cowpuc

Corner shmorener,, tighten the screws and take er to 12 :mo money::mo money:

A stone caught in the tire tread? Smack the rear brake caliper with a rubber mallet so the pads are farther from the rotor and try it.. Grease the drive hub fingers and check the wheel bearings while in there messing around..

May do another in house auction like with the trike!

IMHO, moving freely in the guides is one thing, sealing on the valve seats is a whole nuther subject. If the valves are pitted from rust gathering there is very little chance of them lapping themselves back in to create a good seal.. What eventually will probably happen if they are pitted and/or have a build up of rust holding them open a little) on you run it on them is you will burn the valves.. Another option IMHO would be running the engine on the other 3 good jugs that have clean valves (I would check them too first and make sure the valves are sealing properly on them) leaving the plug out on the bad one. Spray PB into the #4 as its being operated by the three good pots and see if doing so wouldnt give the rusted valves a chance to reseal without combustion so they cant burn. Years ago I took a spark plug and gutted it and stuck a shrader valve in it to use for leak down testing. Worked great.. Just run the piston to TDC on the compression stroke, hold the crank with a wrench so it couldnt spin when I hit it with air, shoot 40 psi in it and let it sit for a few minutes to see if it held. Bad valves were REAL easy to find like this as they would "whistle" - good easy test to show my customers whether or not they needed a valve job. You could do something similar and then pull the plugs, expose the crank rotor nut so you could put a drill motor on the crank, spin the engine while keeping the valves moist with PB or some other lube with rust remover.. After a few minutes of running the engine without it actually running you could put some air on #4 and see if its still leaking.. Never know,, might work,, definitely better than just starting it and smoking the valves IMHO..

If health were not a factor on my end other things could have been arranged,, to the tune of a Puc's Delivery service in action cause I gotta Grandson out there who is about to have his first B-Day but indeed,,, a Condor and Puc's Road Show would work just as well :crackup:

Forget what I wrote about misting em with gas/oil mix,, I just reread your post and see where you lubed em with PB Blaster,,, attal' do just fine! I would still make sure the fuel was Top Tier though,, cant hurt.. CAN NOT WAIT TO HEAR THE GOOD NEWS!!! :You_Rock_Emoticon:

That roll pin you are pointing at is the locater pin and keeper for a plastic bypass tunnel to transfer anti-freeze. If you look horizontally behind the spark plug you can see the face of the plastic tunnel. The tunnel tube is removable (they can be a pugnacious little buggers to get out because there are o-rings that seal it) by removing the spark plug, pulling the roll pin and grabbing the exposed fin on the face and turning it/pulling it. If you start having misfiring and discover you are getting water/anti-freeze collecting around the plug - this is the first place I would check.. Just an FYI. If @StevenG was still around he would be well pleased to hear what I am about to mention. If it were mine and was concerned about the rust formation on the valves I would do a compression test on it to make sure the rust had not formed on the face of the valves = possibly creating a leak which would not be good. I would also take my cheapy bore scope (bought it off ebay for 10 bucks, works pretty dog gone good!! I grabbed the one with the 10 foot lead so I could check drains and stuff if I wanted. No idea how much they are now but it was well worth 10 bucks, came with software too), roll the piston up on the intake stroke so the valve was open and look at the face of the valves just for kicks. Slight rust dusting is not that uncommon on valve faces/stems on the intakes after setting for long periods as the intakes run pretty dry, especially with no-lead 10 percent alcohol fuel running over em. As long as I didnt see stalagtites hanging from em I would not be too concerned. To my knowledge these V-4's do not have valve over lap ground into the cam profiles so scavenging is not a factor but you also do not have the benefit of burned gases keeping the valve and stem coated IMHO. Personally,, if the rust was just a dusty look to it, I would probably mix two stroke oil and gas at mix common for a dirt bike/chain saw,, maybe 30 to 1,, in a spray bottle and spray the mix into the intakes as I was rolling the bike over before starting it - dont hydro lock it,, just enough to dampen em up. I would also make sure that the fresh gas I was putting into the tank was "Top Tier" fuel so I knew it had a good detergent assisting in rust dust removal.. Give it every chance to survive any rust that may have built up on the valve faces and stems..

