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Gearhead

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Everything posted by Gearhead

  1. Gearhead
    Mine does that. The oil stays in the lower section of the airbox, away from the filter. The only thing about it that bothers me is that it seeps out arount the rubber boots to the carbs and runs down the outside, slowly making a mess. Jeremy
  2. Gearhead
    Me too, did something similar, twice with same results. Needs grease, in both ends of the bushing. Jeremy
  3. Gearhead
    I've been using the "upgraded" starter for maybe 2 months with no problem. The weather has not been hot, which used to exacerbate the problem, but I have done some hot engine starts and it always cranks right over. Don't get me wrong, it doesn't crank like a banshee or anything, but it's always adequate to get the job done, where before sometimes it would be BARELY adequate. Jeremy
  4. Gearhead
    Well, I followed the procedures here. I posted this in another thread right after I did it: It's been a couple weeks of cold weather now where I'm pretty sure it would have groaned before the fix, and no groaning. Yay! Jeremy
  5. Gearhead
    It's 40 channel in the VR, and the manual says it's 4W. Jeremy
  6. Gearhead
    Maybe, but the Venture is not exactly a Harley in terms of vibration. It's not like cars don't vibrate, too! I thought when I got the Silverstar that was and MC-rated H4 it would be more vibe resistant. Seems to not be the case. Hopefully this PIAA bulb is. What's ridiculous is that when I buy a 9-dollar H4 at Autozone, it lasts forever. I've also had aftermarket bulbs for about $15 which put out 100 W on the HI beam and they too lasted a long time (they can cause current and heat problems, though). The Silverstar is a fairly expensive, premium bulb, of standard wattage. Why should it be more delicate? Jeremy
  7. Gearhead
    SWR is most important for transmit, methinks. Jeremy
  8. Gearhead
    I like the light the Silverstar puts out, too. But my first one lasted less than a year in the Venture. It was a 9003 car model (physically the same as an H4) and somebody said the bike ones are more sturdy for vibration. So I bought a 2-pack of H4's for 50 bucks (the 9003 was $20 for one) and put them in my Venture and Virago, maybe 5 months ago. Virago's bulb burned out in 2 months. Venture is still going. Don't know what else to say about that! Jeremy
  9. Gearhead
    Hi. I've seen alot of traffic here on how to wire driving lights. Using a relay is the ONLY way to go, but there's the decision of whether the relay should trigger off the HI beam or not. When I first installed them, I wanted them to get power only when the headlight is on, and thru a separate switch. Therefore, I can turn them on or off, but if I leave them on when starting the bike they go off during starting (with the headlight) to reduce battery draw. So that's what I did, and it works well. However, the lights are blinding to oncoming traffic so if I'm on a country road and encountering frequent but not steady traffic, I'm constantly flipping both the HI/LO switch and the driving light switch (car coming, put headlight on LO and turn DL's off). That's why it's nice to have them on the HI beam circuit, but sometimes I like to have the LO beam on with the DL's (on my dirt road, for example). . So I had an epiphany which allows me the best of both worlds. I replaced the DL switch with a double-throw type of the same size. Center position is OFF, fwd position is ON (still tied to HL circuit as before), and back position is tied to the HI beam circuit. This is all for triggering the relay; the main DL power still goes thru the relay. It's pretty slick :-) Jeremy
  10. Gearhead
    I'm so glad to hear you're cancer-free, and that you sound like you're really living life. God be with you. As for the plastic breaking, get used to it. JB Weld or similar, along with some sort of reinforcement like sheet metal will become your friend. Most guys replace the fuse block with a blade type. Some just replace the contacts in the original block. I've replaced two contacts. You can often clean out those switches (start and dimmer) without disassembling. Take the magic contact cleaner and spray it in the cracks around the switch. Place a rag under the switch to catch the runoff. Work the switch back and forth. Repeat several times. Blow it out with air. Finish with spraying a light lube in there. Unless you just want to take them apart to see! In the electrical section of the manual, find the section on the lighting system which isolates the components involved. The HL has many opportunities for voltage drop, some of which have been covered. If memory serves, power goes through the main fuse, ignition switch, HL fuse, start button, dimmer switch and the RLU to get to the HL. (I installed a relay to eliminate the ignition sw, HL fuse and start button.) Every component and connector, even when working properly, has some drop, and if dirty or bad they have more drop. Read about the RLU if you don't know what it is (I didn't know). In short, if the beam you're on burns out, it automatically switches to the the other beam and lights the warning on the dash. Personally, I think I could live without it, but I don't want the darn dash warning on all the time! Jeremy
  11. Gearhead
