k7mdl

Despite the work and teh promising initial good results, after 12 hours, this morning it is leaking through the insulator again, this time through the bolt threads itself. Likely did not get enough sealant into the bolt threads. If you can find a non-leaking unit, I suspect it will be much easier than fixing a leaking one. Thought I would try it.

Drained tank, pulled unit. 2 wires go to the fuel sender unit. One is a spade lug to ground. The other goes to a lug that is riveted to a brass rivet/washer/solder post )all one piece), sandwiching a nylon insulator on top, and a rubber washer on bottom. The rubber washer had shrunk some over 20 years and gas was leaking by it and out under the upper nylon insulator. There appeared to be remains of sealant under the nylon insulator, but it had mostly vanished. Opening the tank the sender was totally encrusted in rust and a thin layer of sludge. I used a screw drivers to easily scrape off the layer. It all turned to powder and easily fell off. I adjusted the tension a bit tighter on the wiper arm while I was there. I unsoldered the wire to the wiper from the brass post. I drilled out the brass rivet/post all the way thorugh to reuse the washer portion since it nicely clamps the rubber washer - plus I did niot have the right size brass washer on hand. I put a 3/4" long #6 brass bolt through the spade lug, nylon insulator, sender plate, rubber washer and the drilled out brass washer. Put a brass nut on loosely, doused all surfaces of the plate and bolt and washers/insulator with Perma-tex adhesive/sealant I had on hand. Let is set up a bit then tightened it up compressing the rubber washer a bit. Took a long piece of brass strip and bent a right angle about 1 in long at teh end. This created a scoop. With a flashlight and the scoop I scraped out the bottom of the tank and removed about 2/3 cup metal rust flakes. The rust sediment settled to the rear bottom portions of hte tank. The petcock riser for normal is well above it, but the reserve intake hole is flush with the bottom or a bit below, and the screen sticks up about 1 inch, maybe 1/4 inch diameter. Further I saw my screen around the reserve intake was damaged and sediment was free to flow into it. Sediment was piled high beside it but was settled in place and not free moving. I shoved the flap of screen back into place, and plan to use normal position most of the time now. Was using reserve most of the time. Now I can see why my fuel filter looked so bad last year when I got the bike and went through it. Reassembled, refilled the tank to the top and so far so good. Probably took about 3-4 hours to gravity drain and do the whole repair. Not difficult at all. If I used the fuel pump it might have sped things up a lot. Alternative is a used or $50 replacement part. - Mike

Periodically I fill the tank on the way home, and the next morning the garage smells of gas. Ride 30-50 miles (about a gallon used) to work and the next several days and nothing smells anymore. It sat full for the last few days and gave me a chance to track it down. It was a slow leak so just have to find the wet spots. Sounds easy enough. Originally thought I had a oil leak in the rear shock area, the lower shock links were crusted in black dirt, and the puddle under it represented oil, rather than gas. The gas washed the old oil and dirt down to the floor and evaporated off. Once I cleaned things it was clear gas alright. Finally started pulling hoses, cleaning under the tank, shining a flashlight everywhere, entire bottom of tank area was wet and dirty, no one place. petcock area was dry. Finger on the rear plastic fender next to the shock was wet with gas. Had to be from up top. Feared a rust hole or broken seam at the top of the tank somewhere. Looking through parts drawing for the tank, I saw the fuel sender under the seat. Forgot all about that. Doh! Pulled the seat and it looked dusty and dry. Nto wet like the area further down the fender/rear of tank. I filled the tank to the top and then looked and sure enough, s small weeping spring appeared on the fuel sender. The center nylon insulator sealant is falling off and gas is welling up around it. Plan to drain the tank some and pull the sender out and drill out the riveted asembly, reseal, and re-rivet if possible. Pulling the seat first would have saved much time. - Mike

Nature's Orange spray has worked OK or me.

The hot air side vents too loose - I fixed mine by removing the cover to expose the back side. There were some empty screw posts outside the vent frame. I selected a sheet metal screw to fit the screw post hole size with a screw head size just right to squeeze in the outer frame a bit. The lower fairing fresh air vent - No removal required, I used a hot soldering iron tip to melt and push up some plastic frame ridges for the vertical vent blades to snap over/provide friction. Just pushed around a very small bit of frame plastic in between a few of the blades. You cannot readily see any sign of this if you select the right spot.

