InfinitySurf

Question on my 2012 RSV. Just finished doing valve check (all within spec), replacing the valve cover gaskets and the gaskets in the twinkie.... as I am putting this back together I am wondering if I can DELETE the 2 hoses that connect to the front left and the rear right intake boot nipples since I previously plugged/deleted the AIS system in 2021? Dont see any reason why I cannot just remove those 2 hoses and install nipples to close them off like the other 2 cylinders but would like to verify since I saw a post a while back where someone says something about one of those hoses (maybe to the front left cylinder?) connecting to the cruise control so if plugged then the cruise will not work? I rarely use the cruise but would want to keep that option altho I cant see how that hose would make a difference to the cruise with the AIS system already plugged up. Can anyone confirm? Few pictures attached. Appreciate it!

Interesting that the bike ran so well with the floats adjusted so low like that from the factory, theoretically that creates a lean condition since the holes in the emulsion tube behind the main jet suck in more air than the system is designed for. Multiple signs point to the fact that these carbs had never previously been opened up by anyone else. For what its worth since I have seen some posts about having the air/fuel mix screws turned out 2-2.5 turns... my bike was set at 3.5 turns out on all 4 and that is also what Ivan recommends to start with and depending on how it runs, potentially backing them off to 3 turns out if needed. Will be interesting to see if there is a noticeable bump in the felt power with the Ivans needles/jets installed as well as properly adjusted floats! Will likely be 3-4 weeks before I get ready to fire her up again since I am in no rush to finish and will be too busy over the next 3 weeks to do much anyway. I haven't even opened up the valve covers yet since I didnt want to leave the engine exposed like that for no reason over the next could weeks plus I plan to replace the 2 twinkie gaskets & might as well go ahead and replace the front wheel bearings/seals while the bike is down since I just did the rear and there was VERY little grease in the factory sealed bearings for the rear wheel. I always clean new "sealed bearings" in deseil and get ride of the factory water soluable grease and then re-pack the bearings with my Lucas synthetic marine grease, it has done very well in many other bearings I have done like that over the last 8yrs or so. BTW...the suspension needle bearings were also all fairly low....easy to re-grease all those when when the rear tire is off - I checked them cause I had a squeak when I sat on the bike so re-greased them as the suspension bushings & bolts, not sure which solved it but zero noises now. One other thing I was thinking about.... I blocked off the AIS system shortly after getting the bike in 2021 but never removed the 2 hoses that attach to the nipples on the boots that the carbs sit into on the side of the cylinders. There is no reason why I cannot just remove those 2 tubes while bike is stripped down and install caps like I have on the other 2 nipples as long as I also cap the 2 spots that those 2 tubes currently enter the AIS, correct? Don't remember where but remember seeing a post (may have been on the thread about the "Jason Mod" where someone said he thought one of those tubes was related to the cruise control system? Anyone know if that is true and/or would effect my cruise control if I go ahead and remove them? I wouldnt think it should effect cruise but want to be sure, I dont use cruise control often cause the speed varies too much but its nice to have that option available occasionally.

Thanks for confirming my thought process on this. I went ahead and adjusted them all to the 9.0mm height last night like above picture so I could close up the carbs since I am going out of town for a week and was hoping I was following the correct procedure. In Service manual they showed picture of the carb with the float pointed up...in my head at that point I was thinking "upsidedown" was the bowl down while float was hanging... but that is the way they are mounted on the bike, duh! So yea, service manual makes more sense now too, thot they were contradicting themselves when I read it & I was just having a brain fart :-). It clicked in my head when I read your above post. Appreciate the reply very much!

Ok... right side is the float adjusted to the 9.0mm that the service manual calls for measureing from the center of the boat to the highest point of the float. Left side shows how it was originally which was only 6mm measured at the side of the carb bowl since the center did not stick up at all. Going with this seems to make sense since the reason you adjust the float levels is so the fuel level is correct in relation to where the holes are in the emolsion tube under the main jet. I pulled off the main jet housing to check that and the holes in that tube extend up exactly 9.0mm. Does this new 9.0mm height seem like the correct adjustment to the more experienced members?

