Dragonslayer

Thanks for the tip I'll order some I wasn't too sure about mouse's milk and raboflavin on the finish.

danob11, Glad to be able to offer some input that may contribute to the stability of your marriage. First and foremost I'm not married. I own the house and my female roommate is cool enough to have the patience of Jobe. But to answer your question. The motor was way to heavy to carry into the kitchen and lift into the kitchen sink or I probably would have since there is hot water in the sink. The bathtub upstairs was way out of the question. I did however have to resort to washing the body parts off in the kitchen sink before painting when the outside temperature dropped to below freezing last week and the hose was froze. I washed the motor on the patio where there is a garden hose before moving it into the sun room where it was painted. I don't know if you can tell by the photos that I have turned my sun room den into a art studio/craft shop/paint booth. There are some advantages and disadvantages in doing so. I'm preatty sure I probably have the only paint booth with heating and air conditioning, wide screen tv and surround sound home theater. Which makes the time spent in the shop much more enjoyable. The disadvantage obviously is that my sun room is now trashed with bits of masking tape, ripped paper and all of the furniture and every surface is covered with bondo dust and metal flake overspray. A condition that I'm sure would be totally unacceptable if I was married. As much as I've tried to keep the mess contained to the sun room, the trips back and forth to the kitchen sink and to the bathroom have left a foot trail of tracked in tape, paper debris and metal flake dust through the house. Hopefully the foot trail will sweep and vacumn up without too much trouble. But since you are married, let me offer you this true story from a time when I was married that hopefully you can gleen some wisdom from. For your own good please bear with me. Years ago, I managed to sneek off in the middle of the week to go deer hunting on a piece of property close by. Early that morning I was fortunate or maybe unfortunate enough to shoot three deer at the same time. At the time, being somewhat financially strapted, and since the wife was at work, I decided to forego dropping the deer off at the deer processors and opted instead to take them home to process and package the meat in the kitchen. Considering the early hour of the day I was sure that I would be able process, package, clean up the kitchen and have the meat in the freezer long before she would get home from work around 5:30 that evening. Now I was thinking that the kitchen was an ideal and sanitary location in which to process wide game. But when she decided to come home for lunch, (which was the first and only time she every did that), Evidently, her perspective was quit different. What she saw when she rounded the corner into the kitchen must have appeared to her as Jeffrey Daimer's kitchen of horror. In retrospect considering her perspective I can understand her reaction. I can imagine her shock and surprise of the scene of her clean kitchen with chunks of red meat on every horizontal surface, blood dripping down the cabinets on to the floor and me standing there covered with blood with butcher knife in hand..... Excuse me , I lost my train of thought. My roommate just made me lift my feet and move so she could vacumn the dust trial which lead to the spot in the livingroom where I'm now typing this on the laptop. Where was I? Oh Yeah..... Butcher knife in hand. I'm sure the thought crossed her mind that she had just discovered that she was married to and had children by a closet hatchett mass murderer of some sort, right before she passed out and hit the floor. And as I'm writting this now, fifteen years after our divorce I am truely remorseful and filled with deep regret, sorror and shame at all pain and suffering caused to her and myself due to my momentary ,lack of judgement at the time. As I tried to revive her , she did come around a little long enough to open her eyes to see me bending over her, covered with blood and butcher knife in hand before she immediatly passed out again. Thank goodness she was already on the floor because I don't believe I could have