SilveradoCA

Thanks; the FP is powered via the main fuse (and?) ignition fuse, which are OK. Can anyone pinpoint the location of the fuel pump relay for me? The word relay does not appear in the owner's manual, and the factory service manual indicates with a big arrow that it's someplace near the battery... not particularly helpful. I can't seem to spot it with the left side cover off where the FP is. Google and YT are thin on helpful info. TIA.

I haven't ridden the big girl much this year, nor the little one for that matter, because depression is a bitch. I think maybe I should just sell them. However, when I turn the ignition on, I don't hear the fuel pump clicking anymore like it always did, and the bike felt a little down on power at highway speed. Is there a procedure to test/diagnose an imminent fuel pump failure before I order parts? I don't feel right listing a bike with a known problem. It's a 2008 with 75,000Km on the clock. Thanks, you all have been so helpful in the past.

I use a pair of wireless Bluetooth earbuds made by Jabra. They stay in my ears well, make a good seal once I swapped out the left silicone mushroom for a different size. I've had them for about 2.5 years, and the batteries are almost gone - I also listen to them while working much of the time, so almost 3 years of daily use. I'll be replacing them this year with the newer model, which has active noise cancelling, so I suspect I'll be able to keep the volume a bit lower; Cherry's exhausts give a sustained throaty bellow at highway speed. I also cut the tags off mattresses. Call the black helicopters!

I switched from a factory sized 150 to a 130 last summer. This is how the bike should handle, IMO. It is a little more prone to wind shear, particularly when leaned over in a sweeper, but it's not so bad that it makes me regret the incredible improvement in low speed handling - both precision and lightness of feeling at the bars.

Mine stinks of gas in the garage too. I'm about to strip her naked and eviscerate her over the winter anyway, and carb work is on the list. However... are these carbs not vented to atmosphere? A little gas smell between rides is normal in my experience, though mine is more than that.

No duck bill for me, but I think my Shoei Neotec II is by far the best helmet I've ever owned. Comfy, quiet, super versatile, and high quality in every detail. It was hard to cough up nearly a thousand bones (Canadian) after tax, but the sting went away after about 2 kilometres.

I had the same problem on my little jughead (S40) earlier in the year. It was the starter solenoid, and it was cheap and easy to fix. Well, easy except the part about the position and location of the second mounting bolt. THAT was done by the design engineer as a joke, surely. If I meet him, his dentist is getting a new jet ski.

I've got a number of good n' cheap ideas here, thanks. You cool cats are all right.

The party is about to end up here; I've been smelling winter in the air for a month, and this week looks to be the end of the nice weather, so now we begin 6 months of freezing in the dark. Time to tear down Cherry and do all the work I've been talking about since I bought her in 2018. What do you guys use for exhaust hose to route your exhaust outside the garage in the winter? Commercial hoses sold for shops are comically expensive, and I'm clownishly cheap sometimes. This is one of those times.

Not a Strat, but I owned a 2001 Road Star. Like the Venture and all Yamaha bikes I've owned and loved, it was good looking, well built and well finished. That big engine was a gem; torque like a diesel, nice sound, low redline. The bike handled well for it's size, being quite low. Also like the Venture, it was not much for carving corners, but the floor boards made nice sparks. If you like the looks of the Strat and find one well kept, I don't think you'd be disappointed.

I appreciate the h/u on the finer points of 3D printing; it's not a process I'm familiar with. Lots of ways these could be made though; CNC, laser cut or water-jet come to mind. I have no idea how many would need to be done to make the price reasonable, unless a hobbyist were to take a swipe at it. It wouldn't be particularly hard to make one -gasp- by hand either, if a fella had the dimensions.

I haven't used one, so I have to ask why it would have to be made from metal? Would hard plastic not do the job?

Can someone on here 3D print a bunch of these? I'll buy one.