You can use the stock cables. You will need to tug on them a bit from their cable straps and cable routing to get all the extra slack pulled out. The instructions that come with the risers are fairly accurate as I recall. Just installed mine a few weeks ago. They will hit the plastic ignition switch cover and flex it, no harm. The throttle cable will be pulled tight on a full lock turn in one direction (right I think) so the throttle grip becomes harder to twist, but that is a rare and low speed exercise, so manageable. I left the rubber dampers in place. It requires a bit of tugging and working the bars side to side to get the risers under them. Having some help will make it easier. Be sure to pad the tank cover against dropping object or bars.

Sale Ends Nov 24 2007. It is a great deal. The best part is that shipping is free on all orders over $49. I do not even have to spend the gas to pick it up at a local store. Ordered a free standing lift adapter from Carbon_One while I was at it. We have 3 bikes here so this will see some good use.

I am an active VHF/Microwave contester (K7MDL/R) but too much to carry on the bike, even the DC power requirements would need an aux SLA battery with charging connection from the bike. Been thinking about how to slim it down to carry a package of radios that would be in a box easy to use, take on and take off a dual sport bike to cover more forest roads and mountain tops in the Pacific Northwest. For now I load the antennas and gear up on my truck. K7MDL ham radio pages http://mysite.verizon.net/michael_d_lewis/index.html I have a FT-817 that might see some time on the motorcycle trips, but so far I think it will ride in the trunk and get used at rest stops. I have a portable dual band LP (ELK antennas) for 144/432 that is only 2 foot long. I can see it now on a mast up a few feet :-). I use it backpacking and marine mobile. With a passenger operator, might be fun fox hunting. - Mike K7MDL

Caps and wires are all suspect, as well as electrical connectors. I would work back from the spark plug caps to the wires on the ignition coils, the connections on the input to the ignition coils, and at least reach in and wiggle the TCI connector housings. I can just get my hand in over the front cylinders - it is not easy but it is possible to unplug and reconnect them in place with great patience. Reseat the connections, cleaning as required. My 87 was stored indoors, the connections were good, but showed signs of corrosion on teh blade parts that did not have high pressure contact. If that does not do it, you are into resistance and voltage checks. The repair manual has most of the resistance specs for each item. These do not take to long to do. Getting at the coil connectors pretty much requires removing the fairing. If all of that fails, there is elsewhere on the site here measurements for the TCI unit also. I did all of this recently several times, never finding any problem until finally locating a miswiring of 2 connectors. The more you do it the less time it takes - practice does make perfect. Make sure the battery and it's connections are strong also. - Mike

I received a green for the rear and blue for the front on my '07 RSV. Installed the front one today and gave it a test drive after the rain stopped. I can skid the front tire pretty fast/easily still on wet/damp roads. Not the best way to evaluate the difference, but my first thoughts are that I could do better with the red or orange, blue might be too stiff to do justice. With the blue installed I still have more than enough braking power with little effort required so I can afford to give up some stiffness. Will have to try things on a dry day. Then maybe exchange for a softer version.

Looks like my attempt to unconfuse things only confused things :-). Sorry about that. I have both a '07 and '87 Venture and had both the 6235 and 6241 and no longer have the packaging so it was 50/50. Despite thinking about it before writing I still got it wrong! The '87 is a 7/8" bar and I used the universal ISO without the throttle slide (6241 - http://www.kuryakyn.com/products.asp?bn=metric&ci=2925 ). It is 5 3/4" long as mentioned earlier. You can find decent descriptions of the family of grips on this page's notes on the left: http://www.kuryakyn.com/products.asp?bn=metric&ci=2921 I had first got the 6235 right after I got the '87 and had guessed the handlebar thickness was 1", but found out dry fitting them the bars were actually 7/8". Since the grips were so expensive I went out and bought a '07 to put them to good use. The real story is that while getting parts for the '87, the wife sat on an '07 in the showroom and liked the Queen's accomodations better and declared that she was not getting off the bike until I bought it and ordered the selling of the '87. Months have now passed and I still have the '87 for solo rides and commuting. "Trying to sell it dear, but no one is interested (in my one and only small listing)". I am definately taking advantage of the fact my efforts are not monitored. I will edit my earlier posting.