The adjustment to the floats is simply to follow the factory service manual. Bike has been running great, only going thru the carbs since I have to remove them anyway to get access to the valve cover gaskets. Internals were in great shape, I have cleaned them really well & installed new needle valves & seats as well as Ivans Performance needles. I did speak to him again on Monday and he said the reason for reducing the main jet sizes to 115 on the 2 left carbs and 117.5 on the 2 left carbs is because his needles is thinner so it benefits from the smaller main jets, so I have done that as well and the only thing left to do before re-installing the float bowl gaskets is to do the float adjustments. Service manual is not great in this area cause it tells you to turn the carb upsidedown to measure them but then has a NOTE saying that the float should be resting on the valve seat without depressing the spring in the needle valve. Upsidedown the measurement is 12mm... resting on the valve without depressing that spring the measurement is 6mm (service manual calls for 8-9mm to be within spec). Trouble is that when upsidedown the floats are pretty much level with the carb body so I can measure the height from the center of the bowl (like is shown not only in the service manual but also in every video I have found tho I cannot find a single video showing this adjustment for an RSV)... when floats are resting they are angled way down and there is nothing at the center to measure, I have to measure at the far back of the carb which is where that 6mm measurement is coming from. Frustrating... has anyone done the float level adjustment and can advise me so I get this right?

I really like them too, they stick really well and do very well in the couple times I have been caught in some rain. Crazy story - I bought front/rear Shinko 777 tires in May of 2022 from Revzilla and when I got them I noticed the rear tire was dated 2121 and the front was 4821 (always check that just in case) - anyway 5-6 weeks ago I noticed a noise starting at the rear and isolated it too a wheel bearing starting to go bad so I removed the wheel to get the entire rear serviced and noticed right away that the rear tire had cracks inside all the tread siping but otherwise still looked really good. Had about 3500 miles on them. Not expecting a whole lot I contacted Revzilla and sent them detailed pictures and submitted some other data thinking I may as well see if they would warranty them since perhaps they had a tire run during that time period that was a bad lot since the front tire shows none of those cracks at all and looks perfectly normal. When not riding the bike is in garage 100% of the time. Too my surprise they agreed to replace the tire, told me to buy a new one and they sent me an RMA to return the old one to them and within a few days of the old tire getting there they fully refunded the purchase price of the new tire! So I was pretty stoked that they stood behind their product even after that much time/miles, if anything it further sold me on those tires since these days especially its rare for a business to step up and do the right thing.

Thank you for the pointers! I have not bench synced before since I have never done a quad setup, I have researched it some so I can do it correctly and then I have a Carbtune to finish re-syncing them once the bike is running again. I will probably use the "drill bit method" to bench sync unless someone can recommend a better way? I took apart the outer supports last night as well as stripped the float bowls & needle diaphragms along with all the internal parts. Came up with a method so I would not loose track of which parts go to which carbs, I numbered the carbs and also numbered areas for all the parts to go. Haven't finished disassembling the the quad setup yet as I haven't yet found good instructions on how to do it properly (no videos I could find showing the quads being separated) but I will figure that out one way or another this evening even if I gotta just wing it. Don't these carbs have ever been disassembled before, still had the caps over the mix screws and no scuff marks on them at all showing they had ever been popped off (all 4 were set to 3.5 turns out). I am 3rd owner, I know for sure the guy prior to me was not a DIY guy and from what he said he bought the bike from original owner with extremely low miles so doubt original owner had any reason to do anything either. Carb Internals are in surprisingly good shape for being 14yrs old, even the o-rings look pretty good tho I am obviously still going to replace everything. The float bowl o-rings show the worst build-up and there is a little bit of normal black build-up in the carb throats but no debris or sign of ethenol phase separation at all in the carbs & none of the jets had any build-up in them whatsoever, really helps make a case for running stabilized non-ethenol fuel like I have since getting the bike in 2021. Obviously when I take trips I use whatever fuel I can find but always switch back when on home turf since its readily available in my area since I am close to the largest lake in NC with a ton of boaters. Thanks again for helping a noob out!