caught her with one hand since I was still holding the butcher knife in the other. I had to call the paramedics to revive her which they did. The were also very helpful in restraining her before she could wrench the butcher knife out of my hand to kill me with. It took all three of us to hold her down long enough to give her a shot to sedate her. They also helped me carry her to the bedroom where we put her in bed sound asleep. I then turned the light out and shut the door so she could sleep it off undisturbed. Thank God for the paramedics they saved my life. A fact I had to remind myself of when I received a bill from the county several weeks later for Paramedic emergency response $385.00. I thanked the Paramedics from the bottom of my heart as they packed up thier medical bags, and left. I probably didn't notice at the time but I do seem to recall them laughing thier asses off as they were climbing back into the ambulance. As soon as they drove out of sight , I caught the neighbor kid walking down the street and managed to bribe him into helping me destroy the evidence. He agreed at the sight of cash money inspite of the fact that I was still wearing my Jeffrey Daimer outfit, covered with blood. I guess it was a good thing that I had already hidden the butcher knife so that my wife could not find it if she managed to wake up. We then very queitly went to work as fast as we could with mops, sponges and chlorine beach cleaning the kitchen before she woke up. When she awoke two days later from the drug induced coma, the kitchen was spotless and the meat was safely at the deer processors who were finishing the job I had foolishly started. She was calm and seemed to be oblivious to what had occurred three days earlier. When she started describing what she then thought was an horrible nightmare she had had while asleep.,I thought I had dodged the bullet on that one. Silly Silly me Oh was I wrong. Our marriage did eventually end in divorce and I can't say that the event was the ultimate cause but our relationship never was the same since. In fact from that day untill we eventually went our separate ways there were a litiny of residual effects from my momentary lack of judgement. When she returned to work three days later her boss called her into the office and fired her for leaving on Tuesday for lunch and not returning untill Friday with no phone call of explaination of her absence. As you might imagine she was very confused and wondered if she had fallen through a time warp or some space/time continium worm hole thing or something. Resulting in her questioning her own mental stability resulting in eight months of Pyschiatric counseling. When the ftruth finally came to light in hypnosis, we were then both referred to a Pyschologist for Marriage counseling. The Psychologist was very professional, learned and experienced and was very efficient and effective at getting to the root of our marriatal problems. Which seemed to be to the best of my understanding at the time, all the events and circumstances that adversly affected my wifes well being, happiness and mental stability caused by my repeated lack of judgement. Events that we went over and over again for six months at the tune of $100.00 per hour. I thought pointing them out once was enough for me to get the point. Evidently my wife and the pyschologist didn't agree. To reiterate and drive home my point let me summerize by tallying up the cost of my momentary loss of judgement. paramedic bill from the county 385.00 bribing the neighbor kid 30.00 cleaning supplies 42.00 Deer processor 90.00 loss of her income 3 months 6000.00 pyschriatric counseling 8500.00 Marriage Counseling 6500.00 my divorce attorney 3500.00 Court ordered divorce arbitration 2200.00 loss of family home in divorce settlement 90,000.00 loss of personal property in divorce settlement 30,000 seven years of child support and alimony payments 33,600.00 My emotional suffering, stress related health problems, mental instability, self worth issues, damage to relationship with children, resulting loneliness joblessness, homelessness............................................................priceless You do the math, I'm gonna go throw up. Do yourself a big, big favor, run a garden hose out to the garage. Save a few bucks.

