cowpuc

Randy,,, you shoulda seen the expression on the new car Sales Managers face when I told him I did not want them to touch Troopers factory stickers or detail him in any way before delivery =. As a matter of fact, Robb (sales manager seen in 1st video below) had to actually get special approval from corporate to deliver to him as asked and, if it would not have been for my YouTube videos I showed him at the dealership showing Tweek's stickers and how twisted I am about those earned stickers - I truly doubt I would have been successful at aquiring Trooper with every sticker intact just like he had just came off the ship and including the dealership stickers. Though his windshield stickers are long gone (still in his "new born Little Trooper" scrap book),, that window sticker remains intact and will do so for as long as possible, why?,,, because,, well because,,, because I am me and not right in the beaner ,,, if you can figure that one out,, you are actually a much better man then me or any of my doctors .. P.S.,, although it has not started yet because I have been advised to let Troopers paint "harden" = I do have a pretty good selection of stickers he has earned that are just itchin to find their way onto his clean slate of an easel,,, you know,, the one that is covered with Electric Blue paint at this time This discussion reminds me of a discussion I had many years ago with one of my HD riding good friends/neighbors who is just as anal about cleaning/shining/washing his bikes as I am about my stickers.. It went something like this: Larry (my buddy): You need to wash that thing!! Me: Her name is Tweeks and that dirt is from far off lands like Montana, S.D., Wyoming, Idaho, Maine, Florida, California, Texas and, because she earned it,, it is just as much a part of her as the 4 pistons inside those jugs that will put a whoopin on that 103 inch HD any day of the week.. (no joke,, me and Larry go on and on like that for HOURS) Larry - couple weeks later: bring that thing down to my house and I will wash it for you! Me: dont you EVER touch my bike with your power washer or any other water for that matter. You have a bike,, you wash yours.. Larry a couple months later: If you dont wash that thing I may have to stop riding with you. Me: I have ridden many thousands of miles alone. fast forward to present day = my buddy Larry and I riding the memory ride for a buddy who dropped his bike - two best buddies who hammered it all out and, while they may not be totally alike,, they respect each other and are the best of buds (2nd vid):

Look T.C., your parents are in T.C. (aka: Traverse City Michigan)!! This video is taken from the trail running eastwardly thru the north west side of town right along Traverse Bay. Among other things, this area is extremely well known for its Cherry Orchards and the Cherry Industry the fruit from those orchards built. As a business man in that field, for many years I did Cherry Pitter Sales and Service - T.C. will clearly remember the days that I spent 2 months of the season chasing around in this area and always came home with PLENTY of "fruits of my labor" for my family. As a matter of fact, one of my favorite customer's had a stone wall home here (this area is also known for its amazing building stone) on edge of the bay that I am filming here). A word of caution, if you decide to make this ride/run,, be mindful that you must stay on 31 as you travel, if you end up taking "37" north out of T.C. it will be easy to go a LONG ways thinking you are on the correct pathway toward our Mackinaw Bridge when in fact, you will be traveling the Traverse City Peninsula that will end up at Old Mission (still a FABULOUS journey - just a LONG way out of the way cause you gotta go all the way back to T.C. to correct the ahh ohh) .

Despite our "ahhh ohhh" feelings about it, the failed bridge detour in Manton actually ended up being a God send. The detour forced Tip, Trooper and I back toward the Lake Michigan shoreline and toward the little Michigan town of Mesick (and no,, I am not kidding, look it up, Mesick IS it's name and it is pronounced Me Sick) which is also THE premier Mushroom hunting town of Michigan (ANYONE who has EVER heard of Morel Mushroom's has also heard of Mesick Michigan). As a matter of fact, and T.C. may remember this, back when I was finishing my degree I was also employed by the college as an Administrator. One of the ladies that I worked with who worked in the offices at the college had actually been elected as Mushroom Queen of Mesick. A highly respected and sought after position indeed!! That is not why I mentioned this route being a God send though,, this cut across over to Mesick ended up being the beginning of some of those AWESOME fall touring colors that we are looking for!!

