so many members that simply tried to offer their information in an effort to help.

Edited August 31, 2016 by Freebird

[Rob Swallows]

Please see attachment and thanks.

 

Rob

Venture Rider.doc

[Freebird]

OK, I read it. No problem. I will just say that I think you are over reacting. Rest assured that there was never anything in any of this that even came close to you being banned, banished, whatever. I think most here have enjoyed your input and following your projects. I just hope that you get more comfortable with the banter that goes on here. There will always be some good natured jabbing and/or non-technical comments made to many topics. It's just the nature of the beast. I don't think that anybody means any disrespect by it. Hope you can reach the point to where if it bothers you, you can just move past it and continue with the discussion at hand. You will be much happier if you can.

 

Now I hope we can just move right along. Hope the lubrication solved your cruise issue. Please let us know one way or the other.