Condor, I did think to ask Gary how to maintain the finish before I left his shop. He suggested that I blow dry any water off the covers when washing the bike and occassionally polish them with a high quallity wax based metal polish. He also suggested that I purchase some of his special secret recipe "Gary the Biker Dude Magic Mystery Metal Polishing Creame" which he had neatly packaged in 8 ounce plastic squeeze bottles with white hand written labels and were proudly displayed in a card board box tray right next to the Full Throttle magazine rack. I could not get him to reveal the secret ingrediants of his product but he did let it slip that it contained fortified dehomongenized mouse's milk and raboflavin, (whatever that is). I can hook you up with a bottle if you want some. Oh Yea, great looking side boards, good idea, I hadn't thought about them now I got to go out and look for other parts I can have polished. I think the handle bar risers may be next.

My 87 Venture Royale had over 90,000 miles on it and recently developed a starter clutch problem which prevented starter from engageing with flywheel. I had already managed to get through last summer living with a low compression problem on one cylinder and knew I was facing a valve clearance proceedure and possibly other problems that would require major engine work. Considering that and the mileage I was pleased to be able to snag a very low mileage 1990 motor from one of my favorite ebay sellers who is also a VenturRider member (HessforLess), for what I thought was a great price. Since I resigned myself to an engine change out I decided to go ahead and completely restore the whole bike by taking the paint job up a few notches by unleashing my artistic nature by adding two color metalflake 3 dimensional shade variation ghost flames and Dragonslayer theme artwork Windsheild etching and Airbrush art on Gas tank cover. I also resolved myself to fixing all other known problems not already addressed in the process, mainly carberation. The new diaphrams for which cost me more than the whole engine. The details of the foregoing I'll post on seperate threads. But the subject of this thread is dressing out the motor. Having received the motor I decided to detail it's appearence before installing while it was still on the bench and easier to work with. The few things I did made a world of difference and the end result was so dramatic it blew me away enough to inspire me to post on this forum. CLEANING: The first thing I did was completly degrease and clean every speck of grim off every external suface on the motor. This I did by using a biodegradeable degreasing agent, an assortment of soft bristle brushes down to que-tip size which enabled me to get into every crack and crevice. Soaking, brushing, wiping, rinsing , air blowing dry over and over untill I was satisfied. This took some time but I was fortunate enough to have an idle helper available that did most of the grunt work under close supervision. The organic degreasers are slower than petroleum based solvents and other harsh chemicals that are available. But I planned on painting the engine block and my past experience has been that the chemical solvents frequently are not compatible with paint chemicals causing the paint to bubble and blister on application. Using biodegradeable degreaser and rinsing thoughly with warm water, (carefully applied protecting Intake manifolds and any other openings which would allow water inside motor), the paint problem is eliminated. PAINTING I had used in the past and decided to use on this project a product made by Dupli-Color made especially for engine blocks. The paint is in aerosol cans and is called High Heat and is rated up to 1200 degrees F. It comes in several colors as well as a clear final coat for extra protection. I choose what they call chrome. It is shinny silver when color is applied but when the color coat is covered with the clear coat it turns from shinny chrome color to aluminum color which is about the same as the original Yamaha block color. The paint has a ceramic base and when the paint is cured it has a hard shinny finish that does seem like ceramic coating. The paint covers well and applies easily for a smooth even finish. The key is to be easy on the trigger of the can because a small squirt covers alot and if your trigger finger is too heavy you'll end up over loading the paint and making a mess of it. It dries quickly and spot touch up blends in well leaving no trace. POLISHING I've always hated the varnish coating Yamaha puts on the side covers and valve covers for protection. I've not seen a 1st gen yet where the varnish was not weathered and in a lot of cases completely broken down allowing corrosion and oxidation of metal alloy surfaces. No wonder Yamaha covered up the motor with all those fiberglass body pieces and side covers. I have attempted on several occasions to wax, buff, polish or chemically remove the varnish film with marginal if any success for all the time and elbow grease expended. This time I decided to remove the covers and take them down the street to the local chromer, ( Pro Chrome and Polishing, Scottdale, Ga.) who happens to be owned and operated by Gary a friend of mine. SIDE NOTE: Gary seemed unusally joyful during this transaction which was somewhat uncharacteristic of his normal gruff old biker dude demeanor. Evidently his new joyfull:bighug:attitude is a result of closing a deal with the Discovery Channel where they are developing a new biker motorhead series "Drag Bike Racing for Pinks" which I understand will be on the air in near future. Evidently the discovery channel needed a new bike show to fill the void when Paul Jr. & Sr. Jumbed over to the learning Channel. I volunteered my services as a roadie when I picked up the covers, but I don't think he heard me up there on Cloud Nine. Polishing Continued: I hate to credit his gleeful state for the results on the covers because I know he does good work anyway. But, I must say that when I opened the box to inspect the covers The descriptive word and phrase that I must have repeated over and over was WOW, What a difference that made I could not have been more pleased with the results. Gary had acid dipped the covers to clean and disolve varnish film, Buffed them using the right stuff and whatever other trick of the trade he used on them it made a huge difference on the look of the motor. I dont know if you can tell in the photo since the reflection of the flash distorts the effect. But, take my word for it looks great. The cost was $175.00 for the polishing work and about $30.00 for the side cover gaskets. This does not include new valve cover gaskets which I have not bought yet. I just could not swallow the $30.00 a piece Yamaha wants for Gaskets. So now I'm looking for a more reasonable after market dealer. If anyone knows of a better source Please share. Screw Yamaha. I'm betting that when she gets put all back together with the LED Lighting, colored spark plg wires, wireing and cable sleaves and other details I've added I'll be throwing those side covers awayto show off the motor. Well.... Maybe not since I've just put so much time, effort and expense painting them. But, I am considering modifying them to flip on and off when parked at Bike night or other bike event to show off the motor. I thought maybe I could hinge them and rig a mechanism to flip them up like the doors on the old Gull Wing Porsch. Or better yet a little motor to slide them back out of the way between the saddle bags and the rear tire, like a motorized pocket door. I don't know maybe I'll put some more thought into it.

Yea I saw the M & E post but unfortunately the bike wasn't ready. As you can see I'm in the middle of putting a new motor in. I had used the liquid tape thing in the past but, carb problems has been an ongoing issue with this bike so i figured, what the heck, new motor, time to bite the bullet a replace those carb rubbers. When I get it back together this time I want it to be 100%. But I'll see you at the Feb M&E, for sure.

Hey gang, I'm looking for a source to buy new main diaphrams and air cutoff valve diaphrams for mikuni carbs (1987). Does anybody know a good source or vendor that might have these parts in stock at a reasonable price. I appreciate any helpful input.

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