2012 RSV. Got everything torn down today to get ready to finally replace my leaking valve cover gaskets! Also going to pull apart the carbs for a full clean and install Ivan's Performance jet & needle kit (FYI...they are running a 10% off Black Friday special right now that started on 11/29 and goes I think till either 10/2 or maybe it was 10/6?). Since I pull a trailer at times and have heard great reviews on Ivan's kit boosting the power some I figure it will be well worth it even tho I am sure the tradeoff is a little less fuel mileage. With carbs open I am gonna figure out how to check my float levels and correct them if needed since I have seen a few threads on here saying they were pretty far out of spec and getting them right can positively effect gas mileage. I have 4 of the K&L carb re-build kits on the way which include new needle valves/valve seats/orings as well as the other orings needed and the float cover orings. Never had any carb issues with this bike as I mostly run Non-ethenol and always use stabilizer but only makes sense to go thru them now since its so much work getting them pulled out. Definitely a good deal of attention to detail required to do this job but sick of seeing the leaking engine oil all over the back of my engine from those leaking gaskets. Have done MANY carb re-builds over the years but never anything as intimidating looking like this bundle of 4 carbs! Figure if I take my time and take plenty of pics I will be able to figure out how to get them all put back together into the bracket system. One question.... I am at 800ft elevation but living in NC do trips to the NC & TN mountains which range between 3-4k elevation, can anyone who has installed the Ivan's kit confirm that the recommended jet sizes ended up working the best for them? I received his kit yesterday, looks like the recommendation is 117.5 on the left 2 carbs & 115 on the right side carbs. I havent pulled them apart yet but from parts diagram it appears that carb #1 & 2 both have 122.5, #3 carb had 117.5 & #4 carb has a 122.5 installed from factory. Can tell that these carbs have never been removed from the bike before. Also replacing the 2 twinkle gaskets as preventative maintenance while everything is apart. Have fully drained coolant from radiator, cylinders, overflow bottle and the water pump in order to change that & also replacing the 4) rubber cylinder plugs. Doing engine/oil filter change to out some fresh Amsoil in there. Installing new NGK Iridium spark plugs, etc. Will be going thru and checking all the valve clearances, not sure if I will find any valves out of spec or not since only 31k on the engine...if I do find issues I will do that at the same time of course. Hopefully everything goes smooth putting her back together once the valve cover gaskets are replaced and will do a carb sync last. Should be good to go for the next few years with no major maintenance work required since I just finished installing new rear tire (Shinko 777), installed new wheel bearings on the rear, re-packed the swingarm bearings and went thru the final drive thoroughly as well as obviously cleaning and re-greasing the drive pinions. Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! Heading to MN later this week to visit my Son & 2 grandsons! Oldest turns 7 while I am there and the 2nd was just born in Aug so stoked to spend some time quality time with them.

Hey Earl, Thank you for the reply, I didn't think to check the member vendors portion! Haven't gotten into this yet as work has been pretty crazy, I have been doing a lot of traveling & I leave again for a week on Dec 4th so likely wont start tearing the front end apart until the middle of Dec but will absolutely PM you if I have any valves out of spec. Would definately love the valve cover gasket install instructions, I have seen quite a few people post about still having leaks after doing the work and that is the last thing I wanna deal with since its fairly time consuming to remove everything in order to get this job done. I do already have gaskets in-hand for the valve covers as I have had this on my to-do list for quite a while and also recently got the 2 twinkie gaskets for preventative measures. Was thinking I would take the carbs apart for a cleaning while out & I have ordered one of Ivan's jet/needle kits as I have heard nothing but good things about them. I am guessing everything else in the carbs will likely look pretty good or at least be easily cleanable since I run ethenol free fuel w/ stabilizer 90% of the time but know from experience that its always a good idea to replace the bowl gaskets. I have done many carb re-builds in the past but have never taken these apart, I do have the gauges to do a carb sync once its all back together. Do you know if the K&L carb float bowl gaskets are good quality? I know 95% of aftermarket stuff for carbs these days are crap. Will post link to the kit I was looking at getting, basically 4) K&L carb kits for $80. I intend to keep this bike long term so I keep doing little upgrades to keep it in top shape. Appreciate you! https://www.ebay.com/itm/192095629148

I really appreciate the offer! If I end up finding some valves that are too tight and it makes sense to just get them changed while the bike is all opened up I may connect with you on this if you don't mind. I live in North Carolina, are you in the USA or live in Canada?

