Flyinfool

Darwin at work........

Does it come with a tag, "Some assembly required."? Getting close now, can almost smell the premium gas already.

It is not a typo, it is blatant false advertising.

The oil does not know if it is at the bottom of the engine or in a tank above the engine, oil level is oil level. As long as you can still pull the dipstick without overflowing it does not matter if it is on the left side and you mark the dipstick at a higher point or on the ringht side and you mark the stick at a lower point. When I first posted the idea my worry was that the stick was on the right and that it would not be long enough to mark. But since it is on the left, it makes it that much easier.

I would not trust anything that company says. They are claiming 1,100W? that means there will be a 92 AMP power draw. You will need headlight wiring that is the size of the starter cables. Your charging system is fused at 40 amps. I do not think it is a typo because everything from this company has ridiculously high ratings. These are also rated at 165,000Lm, That light output would be starting fires in front of you as you are going down the road. That ad is SO full of BS, can you trust them to honor a warranty if they are willing to LIE to get your cash in the first place. One thing that I find humorous with most of the LED headlights, if they advertise which chip they are using, I look it up and check the data sheets, they are all nearly always advertising more, and usually way more light output than the manufacturer of the LED chip claims is possible. This particular ad does not say which chip they are using so I can not look it up. But I will bet that they are not anywhere near 1,100W and 165,000Lm of light.

On a 2nd gen if a float valve leaks, the tank being above the carbs will fill the engine with gas. On the other hand, if a fuel pump fails while on the road, you can gravity feed the engine to get home.

How hard would it be to get the oil levels correct and then with the bike on the side stand mark the leaning oil level on the stick for future use??

Is the side car got the mounting hardware to attach it to the Venture? It sure looks like you got your $500 worth.

In the battery world, more $$$$ does not always equal better. The AGM batteries are near the top of the price range, they will give more CCA and more reserve capacity. Both are good things. These will spin the engine faster and longer. But my experience is that they do not live as long. They are not tolerant of getting run down buy a parasitic draw that sometimes just happens, or a engine that is cranky one day and just does not want to start. As far as bang for the buck, I have yet to find a better option than the good old fashion Yuasa wet battery. I get the most years out of a good old Yuasa.

I bet it took a nap......... As you mentioned it is pretty common. I rebuilt mine a long time ago before nap time.

Bring a good battery and jumper cables when you go to look at it. I very much do not expect it to start, but a good battery and a jump will let you know if the motor is frozen and if all the electrical stuff works. If things do not work it is very common for the fuse panel to go bad and not make good contact with the glass fuses. Easy to replace with a modern fuse panel. The Air Suspension only works with the key in the ACCY position. As mentioned if it shows an E4, that is almost always a very cheap and easy fix. Other issues may be more involved of a fix. None of the plastic on the bike is available new, if the plastic on the bike is good you will easily get your $500 back. If the plastic is really beat up, it may be hard to find replacements. To make a rider it will need new rubber all around for sure regardless of how good the tires look. Sitting with non use is harder on a bike than being a daily driver. Look all over for signs of dry rot on rubber or sign s of mice chewing the wires. Old wire insulation seems to be delicious to mice.

Ya know wat,,, it's lop eared ambitious varmints like you that give us professional hammock lovers a bad name by fixin it just cuz it is broke. Us PROs will will make sure that it is broke enough to really need some fixin and than still wait until it is desperately needed before actually bothering to fix it. Sheesh, rookies.

Car jumper cables is what I was trying to get across this whole time. Using to small of a wire will cause the wire to get very hot, and at the same time not pass enough current to spin the starter motor. Yes I would expect to see sparks when you press the negative jumper to the starter housing. When you are ready for that. don't be gentle, just smack that neg onto to motor, and don't let it slide around, that will minimize the sparks. If the starter is going to spin it should start spinning almost instantly. If you have the connection made for a whole second and it is not spinning, get the jumper off, it aint gonna spin. Don't wait for the magic blue smoke to come out.

I guess it would all depend on if the manufacturer is still in business, Was this a verbal agreement with the sales man? Is it in writing on the contract? If you have it in writing then you likely still have a case for a new free roof, or at least a significant discount or at minimum a refund of the up charges for the ply and trusses. It could certainly be wort looking into. As for needing to specify 2x4 trusses? Is something smaller even allowed by building code down there. Up here where SNOW weight is a real thing, the minimum is 2x6 on 16" centers.