I put on 6235 (**Update Nov 5, 2007 - 6235 is the wrong model number - I tried those and they did not fit correctly since they are for 1" bars so I ended up with the 6241 Universal grips, 5 3/4" long without a throttle slide preinstalled - some prefer the longer models**) model grips on my '87 just 2 weeks ago. The left side was loose and I put a wide spaced spiral of tape on the left handle bar to help some. The glue that came with the grips was dried out so I went to the local home store and selected a form of super glue designed to be semiflexible and fill gaps. The rubber in the grips will flex over time so you cannot use the standard brittle glues, which also do not fill and depend on tight clearances to adhere. The throttle side grip is tighter but the glue will act as a lubricant and slide on easy enough. I reused the exiistng 1/8th in thick foam washers that fit between the handgrip and the housings. This helps prevent binding against the housing. The white plastic original throttle tube on my bike was too long so I cut about 3/16" off the end. The original throttle sleeve end also curved a bit over the end of the handle bar. I just hacksawed it off. Dry fit was snug, but the glue makes it easier. In summary: I really like the grips. The thicker diameter is nice. The space between the rubber pads allow you to relax your grip some since you do not get the feeling of your hands sliding off like on smooth grips. They went on easily. The housing fit normally since the new grips just go over the existing throttle slide and do not come close to the housing at all.

Like getting volunteers for mail duty on a submerged submarine...or making sure to close the screen doors on the submarine hatches..or window washing duty. At least one boat I was on actually had 3 windows.

"Both my sons got bikes as soon as they got out on their own ( out of moms reach ). " My 20yr old immortal son just got his first bike a couple weeks ago, a cheap '93 CBR600. He is still at home though and either is fast enough or just avoids Mom to stay out of her reach. She is after him too...threatens to run teh bike over "by accident" in the driveway given the chance. Also consider he is brand new to riding and has several dumb accidents to his credit in cars already...most involving curbs and ditches from going to fast around corners or stepping on the gas too much on wet roads. Mom is justifiably concerned! Maybe he will survive long enough (Mom, himself, cagers, listed in order of risk) to go touring with us next year. Then again maybe not...ever see what Elasti-Girl could do in the movie The Incredibles?

You know it must be less than a few days old (thus a 2008) -there are no accessories on it yet!

I was on a small research submarine (nuclear powered deep submersible for the purists among us) with a 3ft freeboard, so out in the Atlantic, nearly every wave goes over the deck, many over the top of the small sail. With a speed of under 4 knots we were towed everywhere. The nice part was that we were normally towed submerged. When the going got nasty we would only feel a small surge in the 1200ft long nylon tow line. The tow ship was an old 245ft rounded bottom mono hull Submarine Rescue ship (ASR) that bobbed like a cork in water and they took some nasty hits (or so I heard - I was riding smooth under the waves!). I did spend some time at sea on the ASR though ion the Bahamas and I could imagine it was no picnic under rougher seas. Used to stand on the deck of that submarine and hook up the tow line. Harnessed to the track on the deck, take 3 waves over the top, wipe the water off, quickly retrieve the 130lb steel towball from the divers in the Zodiac along side bobbing up and down, tie it off, wait for the next sets of waves go over and the Zodiac to return with the tow line, quickly get the 10" shackle assembled on the tow line and 60 ft tow ball pendant, insert cotter pin, bend it (not drop the locking pliers or lose all the spare cotter pins), throw the shackle clear as the ships backed apart. Maybe 15-20 minutes if the wind co-operated. Much easier on the bones doing a submerged tow hookup. Wore a heavy duty PVC rainsuit. Not to keep dry - but to minimize the abrasion when the waves knocked you over and you started rolling/sliding down the non-skid fiberglass decks with lots of not-so-rounded boltheads...Was young and immortal back then...what a hoot! Similar fun documented in a book (Dark Waters) by an earlier crew member for some good reading. Best read along with Blind Man's Bluff. Mike

My '07 RSV low fuel light and trip counter comes on close together at about 4.3 gallons from the top of the fuel neck (no mods so have normal expansion space). Usually about 158-165 miles on the trip meter. At about 20-25 miles past that I have to flip the valve to reserve position. That is about a 4.8 gallon total fillup. I get about 38.5 mpg single rider commuting and 40-42 mpg 2-up touring. Never taken it over 190 miles before a fillup but 170 miles is common for me. So not really sure how much usable fuel is really left in the tank after I flip to reserve. Would like to carry a 1 gallon portable and run it out completely and find out some day though.

