Flyinfool

Until you get more familiar with spinning wrenches I would recommend a torque wrench for about everything. As you become more familiar you will get to know the feel of the proper amount to pull on the wrench and need the torque wrench less often. There are a lot of steel bolts into aluminum castings. You would not want to over torque and strip the threads or snap a bolt, or be too loose and have leaks or something important fall apart. Having the torque wrench will come in handy because even seasoned mechanics will still use the torque wrench for critical parts.

AWESOME GIRL!!!! That is a heck of a job you've done. 2 Girls with a combined age of 119! You got your grandma to help??? Now you can teach some of the other old guys on this site that have been afraid to dive in, how its done.

About 3.6 miles YES About 4.3 miles, also under 45MPH. It is 8 miles from my house to Hardly Museum. Can be kept under 45 if we take the scenic route. I know these are a long way for you for a single days ride ........

Now there is a thought........

It would not be the first Yamaha Module that suffered from bad soldering.

Are you still planning to bring Olivia to the M&E at the Hardly Museum? http://www.venturerider.org/forum/showthread.php?goto=newpost&t=87928

Trundle on over, Its just a short swim straight across the pond........

Yup, Nuttin but trouble.

I have never seen a cable operated surge brake setup. Now what if one of your brake cables breaks while on a downhill off ramp with cross traffic at the bottom? you will now have braking on just one side. Or one of those brake cables sticks in the sleeve and does not release when the other side does? I can make a "what if" that would be bad for ANY trailer break system out there, including no trailer brakes. Each person has to asses their comfort with the risks of whichever system they choose. There is NO risk free way to ride a motorcycle, and even fewer risk free ways to pull a trailer with one. But it is fun so we take the risk and do it anyhow. It would take multiple failures for the locked electric brake scenario to happen. There is not a solenoid or a relay that is sending power to the brakes, it is solid state. While it is possible for a semiconductor to fail shorted, it is incredibly rare. First semiconductors to not fail real often in the first place, and when they do, they almost always fail open, meaning that you would simply lose the trailer brakes. It has to make an electrical connection to activate the brakes. If the brakes locked up at 65 MPH you will have no problem pulling to the side of the road with the trailer wheels doing the braking. It happens to semis all the time when the airline to the trailer brakes fails. You see the skid marks of where they pulled off the road. In our case you would just disconnect the lead to the brakes and be on your way with no trailer brakes. Yes it will add some pucker factor to your day. But it should not cause a crash.

Do we even have any level one or level 2 members? It sounds like we are all level 3.......

How far north are you heading?

That was my first thought also. Don't ask how I know about that one.

Well here is my worth. I am still looking at it. It is a matter of getting time, ambition, and money to all become available at the same time. My trailer for behind the MC is the first trailer I have ever owned that did not have electric brakes. I have never had an issue with the electric brakes in over 30 years of using them. On my RV the brakes were not working when I bought it so I towed it home with no trailer brakes. That was not fun. I do maintain my equipment. Improperly maintained brakes on anything are a hazard. The controller that I was looking at has a wireless remote control so that I can put the controller on the trailer in a waterproof box, and still be able to control its functions while riding. Not completely sure yet, But I think I can even keep my current flat 4 electrical to the trailer. So there will be no changes at all to the bike. The trailer brakes will then work on any vehicle that the trailer is connected to. My main reason to be looking into the trailer brakes is that being in Milwaukee, anytime I head east or south it involves Chicago unless I am will to go 50+ miles out of my way. People can tell me all they want about how you just have to allow for the increased stopping distance. There is no one that will disagree that your stopping distance will be increased with a trailer. But all the caution in the world will not help when you need to make that emergency stop and the trailer just keeps pushing you into the wreck. I am not happy with the amount of space that it takes to stop my 300 lb trailer when I need to stop fast. I have read everything I can find on many different sites and have found a common theme. Most of those that have trailer brakes love them, most of those that say they are bad and would never consider using them have never tried them but did hear somewhere that some one had heard from someone somewhere who had read on the internet that they are bad so it must be true. I am undecided until I try them out. If I do not like the brakes, I will always have the original axle I can put back on or also simply disconnect the brakes. It will probably cost me around $300-$400 by the time I have the brakes, controller and everything else needed to make it work correctly. I will be getting my setup from R&P Carriage in Illinois. Since I have the HF trailer and it is all metric I will be building a complete new axle to get the standard 1.000 bearings and seals that are available everywhere. This new axle will then let me put on standard off the shelf 7 inch electric drum brakes, again repair and maintenance parts are readily available. R&P carries everything I need to do this and has decent prices and some expertise. I will bring the trailer down there so they can help design the new axle. OK so maybe this was more than worth.

How could he resist???

That sure do look like the common garter snake. http://cdn2.arkive.org/media/9E/9E435CD0-14D6-4D6D-A5CA-6513006BDE16/Presentation.Large/Bluestripe-garter-snake-with-tongue-entended.jpg

Chrome is a bad bad thing......

Sure sounds like you had fun. Some day when I grow up I will be able to do things like that.....

You are right, that does hit close to home ....... on the deep fried double wide..... But I still look good na........ And then your sig line says that I am also really talented....... What a wonderful day.

13.2 and 11.5V on the highway are both lower than they should be. I would check out the charging system before spending on a new battery. Even 2 year old parts can go bad.

After rereading your original post. I had "assumed" that you meant that the forks ere locked and would not move up and down. Just on the odd chance if you meant that the forks will not turn, is it possible that you engaged the fork lock, and just need to unlock it with the key?

Those elbows are well known to leak after being touched by the engine guard. If there is a dent there is most likely also a leak right at the dent. I ground down and smoothed off the corner of the engine guard mount to get a little more clearance between it and the elbow, for next time something bumps the guard.

I know that feeling well. There are a few roads around here that I know of where there are no speed limit signs posted and they are not patrolled and no cross streets for someone to pull out of. This is where I tend to work on trying to relive that feeling at least I can be over 100 as I shift out of third. I am not sure if the bike has enough horse power to red line 4th and definitely not 5th. My jewels are a bit to small to find out if 4th will red line.

+1 more on the I would fix it. It will take time but can be done and if done right will be stronger than a new one. And I thought I over loaded my trunk a lot........

I did notice that the chat room was not working but all of the rest of the page came up as normal on both my desktop and laptop. WHen I first got my smart phone I had an issue where the phone kept checking for email and then downloading the email into the phone, so when I checked from the computer there was no emails, they were all in the bleepin phone. The same for this website. the phone kept checking for new posts so when I went to check for new posts there were never any more than a few minutes old. There are settings in the phone that I had to change to turn off the automatic checking features to get the phone to leave stuff alone so that I could find it with my computers.

A straight battery tender will not recharge a battery. Some (not all) of the tenders do have an included charge function, but as mentioned it is a very slow under 2Amp charge. I would go out and get a small cheap charger (6-10Amp) to get some charge into that battery and then you can finish it off by riding or with the tender. Just do not forget about it on the cheap charger or it will cook. If the battery was good before you ran it down, the run down should not have totally destroyed the battery, just knocked a little off of its future life span.