Traveling out of Cadillac north bound on Old U.S. 131 toward the little town of Manton Michigan (an area known for it's excellent Mushroom hunting opportunities), the color's were also still in change. While still no where near peak as suggested by the internet (I don't get it T.C., I thought everything on the internet was suppose to be true), the colors were indeed starting to appear!! Ahhh ohhhh,,, whats this,,, looks like that little bridge in town may be out,,, sure enough, good thing your ol poppa and your momma are still experts at drifting because...

Tip and I are mountain coasters from wayyy back. We have plenty of video's showing our exploits on Tweeks (our 83 Yamaha Venture) having fun doing exactly that. As a matter of fact, our record non-stop coast aboard Tweeks was over 30 minutes in time covering 26 miles of mountain in a far off land called Kings Canyon California. By design, Trooper seems to have been produced specifically for old geezer retired folk like myself who enjoy things like shutting er down, droppin er in neutral and coasting because with him, you don't even have to turn anything off, just let up on the throttle and the fun begins !! All goes silent,, coast down the hill with no wear on your hydraulic brakes and, get this, with Troop you end up refilling your fuel tank in the process LOL..

I got a hunch that this video will be as much of a step back in time for T.C. as it was for us. Years ago we lived up here on Crippen Street in the town of Cadillac. Here we rediscover our little town house and take advantage of this moment in time to recall a few of the finer points of life for us. We only lived here a short time while I finished my degree. Those years had their ups and downs on all of our children as we had always been country people, but as a family unit, we survived and later went on to live on acreage of our own with thousands of acres of State Land right out our back door. A place where, during the fall, a Michigan color tour was an everyday occurrence, right Tee?

Do you remember riding your bicycle all the way around Cadillac's Lake Mitchell T.C.? Or riding in our 1978 Ford Station wagon out there by the fish shanties in the winter time? Or flying over the Lake during the winter snow show in that Helicopter? Or the thick smoke from the fire pits at the State Park? This was a must do check for colors as the Lake is still very much surrounded by it's natural tree cover. Sadly though, still no sign of the type of color's Tip, Trooper and I know you will be looking for in this series. We do have another surprise for you though, wait till you get a peek at Part 9 of this series, I think you will love it!!

Indeed brother,, STRANGE year for sure.. Thank you for the well wish on finding those colors,, we actually did find em wayy up north.. If you are interested,, keep a weathered eye check on this forum cause WOWZY WOW WOW WOW we did find the mother load wayyyyy up yonder by the Mighty Mack!! Thanks for the well wish brother!! Puc

I just tested that copy/paste search of for my buddy blood!! Bleeding brakes on a 83 Yamaha Puc Puc on youtube and it worked fine on this end.. @Banks412, Tim give it a shot and let me know if you get to the one about brake bleeding. By the way,, you are more than welcome for the assistance, helping each other is a way of life around this club of ours,, glad to do it!! Puc

Hmmm,,, not sure why that is Tim,,, I wonder if it's because you are a trial member.. I do see the the video here.. Tell you what,, if you go back to youtube and search for "for my buddy blood!! Bleeding brakes on a 83 Yamaha Puc Puc" (just copy/paste what I typed between those quotes in the youtube search) and let me know if you find it.