    I just did this. As Randy & George told me, it wasn't that bad. 45 min to get it out, an hour playing with it, an hour or so putting back together. The thing I didn't like was that you can't take the bushing apart to really get grease inside of it. You can access both ends, but the inside (upper) end is down between parts. So here's what I did. I sprayed WD40 on the lower end only (where the cable goes), spun the bushing, and then blew it out with air. Repeated a couple times, to clean out the bearing and at least get something thin that would penetrate the entire length of the bushing. Be careful where you spray stuff and blow air or you'll make a mess out of your speedo (it doesn't get any worse than that :-) Then I sprayed some chain lube on both ends, Honda stuff which is really cool. It goes on extremely thin and then evaporates to leave behind a clear teflon and moly coating. I spun the bushing by hand and repeated a couple times. I let that sit a while to evaporate. Then I did my best to shove in wheel-bearing grease with moly. On the bottom end I worked it in with my finger and tried to force a little up the bushing. On the top I had to use a jeweler's screwdriver to put some grease on the end of the bushing, so I'm not really sure how effective it was in getting any down the bushing. Again, I spun and wiggled the bushing by hand to help the lube work in. No noise so far. Jeremy
  12. Gearhead
    I believe the former is properly called the "enricher circuit", with the valve part commonly called a plunger. But most people just say the choke plunger, everybody knows that term. The latter is called the "coasting enricher circuit", "coasting enricher diaphragm", etc. My 2 cents, for what it's worth, Jeremy
  13. Gearhead
    Thanks Rick and Carl. Jeremy
  14. Gearhead
    Thanks Randy. By "down inside", do you mean looking from the vicinity of the spinning magnet inside the unit and putting the grease in there (as opposed to the cable attachment side)? Jeremy
  15. Gearhead
    Hi, I've been looking over the fixes for this. Dragin Tail says he shoved grease into where the cable goes using the cable. Yammer Dan did that but had no lasting success. Yammer, what did you do in the end? RandyA says to put grease down into the bearing area. How? From which end - the inside or the bottom (cable fitting)? As an alternate you suggest pushing grease up the cable hole. I've found that to be a blind hole which does not lead to the bushing - how do you mean? GeorgeS, your writeup also indicates to put lube in where the cable attaches. How do you effectively do that? http://www.venturerider.org/forum/showthread.php?t=8296 I have tried the method of shooting oil up the housing with compressed air twice. First time was with motor oil, second was lighter household oil. In both cases I held the wheel end of the housing up as high as I could, dumped a bunch of the stuff in there, and then applied air pressure. Started with short bursts, then also tried longer application of air. I immediately installed the cable and ran it a little with a drill to help distribute the oil. I then let the excess drain from the housing. In neither case did it fix the problem, at least not longer than 3 or 4 days. It did not, however make a mess inside the speedo. I don't think there's any open hole from the cable attachment to the inside of the unit. Please advise further before I tear into the thing! Thanks, Jeremy
  16. Gearhead
    TJ, can you 'splain? Did you dyno your bike? How did you cut your airbox? And does it whistle a tune, like Dixie?? :-) Rick, have you done this? Was there any benefit, or did it just satisfy the urge many of us have to tinker? Did the engine get that mid-speed hesitation? Carl, what do you mean? Have you ridden your bike with the airbox removed? Thanks, Jeremy
  17. Gearhead
    I don't think new springs will help flex, but they should firm up the ride, help with pogo-ing, and prevent bottoming. You didn't mention bottoming, but it is common. Running max pressure in the forks kind of approximates better springs, but IMHO it's hard on the fork seals. I did preload measurements on my Venture a while back and with max air the front end was not too bad before the spring change, but it's better since. What's the fork tube diameter and length on your ZX compared to the Venture? If they're fatter or shorter or the inverted design they will be stiffer. One guy here reported the Superbrace taking away alot of his fork flex. As for me, installing the Superbrace didn't do anything that I noticed. But you already have that. Jeremy
  18. Gearhead
    OK, y'all, I'm looking for results here. Who out there has drilled holes in their VR airbox, and what were the results? How big and how many holes? Did you track mileage? Power impressions? Intake noise impressions? Did you leave it or put it back (tape over the holes)? Any other airbox mods? I know the bike won't run w/o the airbox with the stock carbs. I know some dealers have made a standard practice of certain holes a certain way. I'm asking for YOUR results. I'm working on mine which I'll add soon. Any takers? Jeremy
  19. Gearhead
    New tire took most of my front wobble away, but not all. If I tap the bars with my hand or hit a rock in the road which similarly excites the front end, the wobble still starts. This does not happen on my Virago, but it has more rake. This is OK, I ride with my hands on the bars anyway. The bad part is that I've had 2 emergency (as in I thought I was dead) stops in the last year and under heavy braking the front wheel wobbled severely. By the grace of God I stayed upright in both cases. How do you detect fork flex? I'm not sure what that feels like - can you describe it? I think the only things you can do about it are the Superbrace and make sure everything in the front end is tight. I think an 800 lb bike tends to have a bit of it unless the fork tubes are huge. As for pogo-ing: if you have stock front springs they are probably weak. Progressives or other replacements lifts the front a little and pretty much makes air pressure in the forks unnecessary. Also change your fork oil, making sure you put in the right quantity. Jeremy