Spent 3 years in Groton, CT, and 9 months of it in Kittery, Maine, right across the river from Portsmouth years ago. Very nice areas. Put on loads of miles 2-up touring New England on my '79 XS1100 souped up for touring. The coastline is great, and Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts (and the Cape), New York, Maine, and Connecticut are all great destinations and easily a 1 days adventure, sometimes 2 days. We enjoyed picking out theme routes. Forest and mountain stops (Mt. Equinox, White Mountains, ski areas, Mt. Washington), small cheese shops all over, art museums (Rockwell), Gillete Castle, fall colors, stone walls in the rural/farm areas, high country lakes, outlet stores all over, or hit the array of swap 'n shops in the fields. I liked the winter in Kittery. Not too cold on the waters edge. Much colder inland. A couple times a year I could cross country ski right from my back porch through the trees along the rivers edge. Walked a mile to work, so let it snow! Not that much really, but it seemed like a good dump and then would go away ovewr 2-3 weeks and do it again a few times. The boating scenery is great - comparable to the Pacific Northwest almost! Large tidal swings to watch for and plan around at times. There are articles on local boating life in many magazines. The Boat U.S. Foundation member magazine ran one a couple months ago about a town further up the Maine coast. Pretty much a seasonal thing though. I fish year round here so would suffer withdrawal symptoms if I moved back there - be prepared. The shopping and restuarant selection was great all along Route 1 when I was there (1982-1985). I am sure all of it is has only got better. During those days, work was bit hard to come by it seemed. The Portsmouth area at the time was supported by Tourism, Sylvania light bulbs (which closed down while I was there), and the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard where I spent my time. The shipyard is actually in Kittery, Maine and seemed to be constantly on the "about to be shut down threat list". Being a fairly rural (now suburban?) area at the time and an hour from Boston, I would think the requirement for the 2nd career would be the toughest part. I would consider living on the Maine side of the river, unless you go inland to Manchester or such. Mike Submarine NR-1 1982-1985

If the above suggestions fail to produce, there are services similar to the call blocking that filter the call but they are subscription ($$) They can work by requiring the caller to: 1. enter a digit or PIN code to pass through, the request may or may not be voiced, or, 2. The caller may be requested to record who they are and why they are calling and the system calls you and plays that recording, you choose to answer it or send it away or send to Voice mail, or, 3. Page you to a phone and when you dial in it connects you, times out to voice mail, or 4. Voice prompts the caller asking if the call is "urgent" or "an emergency" then press a digit to pass the call through or else leave a voice mail. This actually works well since the caller will immediatley be held accountable for their decision to press the button and should expect to be greeted appropriately if abused. (Spouses excluded of course, everything is urgent!) 5. The above voice filtering options have can enable digit/PIN pass through in combination with custom or standard voice recordings. Those you know can always get through if you can educate them. Some of these are offered by the phone company, Others are enhanced service providers ( I used to design, build, install, and operate these services for carriers long ago). The Zapper kind if device is designed to reduce the telemarketing calls and is (was) effective for making their automated dialers think they reached a disconnected number by playing a special tone. The idea there is that the number would be crossed off their list and that info hopefully spread nearly as fast as the way they got them to begin with. They are not that effective for human placed calls. In the subscription service you can record anything you want to play to they caller. The ring is a recording and can be replaced with any other tones and voicing combos you like so you can combine the disconnect with a filtering type greeting phrase. An additional tricky thing is that you can redirect the calls, once passed though the filter, if any, to any phone number you like (even back to them if you know it :-). The better you know your desired callers the better hidden options work. The rest get dumped or sent to voice mail, and you can be alerted of voicemail in various ways, including a message to your cell phone or email accounts.

I have an '87 and '07, and I find riding the '87 very enjoyable. Like you said, a different animal, I can barely hear the engine going down the highway over the other road /wind noises. Seems smoother also. The '87 also stays cleaner - it does not seem to attract dust and dirt like the '07 steel painted dartk blue parts and chrome do. A rain will self wash the '87 painted plastic light colored parts. I have not washed it since I aqcuired it last May (other than the windshield today). IT still looks shiny over most of it. Even more, the '87 with the shrouded engine, louvered vents, and better leg protection keeps me warmer so it is just the ticket for riding to work every day in the cooler winter temp in the Seattle area here. Getting into the mid-low 40's in the morning, mid-upper 50's in the evening now. Wife prefers the more comfortable arrangments of the '07 for 2-up riding. Changed the oil today in the '07. 4500 miles on it since May 28. My truck has only gone 4800 miles since last March. Normally I would put 12-18K miles per year on the truck in the years 08 to 01 BB (BB = Before Bike - new calendar convention here). Now its only reason to exist is to tow the boat, haul stuff, and take me to work when the ice coats the road. Good for resale value. Mike

My bike started to back fire some on deceleration suddenly one day. Found the choke was not all the way off, just enough to run good, just enough to cause backfire. Maybe check your choke cable alignment and that all 4 carbs choke mechanisms are moving in sync and freely.