Will be watching and waiting in great anticipation my friend!! that all goes according to plan!! Soooo much fun bringing these beasts back to health = GOOD ON YA FOR JUMPING IN WITH BOTH FEET AND GETTIN ER DONE!! I gotta gut feeling that your big award is right around the corner:7_2_102[1]:

Sounds awesome!! I did a little digging and found this thread = https://www.venturerider.org/forum/showthread.php?33290-Proper-way-to-measure-valve-clearances/page3&highlight=valve+adjustment which on page three has some fairly good pics of the cam/valve/journal arrangement. I noticed the plugs on the cam journal caps you are speaking of. I also noticed the exposed holes on tops of those caps and thought they were potentially entrances into the journals to capture oil as I mentioned previously but after noticing the plugs you are referring to it dawned on me that those openings are probably threaded internally and used to hole the covers on. All that said, it appears that the cam/journal set up is of the line-bored = cam to aluminum journals/saddles but are in fact part of the pump system = EXCELLENT!! You did good though brother,, good on ya for checking!! I would hit the jugs with a 1/4 teaspoon of Marvel Mystery oil (I use a syringe for this) and roll it with the starter after buttoning up the cam area - plugs OUT and grounded. Couple minutes of that I would do the same with 1/4 teaspoon of raw fuel on top of the Marvel and spin it again.. If it spins fast enough to dampen the spark plug area's that would be AWESOME - keep the plugs away from their holes so you dont get ignition.. Spin it till it stops misting Marvel/fuel mix. Cycle the fuel pump with kill switch a few times to fill the bowls and start er up.. CANT WAIT TO HEAR THE GOOD NEWS!

Exactly but before I did that I would do some digging and determine whether the top end has line bored journals or if it has actual bearings. I would also check and see whether or not those journals (if it has them) are part of the oil pump system that the pump is actually delivering oil under pressure to. What I have done in the past is pull valve adjustment covers and/or valve covers and squirt the same oil I would be using in the crankcase across the cam as I rotated the camshaft with either the starter or a drill motor attached to the crank. I have never had the top end of a venture apart so I really do not know what the cam/journal/bearing lubrication arrangement is therein.. While waiting for someone with much more knowledge on the V-4 to respond here, I will do a little digging in the shop manual and VR tech site to see if I can determine what arrangement you are dealing with. You may want to do the same..

I am probably reading this wayyyyy backwards but this sounds like a simple grounding issue,, like you got corrusion at a ground connector of a loose ground wire.. If it functions properly when running an external ground wire and ya didnt wanna fool around tracing connections,, cant you just ground it externally of the harness

:sign yeah that::sign yeah that: Sky!!! If it's got line-bored journals that the cam rides in instead of actual bearings this a VERY important IMHO.. I've rescued 100's of scoots that have sat unran for years and by doing exactly as Sky mentions here, never had a cam journal smudge and fail IF I opened em up and pre-lubed em.. Not sure on the Venture/V-Max V4 topend if this is the case but on a lot of lined bored topends (Honda 750's, XR's, Yamaha Inlines and so on) the cam journals are NOT oil supplied directly from the pump. There are small countersunk passages on the journals themselves that capture oil and bleed it into the journal. I have also restored/repaired top ends that the PO ignored doing this and I ended up with the bike, after the fact, with oblonged journals (LOTS of cam slop) = ruined head because of it.. Seen em bad enough that as soon as fired em up they would knock the points out of spec (Honda 350) and even one that came to me with a camshaft that had broken in half cause it siezed completely in the journals... Once that Aluminum saddle smudges from lack of lube its only a few spins from siezing.. GOOD POINT SKY,, IMHO of course..