I noticed that Honda also has some 25mm shims when I was looking up the costs for new shims and definately gonna keep that in mind if I end up needing to change any of the shims. I have both Yamaha and Honda dealers not too far from me but no relationship with them since I always do my own work but would be super cool if I could find a dealer who will be willing to swap shims with me if needed. I actually got a full shim kit set for my dual sport Honda 300L since I was replacing the oem cams to add some top end (along with several other engine mods) but those shims are 7.48mm, so tiny compared to the 25mm needed for this beast. I really only got the full set for the Honda since I have several other family members with the same bike so figured in the long term it may pay off to have a full set in-hand.

I have a Kobalt 8" blade pole saw with 12ft reach and 12" kobalt chainsaw and agree that battery tools have come a long ways in the last few years. They are really great when you want to grab something quick that is light and easy. I still rely primarily on my Husqvarna pro saws for the bigger stuff but it sure is nice to have battery tools for many projects. I could literally build a house with my 24v battery tools, they make a battery tool now for just about anything needed.... would just need to run a small generator occasionally to keep the batteries charged up.

I have actually had the gaskets since late 2022 and just been procrastinating cause I have been spending more time wrenching on my duel sport bike, the kids quads & been going thru my truck since I am about to hit 100k miles. I removed the RSV swingarm last week to re-pack the bearings (was very little factory grease left on those things after 31k miles). Already had the rear apart to replace the rear wheel bearings and with the swingarm removed it gave me a direct view on how much oil has seeped out over the last 2 years since I did a deep clean on the bike. I mean, nothing crazy of course and no noticeable drop in engine oil level but for an OCD guy like myself it was looking pretty bad, lol. It all seems to leak out of the very back of the lowest place on the valve cover just over the exhaust outlets so most of it drips down the middle of the bike. Odd since I have never seen a single drip on my garage floor. When I built my current house I plumbed in a hot water hose bib and man that is nice to have when washing the bike (or bathing the dog) but a little earlier today I changed the fuel filter which is always a fun chore in such a PITA spot and looked really closely at the valve cover gaskets and you can see that the cover is not pushing down tightly on the outer edges of the gasket. So my only viable option if those bolts are truly torqued down properly may be adding a washer under the bolt heads in order to bring those covers down some more. I am gonna stop procrastinating and get it done, I ordered the 2 twinkie gaskets earlier today from Partzilla since easy to do with the valve covers out of the way and as soon as they get here I am gonna tear it down & get the job completed. Will change coolant, engine oil/filter since I gotta drain that anyway for the twinkie gaskets. Also gonna do brake/clutch fluids since the last time I did that was when I got the bike in 2021. Might as well go thru the carbs too since I gotta pull them off tho I doubt any issues there since I run ethenol free fuel 95% of the time. Don't think I am gonna worry about those plugs inside the valve covers since I believe those act like shoulders to hold the valve cover up, they are clearly still doing their job, perhaps a little too well since those covers are not sitting down flush onto the gaskets.

Thanks for the reply, if I get 30k out of the new gaskets I will be pretty happy with that! I am guessing those bolts must have a shoulder and why the "hack" is adding a thin washer under the head in order to be able to push the valve cover down a little extra. Have also seen a couple posts tho that talk about the leak getting worse when torqued beyond the spec so not sure how I feel about. Guess once I remove the covers and can see everything I will have to make a decision then on the route I will try. I sent skydoc an email about the tool & shim kit, will see if he is open to renting it out once he sees it. Wife is still loving those passenger highway pegs I got from you a while back! Love that Wolo horn too, damn thing is LOUD which is exactly what I wanted!

