Gunfighter

Well, my oldest son talked me into one more try on this. He has located a complete carb bank for me and when it gets here I will check it over and try one more time. I may get the old girl to live once again despite her stubborn resistance to the idea.

300 micron overnight should have been sufficient. Most likely lost enough during the "flushing" to be low on charge. The previously posted pressures are pretty close depending on the ambient temperatures and if all else is correct just bring the charge up until the proper superheat has been met and it should be OK. Yes, the Ducane will be about as cheap as you can get.

The fact that he used some of the refrigerant to "flush" the lines bothers me a bit. Any refrigeration system should be put under a deep vacuum to remove all non-condensable gases (air) and all water vapor. 410 is EXTREMELY intolerant of any of the above contaminants and the oil used in these systems is very hygroscopic (absorbs moisture). If the system was not put under a deep vacuum (under 500 microns) the refrigerant will have to be reclaimed and recycled, the system vacuumed, and new refrigerant installed. If there are any contaminants left in there, the orifice may well be freezing up and restricting the refrigerant flow. Any non condensable gases will give you a low suction pressure and possibly high head pressures also. When putting the system under vacuum one CANNOT go by the low pressure gauge on the manifold set, one MUST use an electronic gauge made for that purpose! "Flushing" the line set and the evap went out the window years ago, for one thing they are mostly pressurized with nitrogen from the factory and that will just mix with the refrigerant while flushing and give you problems. It also loses some of the refrigerant and these systems are critical of the charge level. Also, not putting the system under the recommended vacuum for the recommended time may throw the warranty out of the window. Hope this helps.

Power Trippin, Interesting, I picked the bike up just about 15 miles from you.

No question there, and no argument. It is worth as much to me as I think it is, not what the market will pay for it. I am already way past that last part. I am very familiar to bringing 20+ year old bikes back from the edge. I have done many of them. In fact my main ride is a 1979 XS1100 SF that is lovingly maintained and ridden daily. She and I have been together for almost 300,000 miles but she is getting a bit weary and I wanted to take the pressure off of her and transfer the main work to a younger bike. I just do not want to put the price of a younger bike yet into it. The problem is that I have actually just started to restore this one and already have done and spent more than I expected but have a LONG way to go yet. I have already looked at several Ventures, all running and driveable, I could have purchased all but one of them for what I have into an as yet undriveable bike. I intend to cut my losses and get something with less problems.

Really have not made up my mind what to do with it yet, it is in pretty good shape over all appearance wise, just a couple of scratches and some fading but everything else had been neglected or modified or just plain broken and ignored. I did have one person offer me a set of carbs cheap but they are off of an '83 and I am not sure if they will work on this one or not. Still, even then there is more work and money involved than I like to think about just to wind up with a bike that is worth way less than what I got in it. I will keep you posted on what I decide to do when I make up my mind.

Well people, I have an update on the situation. Indeed it was an entire nest of gremlins and they had been fed at the wrong time and thoroughly doused with water. After uncounted hours of tracking wiring faults, three separate exorcisms, one by a priest, one by a rabbi, and one by a drunken redneck who calls himself a "pistolpalian reverend", and my own well know ceremony involving wild gyrations, yelling, throwing things, and of course the chanting of all the known chants (NOT the ones you can use in church), and some I had to make up on the spot (up to 14 or more syllables), I got it running. By running I don't mean jump on it and take off for a ride, I mean it would fire up and keep firing sort of. It charges and cools and all the rest of the good stuff so I got the wiring working like it should. From there I went to the expected carb cleaning. Well there is where I got a real shock and a great disappointment. The carbs are completely SHOT. How it ran even as poor as it did is a complete mystery. All of the diaphrams are are gonners, running from a few pin holes to completely gone. Ditto with the air control diaphrams. One of the slides is shattered and stuck. one other has only limited travel. The rest of the units are so corroded as to be unusable for anything but projectiles to throw at the occasional stray bear that gets into my bird feeders. SO, after taking a LONG look at it, considering that it also needs new tire, brakes, and many hours of work to put it back together. I have made the decision to stop at this point and not put any more time or money into it as I have already exceeded what it is worth to me. Many thanks to all that gave me good tips on how to proceed and what to look for, it indeed helped a lot. My apologies for wasting your time on a hopeless cause. She is too far gone to be helped so I am going to write her off and cut my losses.

I am new here, first time Venture owner. An '84 XVZ12L. The guy I bought the bike from told me he bought it three years ago and rode it home, ran well but the fork seals were leaking badly so he removed the forks and replaced the seals. After he put it back together it would not start. He worked on it on and off for these three years and no one could make it go so he bought a different bike and sold it to me to get it out of his way. The fuse block was in the usual condition for these things so I replaced it with an ATC type but it still won't go. When you turn the key on the warning light flashes and the display shows the oil level, fuel level, battery, and headlight warnings. Also the kickstand warning if it is down. Neutral light also on when in neutral. All of the lights also come on, including the headlight. Also the fuel pump comes on and pumps to pressure. Pushing the start button may or may not get it to crank over, once in a while it does but for the most part nothing. If it does crank there is no spark. After going through it and checking and cleaning every connection I could find there was no difference. Yesterday while I was looking it over again I noticed that the only warning on the display was the battery one (this is most likely because the battery is an AGM and the sensor has been removed), all others were off. I hit the button and she cranked over and fired! I let it run for several minutes to warm up and then shut it off to check coolant levels etc. All looked good so I tried to start it up again,,,,,,,,,,no luck. It is back to all the above warning symbols and won't crank. One other point which may or may not mean anything is the fuel gauge shows no fuel even though the tank is about half full which may explain the fuel warning indicator. I am highly mechanically inclined, an electrical/mechanical tech by trade and have been riding motorcycles for over 40 years but this thing has me stumped, for the minute anyway. The biggest thing is that it never seems to be the same problem, the combination of the warning icons changes, sometimes the headlight is on and sometimes it is not, ditto with the oil warning. Before this thing drives me to AA can someone tell me if there is a common link to all of this or do I have a whole nest of gremlins hiding in there somewhere?

My Motorola Droid has a navigation app in it that will avoid anything you want to miss, you can also change your route on the run. You can talk to it and it will talk to you. Once I found out all it would do I gave my Garmin to my daughter. The Droid also updates constantly, for free! Not, of course water proof but if it is raining I just put it in the fairing pocket and let it talk to me via Bluetooth.