Numerous companies use drip plugs for oil level checking.. You just upright the scoot, remove the plug and fill till oil drips out. If it were mine and someone had rigged it like your talking I would just pull the large plug they filled the hole with, drill a hole thru the center of it and tap it out and put a small bolt with a crush washer on it to use as a drip plug.. Some companies (Honda) even use drip plugs on the top end's to be used for pre-lubing/checking oil pump.. If you get a chance, check out a 1980's thru mid 2000's XR80 - XR100, right above the spark plug will be a 10mm oil drip plug. So many of those little scoots got their top ends (cam journals) fried from people letting them sit and then starting them up without pre-lubing (a lot of scoots have cams in them that ride on aluminum journals that if started dry without pre-lubing they will smudge the journals in a matter of seconds at start-up) and/or people dont realize that on a tip over it easy to get air in the oil pump and it needs to be re-primed before start up.. Ya just kick it till oil drips from the drip hole and all is good.. Also not sure if the RSV uses a float switch to monitor oil level like the 1st Gens?? One of my bikes got enough hard miles on it that it was on the perverbial, never do an oil change = just add oil routine.. With that scoot I never looked at the site glass, I would just hammer it once in a while in 1st gear and if the oil icon flashed I knew it was time to add a quart.. Worked great!!

I am so sorry for your tremendous loss and share in your grief my brother.. Hanna sounds like she was an amazing person with the type of relationship with her Dad that so many only dream of. Please know you, your family and the families of the others who also suffered the loss of family members at such a young age are in my prayers.. Good thing our loving God can hear prayers from the heart cause I am speachless in sorrow here my friend.. PRAYERS UP BROTHER,, PRAYERS UP! Puc

John I am typing this while eating breakfast and chasing my 2 year old grandson trying to keep him from smearing scrambled eggs onto my keyboard so I gotta make it quick.. There is a good chance the roller follower that engages the indexer at the end of the shift drum is messed up,, may even be an issue with the little spring that holds the arm the roller is on is messed up. Before I started pulling the engine to split the cases to check shift forks I would remove the clutch basket and get a good look at that apparatus..

Just looked up "Lachut" in the Dictionary that came with my copy of The Code.. Surprised none of you other lop eared varmints didnt think of that.. Lets see,,, says here = "One with strong desire to gobble ice cream", warning signs in early American history used the term "lachut" to announce an out of ice cream status", "common term used to warn hikers to watch their step when hiking and following kids who hiked before them eating ice cream cones = "watch for lachut rocks on canyon rim". ,, don't know sqwat about the :canada:version of The Code or the dictionary associated therewith but that's how the (we REALLY gotta do something about this teeny flag waver dude,, it's getting harder and harder to tell the difference between the Stars and Bars he's wavin and the British one for these old eyes ) reads!

Death Valley in the moonlight of a full moon = WOWZY WOW WOW WOW unforgettable!! CTFW = Chasing The Front Wheel and/or some dirivitive thereof

Got that right my friend,,, just checked out the current OEM,, down to 256 from 603 !! https://www.yamahapartsnation.com/oemparts/a/yam/59b01bfe87a86610ac04eca9/rear-wheel Here is an interesting point too.. Check out the current price of the rear wheel Don = 260 bucks!! That is also wayyy down from 576 shown on the original parts sheet and for sure that cant be because of competition like in tire supply.. Strange...