  20. Gearhead
    I don't understand. Isn't the airbox buried under the tank? Don't the carb inlets face straight up under the tank like they do on a 1st gen? As such, how is an aftermarket chrome air filter even going to be seen? Running the numbers here for CFM for a 1st gen (7000 rpm) gives 160 CFM. If V.E. is 80%, multiply by 80%. 2nd gen is probably similar. But CFM ratings can be deceiving. Flow has to be rated at some consistent pressure drop to be meaningful. When a company says they can flow "X CFM" but they don't give a pressure drop, they might have to pull 7 psi of pressure drop to get that flow which is not what you want. One example of inconsistent standards is 4 vs 2 barrel carbs. 4 barrel ratings are pretty consistent at, I think, 1.5" of water pressure drop (a very small amount). 2 barrels are less consistent, but often rated at 3" of water, twice the drop. So if a 4 barrel and a 2 barrel had the same numerical flow rating, say 400 CFM, the 4 would actually flow more freely because its rating is achieved with less drop. Back before 4 barrels were common, there existed flow benches for testing carbs and the standard drop was 3". As engines became more powerful and 4 barrels came on the scene, the flow benches couldn't pull enough air to get them up to 3" drop so they used a different standard, 1.5". Jeremy
  21. Gearhead
    Ivan, I've read enough posts about cold solder joints in the CMS that I'd check those out again. They say to re-flow all of them whether they look cold or not. My LCD "N" indicator is flaky as some have said - sometimes it stays on, sometimes it's slow to come on, sometimes it doesn't come on, even though the green neutral indicator is totally reliable, so it's not the swtich. But the CMS is otherwise perfectly functional, so it's no worry - not the same as yours! On those master cylinder sight glasses - On my Virago I had one rot. I replaced it with a piece of metal the right size - a dime, it turns out - and it's been fine for years. It's not much good as a sight glass, though... 6 kids? Wow. I have 4, and not planning to catch up to you either! But one never knows... Jeremy
  22. Gearhead
    You asked about the front wheel problem. From what I've seen, there are two fundamentaly different types of wobbles - the high-frequency front wheel oscillation, usually worst in decel around 40 mph, and the lower frequency (~3 per second) whole-bike weave that happens at higher speed. I'm assuming you are referring to the first one. That said, right there with #1 I'd add front tire wear pattern. I've cured or improved this problem on various bikes with a new front tire but never knew if it was the wear pattern or the balance. A have always wanted to rebalance a tire after the problem started and see if I fixed it, but never got around to it. Also high on the list is the condition of the steering head bearings. Folks here also say tightening the preload on these bearings helps, although that has not been my experience. I'm under the impression that #5 is more for the hi-speed weave. My 2 cents, Jeremy
  23. Gearhead
    There's a small retaining screw that goes in the metal tubing from the side and rides in a groove that goes all the way around the plastic valve body (with the hex on it). That way the valve body can be rotated 360 deg, but the screw won't let it pop out. The ball and spring are for the detent that engages when you rotate the valve into the "OFF" position (which is where it normally operates). Remove the screw, then rotate / pull / talk / cajole the valve body out of there. It has an o-ring on it which you can replace with a standard automotive-duty o-ring. That's what I did. Jeremy
  24. Gearhead
    My experience is like JB's (lonestarmedic). Dick, your experience certainly strikes me as odd. Hmm... Al, when you say "using just the front brake", I think you are really saying "using just the hand lever". And you don't get the WHOLE front brake when you use the hand lever. Hand lever - RH front brake. Foot pedal - LH front brake AND rear brake. With the Venture weighing 800 lb, YES, you need to use both lever and pedal to get max braking. Used one at a time, the pedal will slow you quicker than the lever. This is backward from regular brakes where you can almost ignore the pedal because it is rear only. I would say the system works when you're used to it. As for liking it better or worse than regular brakes, that's purely preference. I've never seen stopping distances published for the same Venture and rider before and after de-linking :-) Jeremy
  25. Gearhead
    I really don't think this is a common problem. If the crown (top) nut is properly torqued down on the upper tree piece, the load it puts on the upper bearing nut (under the tree) keeps it from loosening. Just like any bolt or nut properly torqued - the resulting friction in the threads and under the bolt head prevent loosening. On my 3 Yammy's with this "rubber washer" system I've never found the crown nut loose. JB, if you put the cruise on at 40, take your hands off the bars (but keep them close), and bump one grip with your hand, does that start a wobble? (It's easy to quell with a quick grip on the bars.) Just curious. Jeremy Jeremy
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