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The '86 should make you a nice bike. That is not to say that you won't run into a few issues but with the help of the members here, if you need it, you should be good to go. There are a few things on the old Ventures that can end up needing attention but they will go many thousands of miles with no major issues.

Today I'm picking up a new to me 86 Venture Royale. I've owned a Suzuki, 2 hondas and now my first Yamaha. I am excited about this purchase, mainly because my previous bikes were all garage finds that took literally hundreds of hours to revive and bring back to life. In this case, the previous owner did all the hard work for me. All I'll need to do is maintain this beautiful well preserved machine. I often ask myself, why do I get so excited about old things that have been restored? What is it in my soul that appreciates taking something that has been disguarded and forgotten and making it new again? To be restored without doing the hard work? That is a different concept for me. In the past I had to buy old bikes because I couldn't afford to buy a new one. That hasn't changed. But to buy one where the work has already been done!? Someone else paid the price of time money and energy and I get to benefit?! That truely is a concept that is near and dear to my heart!

This 86 is a real gem. All the known issues have been addressed. John is very fussy when it comes to machines. It's an awesome machine!!

Hi Everyone Made it to Laconia and Back, The Bike worked Better on the return trip than on the way down which is to be expected since the Engine probably has not run in at least 15 years. The only Issues going down I lost power to My Headlight Circuit , I ran a temporary feed to the Hi Beam to continue, I eventually sorted it out once we got to the AirBNB, the wire got pulled out of the Crimp on the Fuse block, I re terminated and all was good. The single carb worked well and I made adjustments along the way for the Mixture and Idle. it seems the sweet spot was above 2500 RPM, below that it seemed to lug in any gear and that could be the difference in the Cams of the Vmax. for the most part I was able to cruise around in 4th Gear thru the Mountain roads and the Kanc at 80 -100 Km /hr and RPM was between 3000-4000RPM. It seemed the Bike was struggling at 4500 RPM so I kept making adjustments to the Carb Mixture and it now pulls to 8000 RPM, and seems a bit more responsive, it is not near the response of the CV Carbs but It was not my intent for the Bike to be a racer, it was built for reliability and cruising comfort, that being said I think I still can make some more improvements on the Carb by swapping the jets, so I need to source those thru some VW forums. I did not bother to check the fuel consumption on the way down but did keep track of the fuel and Km on the way back, when I crunched the Numbers it came out to roughly 32 mpg. One item to note and this likely contributed to the lower than expected fuel mileage , while cruising my Temp never went higher than the very bottom of the normal range but while stuck in Traffic it would go up but did not go any higher than 3/4 in the normal. This being said when we would come to a stop The carb would be on a high Idle, a couple cracks of the throttle and it would settle back down to normal Idle, I am thinking the Electric Choke is cooling off enough from the rush of air than causing the choke to come on. I may disable the electric Choke and go back to a manual pull cable to see if it fixes that. While Cruising around Weirs Beach and Meredith we got stuck in Traffic on some of the Larger hills entering and leaving the areas and at one point I lost my Clutch, It appears I had not got out all the air, a quick bleed on the side of the road and the clutch operations was restored. On the way home I did notice my clutch was starting to slip again but only in 5th gear while going up hill, so I may order a new a set of frictions and steels this winter. being stuck in traffic on the hills definitely did not help. The only other issue I had were my front fork seals " All Balls racing Fork seals" started leaking after I hit a pot hole at about 10KM/hr at first I just thought it was a one off issue but then we noticed spotting on the ground and Fork oil dripping off the Calipers, thankfully it happened towards the end of the trip. The worst thing is the original seals were not leaking I only changed them because I had the forks apart to install the progressive springs, so this will also wait till this winter. Here are a few Pics of the crew at different areas and we actually was able to cruise thru main st but as you can see parking was all full. Good Night all Herman

Saturday morning I found my younger brother passed away on his couch. He was just 62. 7 years younger than I. He used to pester me to death when he was a little guy. "What are you doing? why? whats that do? how?" I taught him how to ride and play guitar. He followed me into racing and when I got out of the Army we formed a rock band. I never realized what a huge part of my life he was. I miss him terribly already. God bless you little brother.