Here is a little better picture from that same thread showing the rear tire back then at 603 bucks

Actually he was quoting me right from Mom Yam's parts book and showed me the numbers.. If you refer back to this thread https://www.venturerider.org/forum/showthread.php?132424-Tires that was an earlier discussion about tire pricing, there is an actual picture of the parts list showing the price of the rim at 576 and tire at 603.. Hold on,, I'll see if I can duplicate that listing here.. Yep,, got it,, should be showing up in a pic below? I know brother,, that was a while back, a lot of water over the dam since then = with the new Honda running the same tire, lower prices? Anyway,, back during that time frame 500 bucks for a tire was about the highest price tire I knew of,,, in answer to Neil's question.. Here's a picture of the parts quote from that thread and from the time frame I was referring to,, looks exactly like the page that factory guy was quoting from in answering my questions back then,,, a longgg time ago on a galaxy far far away

Not sure where it's at now price wise and not even sure what brand of tires we were talking but when we looked at and rode the new Ventures out at Sturgis I spent a fair amount of time yakking with the factory guys out there. One of the things I noticed right away at the unveiling at Americade in New York was the odd sized tire they chose to run on the rear end.. Being one who used to go thru a few tires a year I was curious of the cost of the new breed of tire on the new Yam I was compelled to inquire at Sturgis = I was shocked to find be quoted over 500 bucks for a new rear tire (this quote was for one (1) tire). A little more checking revealed that a person could actually buy the wheel itself at all most at the same price !! No idea where that stands now Neil but someone here may know.. I do know this,, even Carbon Fiber tires rated at +200mph for my R1 are not close to that number!!

,, , but on the other hand,,, maybe a good old fashioned bidding war - sold to the highest bidder - bidding war would liven things up a bit.. With the bike market being as soft as it is and if Becky is wanting it gone before winter maybe our first ever VentureRider Bike Auction would service her needs perfectly. Carl could ask her to pick a date that the bike needs to be gone, then pick an auction close date for bids a couple weeks before that date. Keep the bids open for all to see to keep the going on.. Could do the same with Blondie.. I know of LOTS of estates that have gotten cleared in this way by auction services. The major downfall for the families who are selling the belongings of the loved one who has passed on is that the selling auction services REALLY sock it to em in fee's and commissions, something that doing it "in house" would eleviate. Another avenue may be a Raffle of sorts but there may be laws standing in our way of doing such a thing ( @Freebird ?) plus, a Raffle would be a lot more time consuming IMHO.. Sheesh Randy,, now look what you started

Speaking of Whale Watching,, here is the pathway (C Vid) for a Whale Watching spot in California one of my daughters told us about. This was after the fact of our CTFW days but still an AWESOME ride that would be TREMENDOUS to do on a scoot!! Also, I cant help but wonder if a later season scoot trip back into Shelter Cove (AMAZING spot in it self) might actually reveal some Whale sightings!!!! Speaking of late/early season snows,,, one of the kids and I got snowed in while camping on the North Rim one year and had to wait till the after noon hours to get the scoot out of the woods - that was in mid-June.. Yellowstone also got us one time in an early September tour with the same results.. Another time Tweeks/Tip and I bumped into some hikers doing the Pacific Crest Trail on the Sonora Pass Summit. This was in late June and they had just hiked thru snow to get to us. Their plan was to have the hike finished by Sept. 1 as (their words) alot of the passes can and do snow shut starting in September = ,, maybe doing some investigative research on hiking the PCT and season for doing so would help in your decision making of the best route down and back during the off season brother!! Northern U.S. (north of that line I was talking about) in the late fall is a BEAUTIFUL time to ride though if your dressed for it IMHO.. LOTS of adVenture out there even in just trying to stay warm ,,, DEFINITELY farr less other bikers on the road if your the type to not into sharing the road!!

About the only brand that I can think of that a lot these varmints aint played with would be in the Car Tire category but I bet a Dark Siding report wouldnt be on Ultimate's agenda.. ,,, ,, how about a good set of Chin Shing full knobbies like my KX500 liked to gooble up Seriously though,,, I think Avons would be the least reported on tires I have seen around but even those had a following for a while...

+3 on the Shinks!! We LOVE and revere your reports on Ulimate @VentureFar,, always from the hip, call em as you see em and ULTIMATELY very accurate!! A square shot at the cheaper tire's by a lop eared from the hip, call em as you see em varmint like yourself would be treasured!! Keep up the good work brother and keep the faith! Puc