StarFan

So sorry. Fell asleep before it started. Not a lack of interest - I blame it on the time difference. Six hours Norway/USA and I am ahead of you guys. But actually that should not keep one away from such an exciting thing as the Naked Chat. Is a thong allowed ? I feel to naked without it Am I happy my Greta never goes online vr.org

Seems to me that quite many Venture owners have had the problem of the lightbar hitting the fender. Have an insurance bike that has two dents in the front fender from the lightbar. The forks are sticking up from the tree since the bike has been lowered in the front. Previous owner told me he has never put air in the tubes nor checked the pressure and most likely that caused the denting as well as he might have exceeded the maximum linit of the tubes sticking up from the tree.. When lowering the front one has to be careful not to exceed the maximum,that is the tubes sticking up more than 1 1/2 inches. That is an absolute maximum. Apart from that, airpressure has to be controlled at all times and I fully agree that putting in stiffer springs and changing the oil to a more heavyweight oil is a logical thing to do. When I get home to Iceland from Norway (at work) I will pick up the bike from the insurance company and the first thing I will do is to set the forks at 3/4 inch max, new oil and have the fender repaired as well as other repairs needed. Don´t want to see that fender being dented by the lightbar again. If I was gonna keep the bike I would surely put in stiffer springs. Good luck with Hannigan. Friendly regards from Iceland, Jonas

Be very careful when lowering the front regarding how far you go. Anything more than 1 1/2 inch can result in damage to your front fender. Then this can happen if you loose the air in the forks (see picture). This damage is on a bike I bought from the insurance company. The forks have been lowered and the previous owner told me that he rode hard over a big bump in the road, and the result was that the driving light bracket or some bolts there under hit the fender. I am abroad and can not have a look at this now so the description is from the previous owner, that is, what happened and what hit the fender. When I get back home I will have a look and measure how far up the tripple tree the forks are, the air pressure in the forks as well as what part did actually hit the fender. Will post the result in this thread.

What time, what time, what time ????????????

Ohhhh,,,,These people are pros ! Seen right through you didn´t they ! Seriously Tom,,,these people must have a loose screw !

Was just wondering if Taters mentioned the Icelandic Sheepdog puppy that,,,,,,,,,,never mind - you´ll find out soon !

Lutz ! You are one crazy German What a bike ! Why not come to Iceland for a weekend or so and do some riding ? I´ll supply the bikes ! No V-Max though - need to slow you down a little

Thanks for the advice and info. I think the problem I will have is getting the same colour if I have it repaired. There are generally two small shops in Iceland who do this kind of a work.i will see what they say about matching the colour. Did send Corbin a mail and asking if they could supply me with the right material. Gonna see if they reply. I´ll post the outcome. Ride safe. Jonas

Thanks guys. I will send them a picture and see if I can order the material from them for the repair. Would cost way to much to send the seat to USA for repair/reupholstering.

Have to do a little upholstering to the seat of the MM Venture I just bought from the insurance company here in Iceland. Can anybody by looking at the pictures tell me if this is a Mustang seat, Corbin, Saddleman and so forth. Need to order some upholstery material from the maker of the seat.

This bridge is on the Vest coast of Norway. Been there - seen it. Looks scary to look at but is quite pleasant to drive over if you are not afraid of heights. The reason for the height is of cause allowing boats/ships to pass under. How they build it ? Well, Norwegians have quite an experience in building bridges over their fjords and have many great looking bridges. They drill and drive steel columns down deep into the seabed (most of the time the bed is plain rock) and make a form around them. Then they pump the sea out of the form and start the drilling of anchors and rebars. Pour the concrete and they have foundation columns rising from the seabed. Then they generally use barges that have hydraylic legs that rest on the bottom of the sea to use as platforms for erecting the forms for the bridge itself. This is just a very uncomplete general description - they have all kind of clever tools and equipment for this that they have designed specially for these bridges. They are actually very good at this. There are companys in Norway that specialize in bridge building - other contractors stay away. I just came back from delivering a bid on a tunnel contract in North Norway (62 million US$) and at the bid opening later that day it turned out that we had the most attractive bid for the project. There is another contractor who is gonna build a bridge over a small fjord to connect our tunnels that are on each side of the fjord.The bridge is just under a mile long and the foundation columns are resting on the seabed around 110 feet deep at the shore side. The middle of the fjord is around 1.000 feet deep and there are no columns. The bridge is hanged up by wires in the middle. For them - A piece of cake. For us others - How in the world do they do this !