If you have the spoiler LED taillight the wire is already run into the lid. The running light power is on as long as the key is on. Just have to remember to leave the key on when you need light. Can leave the small inside LED light always on, it does not draw significant power or heat. Otherwise operate the switch on the LED light. If you do not have power into the trunk, follow the instructions for the spoiler LED lights for wire routing. It is easy to do. I mounted relays next to the battery for fused power to the driving and tails lights and future DC loads, keeps the load off the key switch. I have seen some LED lights with an integrated tilt switch also. Would not be hard to add an external one if running from the battery vs the running light power.

Bought a used '87 Venture couple months back with 45K miles on it, very nice condition. Worked great for almost 200 miles. On the second day, coming back home from some local shopping (and the wife's first ride on it) the engine died out on the freeway like it lost electrical or no fuel. After 10 minutes was able to start it, and it ran for 100 yards and died again. 10 more minutes goes by and it started again, was able to run with low RPM the remaining 2 miles home. Felt like a "no fuel" issue, perhaps a clogged line/filter or fuel pump failure. Bike is 20 years old, found rust chips in the filter, not enough to clog the filter. Pump working fine. Maybe the line itself at the tank (running in reserve position full time as previous owner always did). Went through electrical, pickup coils OK, ignition coils OK, wires/caps/plugs OK but replaced them anyway. Engine seems to be running long term now, but backfiring through carbs, hard to keep running without choke on, running rough. Symptoms seemed to keep changing along the way. Cleaned all connectors, swapped out TCI no change. In place cleaning carbs, I spray carb leaner in ports and pour down some SeaFoam, no better. Did run better when carb spray shot down throat of 2 left carbs though (#1 and #2). Feels like a fuel issue still at play - maybe reason for misfire? Can make bettrer or worse with carb adjustments. Maybe carbs need severe cleaning. Compression all about 190# - great numbers for a 20 year old bike! Replaced all diaphragms. I have one good used spare if someone needs just one. 3 others have a small pinhole or about to develop one to three pinholes so might work for a short while if some is desparate. Got a Morgan Carbtune Pro and it sync'd up OK despite the constant misfire. Nice unit by the way. Sync'ed my 2007 Venture also really easy. Backfire through the carbs seemed to go away but still have misfire through exhaust. After much fiddling with carbs, including removing them for cleaning (but not tearing them open) and using some carb cleaner and light scraping to remove the heavy carbon buildup on the intake valves. No leaks that I can find in the intake manifold boots or vacuum hoses or caps. Still get misfire. Float bowl fuel level was OK. I did find in reinstalling the carbs the engine would run for a while and quit. Now I definately have a fuel problem. Pumped fuel and rust chips out of tank. The thick braided fuel line from the fuel pump passes through a spring clip at the top rear of the carbs. It squeezed the hose shut when in the clip (softened up over the years). I think early in the process I pulled the hose out of the clip I never put it all the way back in until now since it was hard to reach and that silently cured the fuel flow issue. Thinking back I suspect this is the orignal reason the bike died on the freeway. It gets just enough through to fill the bowls at idle speed or engine off. Still have misfire though. Seems like cylinders 3 and 4 are the main culprits now, but #1 and #2 react the most with carb cleaner down the throat. Really stumped at this point, read practically every related post on this forum for months now, found some similar threads, lots of good tips for certain things, but none a perfect match to my issues. Took it to the shop. Valves OK. Carbs tore apart, new rubber plugs and gaskets were needed, evidence of some leakage between sections, gaskets dried out, rubber plugs dried out. Now all system checked OK, new oil, coolant, lube, valve alignment. Still same problem. Constant misfire through the whole RPM range, especially under load. An intermittent in the pickup coils was a guess, but could not confirm. #3 and #4 seem to be affected. This is a long post reflecting the long journey and many hours in the garage and shop chasing and diagnosing and such. Problem is getting old by this point. Yesterday brought bike back home from shop. Now convinced all systems are working as designed, today I took a deeper look at the intermittant pickup coil theory. I wanted to somehow verify this before spending a load of money on this. Myself and shop ohmed them out to be in spec (about 116 ohms) except shop thought one was half value at one point. I am experienced in electronics design and repair (have tools and know how to use them ) so I put my dual trace oscilliscope on the pickup coil connector and compared them all with engine idling at 2K RPM. You get about 12 to 15 volt spikes - 1 