It's a great thing that dreams can be tweaked before pulling the trigger! The thing is... what resonates with me isn't just having a boat with sails, it's the whole package. The bluewater passages, live-aboard, circumnavigating the marble, all of it. I'm single, child free and have no real encumbrances, and live a pretty frugal lifestyle. The only thing stopping me today is dollars. But I'm not one to be well satisfied with severe compromises, mostly. I also feel a compulsion to do this before I get too old... and longevity doesn't feature strongly on the male side of my family tree. That requires a craft of a certain size. From what I've come to understand, it could be and has been done on boats as small as 27', but with a lot of compromises. The small-ish boats in the Golden Globe at 32-35' are getting closer, but not quite there. If you like watching sailors on YouTube, have a look for a fellow named Erik Anderaa. He sails single-handed in a Contessa 32' from his home in Norway all over the North Atlantic, in the winter! He's also a pretty good videographer and drone pilot, so his vids are thrilling to watch. The total opposite of all the beautiful couples cruising the Caribbean in their million dollar catamarans. Another good fellow is Patrick Laine; also on YT, he sails out of La Rochelle, France. Retired pilot I believe; totally competent and practical. I've also enjoyed learning from a guy in the PNW or CA called Christian Williams, again on YT. Some of these sailors also post on related web forums. If money were no object, I'd call up Hallberg-Rassey in Sweden and get them to build me one with all the automatic gizmos (to the tune of about , but I think (or it has been suggested to me) that a ketch under 45' could be single-handed well enough, and manageable for two quite easily. This at the expense of speed, of course. The fact that ketch rigs aren't popular anymore means I'm looking at boats in the 20-30 year old range. The systems part doesn't scare me at all; I'm a carpenter by trade and builder by profession, and consider myself a competent mechanic. I don't have a lot of experience working on boats, but I did spend a couple of weeks replacing part of the hull and deck on an old wooden former RCMP boat last year (though why the owner even wanted to do so was beyond me.. the thing had been parked on the bottom TWICE in it's life, though somehow still floated). But also because a nice ketch flying all her white canvas on a reach is unspeakably beautiful. If I can make it happen in the next couple of years, AND IF world travel is even possible in the 'new normal', I intend to at least get to tidewater and take a couple of courses for basic certification, then try to crew on boats headed to Mexico or Hawaii to get a deeper feel for it. I'm also going to get a HAM radio license this winter, though not only to learn about radios in marine applications, obviously. The cost of buying the boat is far less than the cost of buying a home, even if you factored in replacing all the rigging and systems. The last time I owned a house was almost 20 years ago, but I did live in my 117 square foot RV for almost 2 years! The marina fees are about the cost of property taxes here in Canada. Live-aboard slips are like unicorn hair, that is a fact...

Condor, I know this is a zombie thread, I found it at the bottom FlyinFool's thread on RC aircraft! My absolute dream is to sail around the world, including to some unconventional places like Iceland, Japan, Patagonia (with the necessary trip around Cape Horn), Antarctica, etc. Something about the high latitudes, both North and South, really calls to me. My dad had a windsurfer, and taught me the very basics of how sails work when I was 7 or 8. I got the chance to sail around the Straight of Georgia as a young teen, and it planted a seed. A few summers ago I spent a week cruising the Discovery Islands in my buddy's boat (a motor cruiser), and it lit a spark. Since then I've been reading, asking questions, and learning. I have never been so possessed by a singular notion in my life. Today my dream life would be living in a coastal city on my boat; a city with close proximity to good motorcycling, while I spend a few years getting familiar with the boat and the process. I think the progression would be to sail the calm (often becalmed LOL) sedate waters of the Salish Sea, Discovery Passage, maybe up to Haida Gwaii, etc., then to a Van Isle 360, then down to Mexico, out to Hawaii and back, and then head out on the wind to wherever. That boat would be something in the 40-45' range, a mono-hull ketch rig with two headsails, fairly heavy displacement, with a powerful auxiliary and big tankage. Full suite of electronics, wind vane, water maker, the works. If I actually had the money today, I'd be hard pressed to decide between a couple of models of yacht of that description. There are an awful lot of yachts on the market these days, priced about 60% of what they were even 2 years ago. Still well out of reach for me, so it's probably a lottery ticket pipe dream.