Oh No!!! Puc is starting to repeat himself............. While that did look like fun, well OK a LOT of fun, I still hate to see a gun get retired at such a young age. But then I have had the barrel of my SKS just starting to glow, and it is not a full auto, and that did not seem to hurt it at all. Rifling still looks like new.

What gauge of wire did you use for the jumper you made up with alligator clips? Both the positive and negative connections should be with a set of jumper cables like you would use to jump start a car. Smaller wire will get hot and melt and not spin the starter. Yes this is basically a bench test but without the work of removing the starter.

Don't get to close to Dans tent, he might use your bike as a tent poll.

Please STOP the random connecting of wires to the solenoid, if you connected from battery negative to either big post on the solenoid that is a dead short across the battery and is a BAD thing to do. THERE IS NO NEGATIVE BIG POST ON THE SOLENOID. You are going to blow stuff up. Yes there is only one wire connected to the starter, that is the positive wire, that is why I have you connecting a starter cable direct from the battery positive to the power stud on the starter motor. if this makes the starter crank the engine then we know that the problem is in the wire between the battery and the starter, or the solenoid. We also then know that the starter motor is good. the second test is leaving the jumper cable connected from positive battery to the stud on the starter motor and adding a jumper cable from the battery negative to the housing of the starter motor, if this causes the starter to spin then again we know that the starter motor is good and that the problem is in the ground side of the bikes wiring. Once you have both of these jumpers connected in place if the starter has not engaged then you know that it is a bad starter motor. I do understand how the bike is wired and that this test seems silly, but it does work and only takes 10 minutes to do and costs nothing. But it does drastically reduce the number of places to look for the problem.

Did you ever run the test 3 from back in post #17 ? I know it does not make sense to you, but all 3 of those tests need to be done in order because it makes sense to me and will give me needed info to help you proceed. Without this info all we can do is keep taking wild guesses as to possible problems. These tests will eliminate possibilities to narrow down the list of possible issues. This is how trouble shooting must be done, test and eliminate things one by one until your tests find the actual problem. Then you only have to take abort what is necessary and only have to buy necessary parts. I have never been one to throw money and/or major disassembly labor at a problem and hope for it to go away. I always start the the easy and/or the cheap tests. From what I can gather from all of your jumping so far (If I understood what you were saying) is that you may have more than 1 issue going on. We need to isolate and test things one by one to find the problem(s). Without isolating things to test, one problem could affect the results of another test for a different problem and lead to an incorrect conclusion.

Maybe he was related to the idiot that installed my sewer lines or the idiot that put 5 (yes five, not a typo) layers of shingles on my house. The roofer I hired was NOT happy during the tear off. At least those pipes are over 100 years old so he is most likely already dead, its keeping me out of trouble.

I did mine on the center stand with a safety strap to make sure the center stand can not collapse. I then used a floor jack under the front of the engine to lift the front wheel off the ground. When it was time to compress the forks I lift the front wheel by hand and put a concrete block under the wheel and lower the floor jack until the forks are fully compressed. Still easier than taking off the front wheel, brakes, fender, brace, speedo cable........ and then putting it all back together.

The kind of idiot that last worked on your roof.

Getting a spark does not necessarily mean there is a draw. It could just be filter capacitors charging up. They will make a tiny draw for just a split second. If the meter no longer shows a draw, then you are now chasing the dreaded intermittent electrical issue.

The OEM springs have about a 6 inch long metal spacer. Progressives will use anywhere from 0 to 1 inch of PVC pipe as a spacer. The length of the PVC is something that you can play with to get the ride and handling that you desire. I did not need to remove the front wheel to do my springs. You DO want the front wheel off the ground when you remove or install the caps. Also be sure to have let ALL of the air out of the forks BEFORE you open anything up or you will have fork oil everywhere. Clean the upper fork tubes very well before you collapses them all the way down or you can drive dirt into the fork seals and cause a leak. Don't ask how I know this............. As for your leaking new o rings, it is possible that the original ones were compressed from age and that the o ring clerk measured the compressed thickness and your new ones are to thin? I do not know what the size should be.

I fully understand the RED thing. The vast majority of my vehicles have been red. I love the looks on a salesmens face when I say that I will NOT buy anything that is black, white, or any form of grey/silver. How far is it from the warehouse to the dealer? How long will it take the dealer to uncrate and set it up ready to deliver? We are all getting excited for you, I still feel like a kid in a candy store just following your adventures.