positive pulse followed immediately by one negative pulse for each pass of the magnet. Engine still misfiring regularly, never saw a missed pulse though, and all stayed at the same voltage peaks. The pickup coils are declared good. Yesterday reading through some more postings here I picked up some more good tidbits. One person mentioned that these engines run very well on 3 cyclinders and other than lack of performance and low fuel mileage, it can be hard to tell if (only) one cyclinder stops working (bad plug wire for example). This would be key advice later on. I pull the #3 plug cap, misfire goes away, but runs about the same, rough. Install #3 and pull #4 and misfire is back but runs rough as before. Like the shop said, #3 and #4 do not seem to be pulling their weight. But why only #3 causing misfire? A mystery. With all systems verified to be working, but the bike not working right, I figure it was time try something new. I connected #3 input to the ignition coil to the input of #4 coil, left #3 coil disconnected. Engine now runs smooth but at 1000 RPM higher. Revs up clean. This verifies pulse train from pickup coils to TCI to #3 ignition coil input verified OK even though it was the misfire cylinder. You might now suspect the #3 ignition coil, wires, cap, or plug, except they all check out with test gear. Now that it is running nice on 3 cylinders I connect input to #4 ignition coil to the #3 ignition coil. Stays running nice. The suggestion that it should run smooth on 3 good cylinders rings true enough. RPM is 2000+ at idle through all of this to keep it running before. Short test ride is great. Then sync the carbs and set proper idle and all is as it should be now. Test ride is sweet. So the faults: 1. Squeezed fuel hose at clip near top rear of carbs (found very late in the process, unknowingly resolved early on) 2. In cleaning all connectors while chasing the original problem, symptoms changed to misfire and unknowingly had swapped the #3 and #4 ignition coils after testing them. Leads are not labeled and the longer connector from the wire harness actually goes to the rear ignition coil. 3. The coil input wire swap happened before the fuel line pinch was unknowingly resolved so there was never a period when the engine ran "right". Symptoms changed over time, but with the carb adjustments now thoroughly fiddled with, was hard to tell why or when. The good part of the story: 1. With my work and the shop visit the bike has a documented clean bill of health through all systems (except the shocks that leak air). 2. Visiting the Yamaha shop with my wife to get parts 1 week after this all started she sees the 2007 Venture and declares it ours, and directs that I sell the other one that left her stranded on the side of the freeway. (she is a Project Manager, makes decisions fast, especially when it means the possibility of her helping push the bike along the street far from home:cool10:). 3. Given #2 above the '87 bike being out of commision all summer did not prevent us from doing about 6 one- and two-day road trips since May 28th to July 9th. I now have a commute bike that seems like a lighter weight sport bike compared to the '07 Venture. There is definately more passenger space on the '07 though. I am 6'1" and find the '07 to have better leg/foot space for me and the passenger. The '87 passenger toes practically hit my calf and do often at stops manuevering into the footpeg slot behind the fairing. I like the louvers closing off the heat, and look forward to opening them during the winter commutes. Commuting is 1-up only so the passenger issues are not applicable. I added a backrest to teh '07 and the handle bars seem like a long reach still, despite my long arms, so several hours into a ride I feel it. Not sure how much longer I will keep the '87, but I enjoyed working on the bike, getting to know the '07 better via the similarity to the '87, and experiencing a bike I had wanted for many years in the 1980's but could not afford back then. I rode a XS1100 then. I added a full fairing and lowers, air shocks, double buckets, luggage racks, detachable side cases, engine guards, hiway pegs, and sliding back rest. Toured New England for 3 years with the wife before kids came along and moving to Washington (Seattle area) in 1985. Had a XS750 Special in Hawaii for 3 years before that 1100. Sold the 1100 in 1991 and after 18 years of carpooling kids in a cage, I (we actually) am back into big bikes again now. Great forum here, hope this post helps someone in the future. Happy trails, Mike

As of one month ago, no change, so I drilled the holes.

1N4001 through 1N4007 are all 1 amp diodes, same physical package, only difference is the voltage ratings. From the Motorola Data Sheet: 4001=peak repetitive reverse voltage 50V, RMS reverse voltage 35V 4002=100, 70V 4003=200, 140V 4004=400, 280V 4005=600V, 420V 4006=800V, 560V 4007=1000V, 700 Since you are in a 12VDC system, any of the series of diodes including the the 35V 1N4001 diode will work fine with plenty of headroom. Anything you can get that is higher gives you more headroom in the very unlikley event you have out of control voltage switching spikes. Use what you can get.