Thanks Lutz ! Not going to keep it I think. Would take a lot of convincing to get the BOSS to understand that every man needs at least four bikes. Not gonna happen. Rather have her happy with having three bikes. Can´t ask for more. She is actually pushing me downgrading to two bikes in the future. SOOOOO,,,,,,Any chance of you coming to USA next summer ? Unfortunately I will not be able to attend Freebirds Maintenance day next June like I planned to. The Boss has ordered me to go with her to Mallorca the 11th. of June and already bought the tickets. Managed to get permission to go to USA in middle of August for Big Toms Rally in Chaffee, NY. What about it - Why not live a little and take a plane from Germany and do some riding ? Ride safely on that monster V-Max of yours. What a bike !!!! All the best from Iceland (Norway at work), Jonas

Chrome the fins ? Actually I have never seen chromed fins. Have you ?

Mike. Please send me a PM with what parts you want to sell as well as the price please. Friendly regards, Jonas

Well, it happened again. I lost control and bought another bike - my fourth one,,,,pheeeeeewwwww,,,,,,,,, The summer of 2011 I bought a 2000 MM Venture here in Reykjavik, Iceland for a friend of mine who lives up North. Was surprised how easy the bike was to handle and discovered it had levelling links and lowered forks. Was as easy as my 1998 Tour Classic. Rode the bike halfway through Iceland to meet up with my friend and deliver the bike and took his old Kawasaki Vulcan back and sold it for him. He took really good care of the Venture and pampered the bike apart from always scraping the drivers seat with his boots but he is kind of short legged. Late this summer he was riding with his friends up North and they stopped at the shoulder of the road. When he stepped of the bike he lost balance and dropped the bike on the right side. Unfortunately there was quite a steep slope on the side and the bike went down the slope about 20 feets. Did only get cosmetic damages but it took six guys about two hours to get the bike back up on the road. They bike was driveable in all sense - just not looking as pretty as before. The insurance company opted for paying him the bike for 12.500 US$ (note that bike prices are averagely double here in Iceland compared to the USA), and last week I bought for him a Yamaha Wildstar 2000 model with every possible accessory available as well as some custom made. A really beautiful bike and he is as happy as ever. The insurance company put the bike up for auction last Friday and it ended today. The highest bidder had only one bid (there are three bids allowed): 6.250 US$ The second (me) had all three bids: 1st.bid 6.248 US$ 2nd. bid: 5.882 US$ 3rd. bid: 5.710 US$ So I had no hope that I would get the bike. But I lucked out. The highest bidder backed out and I was offered the bike for my first bid of 6.248 US$. I decided to take the chance and drop my highest bid and stick to my second bid for 5.882 US$ with the hope that there would not be somebody with a bid amount between my first and second bid. And,,,,,,,,THE BIKE IS MINE The damages are as follows: 1. Tank has two dents in the white area. Only needs the white colour painted. 2. Front upper fairing scraped and chipped. Needs full paint. 3. Windshield broken. Needs to be replaced. 4. Lower front right fairing scraped and chipped. Full paint. 5. Would want to replace the front fender to get rid of that terrible Seagull previous owner bolted on. Ugliest thing I ever seen on a Venture (I do know it is a matter of taste ) 5. Saddlebag lid right side scraped. Full paint. 6. Trunk lid scraped. Full paint. 7. Saddlebag guard badly scraped. Needs to be replaced. 8. Right side driving light dented. Needs to be replaced. 9. Driver seat needs to be patched/repaired or a replacement bought. (Where in the world would I get an identical colour vinyl/leather for this? ) And thats about it. Have already gotten a price for the paint job - 1.300 US$ and estimated cost for the parts is somewhere between 800 to 1.200 US$ depending on how lucky I get, Total cost without calculating my work: 8.382 US$ - Sale price: 12.000 US$ Profit around: 3.500 US$ (if everything works out that is). And believe it or not - the BOSS gave me permit to buy the bike when I told her I could make some money on it. Bad thing is that both my sons said to her: MOM,,,Has Dad ever sold any of his bikes ? MOM,,,WAKE U-UP ! I am determined to sell it when it is done and,,,,,,well it is actually a very nice color and there were only 1.500 samples made,,,, When I get home from Norway middle of December I will remove the parts that need to be repainted and get them to the painter. No rush though - selling the bike when it gets close to spring. If any of you know of any of the parts available then please send me a line. The pictures on the insurance companys website are protected from copying but I am trying to find a way to attach the pictures and will post an update. Update: Pictures will be added tomorrow Wednesday - the insurance company are going to mail them to me. Thanks for looking and if any of you know of any of the parts I need then please be so kind to contact me. Friendly regards from Iceland / Norway.