After reading endless pro/cons on Seafoam, many years ago I did an actual dirty carb soak test using Seafoam, Spray carb cleaner from Auto Zone, Berrymans Chem Dip and Techtron injecter cleaner (add into the fuel tank stuff) - used em all full strength.. I took a bank of old ratty 750 Honda carbs apart for the comparison so each carb was comparable in grunge.. THEY WERE NASTY!! The Chem Dip took 100% 1st place, an hour and the internal parts were clean. 2nd place went to the spray, in less then 12 hours the grunge started loosening. Techtron came in 3rd with a difference seeing in 24 or so hours. Seafoam came in flat last, I left the parts soaking in pure SeaFoam for a week and no, nada, zero difference occurred as far as cleaning any parts - even the light shellacing on the bowl walls were not touched,, saying nothing for the solid sludge in the bowl bottom or the plugged solid main/slow speed jets. Never really used the stuff for much other than a fuel stabilizer after that (it does seem to work well for that IMHO). I will say though and I don't know why,, whether its an octane boost or what, but for some reason,, all engines I run with Seafoam in them do seem to run better with Seafoam added though,,, really not sure why.. I have also observed, on several occasions thru the years, that the ceramic area on plugs I have ran SeaFoam added fuel across have a "sheen" to them that is not normal,, IMHO of course. I have also noticed a change in plug life from my SeaFoam usage - plugs dont last as long for me after SeaFoamed. Fast forward now to the recent purchase of our Hyundai Ioniq Hybrid. It has an "Atkinson" stroke motor in it and is direct injection. Variable valve timing.. 13 to 1 compression but spected at 87 octane . Hyundai spec's 0-20 full syn oil.. Also,,, noticing on its service chart (doing my service work,, I am a geezer,, YES but I still like to tinker LOL) they also want me to add Hyundai fuel additive each 7500 miles if I dont use Top Tier fuel (most fuels here are Top Tier, must be countries where Top Tier fuels arent popular).. I get thinking,, it's detergent that makes Top Tier, Top Tier - Cleaner additives for keeping the valves clean and carbon from stickin.. Talked to the dealership tech about it and sure enough,, that and dirty injectors are their concern. Apparently, the Hyundai additive has something called PEA in it.. Then I find out that Techtron is basically another name for PEA so Hyundai is basically relabling Techron injector cleaner and selling as their label with PEA. After thinking about this, I reminded the tech that Trooper (our Ioniq) is direct injection so no fuel is flowing over the valves. I was told that in my case, the additive would be basically an injector cleaner. Thinking again (I do that to much) I inquired about SeaFoam and briefly told by the tech about my experience in the cleaning test.. Come to find out,, the tech informed me that Seafoam contains NO PEA or other form of actual detergent/cleaning additive so no surprise came upon the techs face when I explained my findings. I was also told that Seafoam would not suffice for my Ioniqs application. Techtron would suffice though as well as products by Lucas, Royal Purple and so on that all contain cleaners... As a matter of fact, I was advised that if I wanted to save some cash and wanted to occasionally add some injector cleaner even though we have ample supplies of Top Tier,, I could just go ahead and use any of the above and put the receipts for such in my service book along with my oil products receipts.. Thats my story and I am stickin to it,,, unless someone else does some testing like I did I can show a difference.. Then I may change my story **** Another note,,, IMHO and in my short experience with all this stuff,, there is still nothing like actually pulling the carb or what ever apart and actually cleaning things with tools operated by human hands - especially skilled ones.. I have yet to find a product that cleans like human hands with proper tools all in tune with eyes that can see what they are cleaning.. WOWZY WOW WOW WOW,, rereading what I just wrote,, I am an opinionated lop eared varmint..

Talk about not fun!! Prayers Up for my friend VAz!!!!

u GOOD EYE and yes, that bleeder up on the neck is a vital part of getting good brakes!! I would do rear caliper, then front caliper and then the high spot bleeder up on the neck. I have been riding the earlier 1st Gen MK1's for years and can tell ya, Mom Yam did you MK2 riders a great favor by giving you a bleeder to work with up there. Not that bleeding off the metering valve is that difficult but many flare nuts on that little section of connecting tube have been rounded off in the process of someone trying to bleed that high spot down... Here is vid of what us geezers had to put up with.. Concerning the sideways pics,,, I am farrrr from any form of a picture taker professional but can tell you that most of the issues I have had posting up pics end up having to do with picture size.. I put my camera on economy size,, 380 x 650 I think it is,, and all works perfect.. Get up much higher than that and funny things start happening,,, to point of not even being able to post pics. If I have pic's that are over that size, I use "Paint" to size them down and then resave them in the smaller size.. At one time I think I found I could get by with sizing the top/bottom size at 750 pixels or something like that in paint.. Bottom line Banks,, I would take a close look at what size of pics your trying to post,, first place I would check if it were me!! Here is another one of my corney vids: Here ya go Banks,, check take a peek at this if and when ya get a second:

Sorry I had to really make this vid a short one Banks but I only had 1 minute of memory left on that confounded SD card. Hope this helps!! If one of the club guru's dont show up with a definite yes,, it is the blue wire to prove me correct here,, I will double check a schematic and verify.. I am 99.99999% sure it is though cause I had to doodle with mine on a couple of my bikes to fix a gauge problem.. The text on the vid at YouTube reads: One of our friends on VentureRider.org asked if anyone knew the location of this sending unit on his Yamaha Venture touring bike as his temp gauge had stopped working. Failure of the gauge caused by a loose or failed connection on this sending is not uncommon and fairly easy to fix once you remove that little guard attached to the radiator cover with two screws. There are two sending units/connections in this location - one for the gauge and I believe one for the fan. Going from memory here, I believe the blue wire leading to the brass colored sending unit behind that cover and above that black hose is the one for the gauge. Hope this helps you in some small way Banks and maybe even some other 1st Gen rider looking for this info out there in cyber land!! If your reading this, and riding a Yamaha Venture new or old, you should join the party at VentureRider.org,, lots of good folks/fun/stories happening there at our club! Get out and ride,, Puc

OUTSTANDING VAz!!!!! Tip and I wish you folks nothing but the very very best of camping/touring fun on this maiden trailer voyage!! :thumbsup: You certainly have PLENTY of places to go, things to do with endless :photographing:ing opportunities around every bend = CANT WAIT TO FOLLOW YOUR JOURNEY!!! :dancefool:

Heyyy Teee,,, they are JUST starting to change!! Still on M-55 just west of Cadillac and indeed, the colors are just starting to show their brilliance here! Another thing we noticed along here was a massive amount of tree damage from high winds. There were area's that appeared to be almost Tornado damage like in that the downed timber was laying in a tangled mess and the trees were twisted off. In other areas it almost appeared to be straight line wind damage as the tree's, even the ones that were fully uprooted, seemed to be laying all in one direction. Any of our Michigan friends have any idea about this?

If you go back to your Michigan roadmap and continue following M-37 north out of Baldwin you will eventually come to the intersection of M-55 and 37, turning right/east there will head you into Cadillac and be following the route we are on in this vid. This would be directly north of the gravel pit that you played in up in the deer woods T.C. and also north east a little of Iron's and that little Jerky store in Dublin. This part of M-55 is lined with Maple, Poplar, Birch, Beechnut and other color producing tree's too so we were very hopeful in finding the beginning of Michigans finest colors for our daughter..

If you look at a Michigan map you can locate Baldwin right on M-37. T.C., and her siblings, will absolutely remember a small ice cream store there named "Jones" ice cream where, wayyy before any of the four of our kids ever headed cross country on a motorcycle with me, they learned to eat ice cream (I remember going with my dad to this same Ice Cream hang out all the back into the late 50's when I was just a kid too,, Jones homemade ice cream has been a main stay and food group of its own for many many years)!! Matter of fact, when T.C. was less then 4 months old, she got so spoiled by the taste of Jones malteds that if I tried to take the straw of my malt out of her mouth she would look at me and cry - bet ya dont remember that Tee LOL.. Just north of Baldwin right on M-37 is the small town of Wolf Lake and is where this vid was shot. This is really really pretty area up here, a lot of pine and oak (no color changing there) but also LOTS of Poplar (usually LOTS of yellows/orange).. Nothing happening here yet though....