This is simply hilarious. Was waiting for the oil to drain out of the motor and basicly could not continue with changing the oilfilter afterwards. Tears were running down my face I laughed so hard. Keep em coming Trader and thanks for making my day !

Weather forecast for ALDEN and neighbouring areas: Snowfall 2 feet coming Sunday. Wil continue to snow throughout Tuesday. Motorcycleowners adviced to store their bikes for the winter.

All true Earl but,,,,,I will actually be increasing the airflow by removing the "air deflector" like described in the article. I can also do the following to increase the airflow like described in the article: "For Level 2, (doing) the "two inch" filter hole match then you should be starting in the vicinity of a Mikuni 105 -110 main fuel jet and a Mikuni 22.5 pilot fuel jet". That is: increasing the airflow inlet hole to 2 inches to match the intake of the stock airfilter. The stock inlet hole is about 1 1/4 inch in diameter if I remember right. So the question is: Wouldn´t that be a sufficient increase of the airflow without going with the K&N filter ? What are your thoughts about this Earl. I am no expert on this issue - just trying to gather as much info as possible from different sources to be able to do the right thing. Best regards from Iceland, Jonas

Thanks for the tip Thinking about going for the 22.5 Pilot Fuel Jet and 115 Main Fuel Jet. Don´t want to go with the BigFoot and install an K&N filter. Read an test article about filters and these are never going into my bike. Here is the article: http://www.nicoclub.com/archives/kn-vs-oem-filter.html Any thoughts regarding this jet setup would be very much apreciated. Ride safely, Jonas

Now that´s called hitting below the belt Don - and Administrators - isnæ´t this called hijacking a thread ??? Still haven´t told him - man does it take time to build up courage ! Thanks for the info on the rejett

Well, since I have the bike pretty much apart in my garage for general maintenance and cleaning after the riding season I have decided to do some needed work on it. Have ordered a rebuild kit for the clutch and want to pull the carbs and adjust the floats and rejett them. Now I have no idea what kind of a jet kit I should buy. I can only see one kit offered for the 28 mm Mikuni and that is a stage 1 kit. There are no sizes for the jets listed and I do not know what size the original jets are. I would like to go all the way and open up the airbox and put a K&N filter in. Is there anybody here that has done this to a 28 mm Mikuni (1996 to 2001 model Royal Stars excluding the Venture). Any info and suggestions greatly appreciated. Best regards from Iceland, Jonas.

GEEZZZZ,,,,,,,are we getting a little soft as the years go by ? :rasberry:

Man,,,,Am I embarrased ! Finally figured out what was causing the flickering of the headlights. And my son had to point it out to me as a possible fault,,,,now he will make fun of me for a month ! He said: Dad, did you check if the bulb is O.K. ? I said: Look, the bulb goes blank if it is not alright - No light you know - no bright beams coming out of that glass capsule - darkness ! You got it ? It will not flicker if the bulb is shot ! He said: Just a suggestion - would not hurt to try to change it ! I said: Listen, I am not born yesterday and I know what I am doing. Is the chicken teaching the hen ? When my son left the garage I decided just in case to change the bulb just to show myself that I was right. What do you know - NO FLICKERING ! Now I am collecting some courage to tell my son what it was - Heavy steps ! Lesson learned - Be open minded to simple suggestions/solutions even though it comes from the younger ones. Thanks for all the info and suggestions. Goes into the knowledgebank and will surely come handy in the future. Friendly regards from Iceland, Jonas

The V-Max 4cyl is the only logical way to go in my opinion but surely this is a matter of taste. The V-Max into a Royal Star frame has been done but is a lot of work and mods. If I remember right the biggest issue they had was hooking up and modifying the electrical system. Was done to a Tour Deluxe 1997 model. Here is an article about it: http://www.motorcyclecruiser.com/tech/custom_batman_yamaha_royal_star/ Jonas

Well Scott,,,,, Only the toughest ones do that. The others settle for ram testicles. I had to quit eating them - to much s#x drive