Just south of Baldwin Michigan is a B.P. fuel station where, not to many years ago, Tippy with our motorcycle named Tweeks and I held one of our many Pucs Meet Greet and Eat Meat Hot Dog outings (folks came from miles around to join us in telling tales and eating hot dogs but if you were not one of those souls lucky enough (or,, crazy enough) to have joined in the fun for one of those fantastic events and are curious of what I am talking about, you can search my youtube vids and find numerous hilarious accounts of those happenings therein). We thought it best to introduce Trooper to this area by stopping to see if they had any of our left over Hot Dogs (thats a joke) and grab a fresh bottle of water (no gas needed, Trooper gets 60 mpg and we left with a half a tank of fuel so no sense in carrying the xtra weight all over Michigan,) when Tippy noticed a sign on the front door that put a great big grin on me and Troops faces. You know us T.C.,, we are FAR from being any type of LOTTO players but at those kind of potential dollars, GREEN suddenly became the color we were momentarily looking for!

Hey T.C.,,, nothing happening color wise up here north of Hesperia near one of our old Bow Hunting spots. Surely you remember following your ol Poppers thru the woods between morning and evening hunts around the Benton Lake area? It was up here just north of Benton Lake where on Tank Creek - we all played "Pooh Sticks" for the first time (anyone who has raised little children and are familiar with Winnie The Pooh will certainly know this game - it's where everyone drops a stick in the flowing stream and runs to the other side of the wooden bridge to see whose stick comes out from under the bridge first). My T.C. was ALWAYS good at playing Pooh Sticks! Still no colors sweetheart,,, dont worry,, we are HEADING north and WILL find some!!!! Baldwin Michigan, the gateway to the north woods is coming up!!

Heading north in the direction of where those Michigan fall colors usually come from, the little northern town of Fremont paid no colorful dividends.. Other than a few colorful Amish people sharing the road with Trooper in their awesome horse drawn buggy (my good friend from Arizona named VAz would LOVE to see these folks!!) who have blessed this area by calling it home, everything is still pretty much green here at this time. This color tour business can be a tiring pursuit but someone has to do it - the 3 of us are only glad it happens to be us this time!!!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO YOOP :doh::sign67::sign67::sign67:!!!! :yikes:Please say it aint so!!!! ,, think it may be time for the Yoopers and the Troll's to pay a visit to Flyinfool to put kink in some White Washer nozzles brother.. GORGEOUS PICTURES THOUGH LOL

Here ya go Zack,, go to 1:10 on the time line and you can see the valve control I am talking about. I dont have a video showing the exact position the valve is suppose to be for "RUN" but I do know that its not what a normal person would think would be a normal position... Almost like Mom Yam was trying to trick us or something. Hope I am making sense here cause this is something that could be an issue in your case (having messed with the coolant system)..

By the way Zach,, being from Stockton, you ever do that Sonora Pass ride thru the mountains just east of you? WOWZY WOW WOW WOW = GORGEOUS!! Or the one thru the mountains that Twin Cities Road (I think Twin Cities turns into 104 or something) that leads out thru that mountain town of Jackson and across to 89? We take that one a LOT to avoid those 4 hour jam ups coming out of Tahoe when going to Wilton/Sacramento to see the kids.. Both DEFINITELY rides pretty enough to make your eyes bleed!!!

That Bossman around this joint is quicker than a 1st Gen tach and more accurate than the same IMHO. Running in the red zone is not normal in my experience though as all of my 1st Gen's have ran 1 or 2 needle width shy of the zone as their normal op temps. I think if it were my scoot I would double check the position of the bypass/drain valve down where the hoses come together below the rad and in front of the oil filter. If that valve is in the wrong position you could be starving the system of coolant and causing a run hot situation - an opinion of course.. I would also consider checking the condition of the water pump impellar as all but 2 of my bikes still had the plastic 83 OEM impeller in them.. Those would be the early ones that like to dissolve over time leaving nothing to move coolant but a spinning hub,, DEFINITELY an overheat waiting to happen. I think I may have a video showing the valve I am talking about. Be right back if I can find one...