Talked to a guy for a while last night who is well known in the RSV world, keeps a yard full of used & old stock new parts and has had hundreds of these bikes and put a couple hundred thousand miles on several of them. He basically said 2 things. 1). Extremely rare to need valve adjustment and if needed the bike will tell you by how it runs so basically a waste of money.....no doubt that if you gotta buy the tool for $75 and then either a shim kit for around $150+ or buy shims 1 at a time for $10+ each it certainly seems like it could get pretty spendy. The bike certainly does run excellent. 2) When you replace the valve gaskets you are supposed to also replace the 16 grommets/plugs under the vavle cover. I have not removed the valve covers yet so I looked at diagram and looks like the part# is 90338-10150-00 and in diagram they are called a "plug" (In the attached diagram it is part# 33). Has anyone else replaced these at same time as the valve covers? They are basically $5 each. He also said that a hack some people use to not replace them is by adding a thin washer under the head of the bolts that hold down the valve covers. Has anyone done this? Have also read in multiple posts that adding a little RTV can help prevent the gasket from leaking again in the future. Just by looking at how the covers are bolted down it seems like its not well designed to keep the seal compressed properly over time due to the lack of bolts holding the cover down. Personally my mindset on a bike that I never plan to sell is too go ahead and do it right so I don't have to deal with potential future issues. Either way once I have the valve covers open I am definitely going to check the spacing as that is easy enough to do, guess this is the right time of year to do it so if any of the valves are tighter than spec calls for (sounds like exhaust valves are the most likely to tighten up 1st) I can decide what to do at that time. I have bought several things from @skydoc_17 for my bike in the past so I will definitely message him and see if its an option to rent his kit and if any shims need to be replaced obviously add any removed shims to his kit.

Beautiful bike! Mine has been super reliable as well and all my work except for the points on my fuel pump wearing out, the gas gauge issue I havent been able to resolve & the recent bearing replacement for rear wheel has either been preventative or upgrades I was doing to the bike. Working on the bike is a calming Zen moment for me, so I typically do way more than I need to just cause I enjoy being elbow deep into an engine :-). I always have something torn apart in the garage.

Hey everyone, I have a 2012 RSV that I got back in 2021, about 31k miles on it now and has been an awesome bike! Put around 7k miles on it since buying, haven't ridden it as much as I would like since I usually gotta drive my truck for work to carry tools/ladder but plan to pull my trailer more often next summer to be able to also use it during the week. Started making a little noise at the rear wheel a few weeks ago so I just finished replacing the wheel bearings (which solved the noise)...1st thing I did was remove the bearing covers, clean out the crappy water soluble oem grease and re-pack the bearings with Lucas marine grease. Since I had the rear end apart anyway I went ahead and removed the swingarm to check those bearings, they looked good but very little grease in there so I also re-packed those real well and got everything back together along with a new Shinko 777 tire for the rear. Obviously I also cleaned up the driveshaft & the drive pinions/gears and re-assembled it all with the Honda moly grease. New Amsoil 75w90 severe gear in the final drive, etc. Anyway... the point of this post is that the rear valve cover gaskets have been leaking since I got the bike and its kept getting worse and makes a mess on the back part of the engine, I need to get this solved asap. I have had the new valve cover gaskets for a while but am finally gonna tear into it in the next month while weather is cold. Since its easiest to remove everything including the carbs for access... I am going to clean the carbs, replace the Iridium plugs and it only makes sense to go ahead and do a valve check/adjustment while I have that all opened up. I doing a lot of mechanical DIY so no issues there but I know that I need a special too in order to pull/replace shims that are out of spec, I have seen mentioned on here several times that there are some members who will loan out the tool and shim kit in exchange for?? Is there anyone who may be willing to do that for me? I am in NC & live North of Charlotte near Lake Norman. If none available to borrow, could anyone point me to link where I could buy the tool and a shim kit for reasonable prices? Since it wont be riding weather I also have the option to check all the valves and figure out what I need and then order only the sizes needed since it wont be an issue to have some down time but I know many times its worth buying a kit vs single shims since cost is not that much higher (I have a Honda 300L dual sport that I bought entire kit after installing new cams since buying single shims was outrageous) Oh yea... the ONLY issue I have had with this bike since buying it that I have been unable to resolve is my gas gauge not working from day 1. I replaced the entire in-tank system with new OEM in winter of 2021 and it never solved it... still get the flashing gas gauge on the dash (8 blinks), really annoying. When I replaced it the first time and it didn't work I figured I got a faulty one so got the Yamaha dealer return the gauge and send me another brand new one.... same result. Super frustrating and kindof gave up on it since its not a huge issue as I just check track my mileage. Still annoying tho and would like to solve this somehow. When apart last time I figured there must be a broken or grounded wire somewhere between causing this issue so used ohm meter and had continuity on every wire I could find between the gas gauge cluster and the harness for the internal gas float assembly so got stumped on tracking whatever the core issue is... any chance anyone has any other ideas on what else I could look at?

I got a set of these passenger pegs from @RDawson today and installed them right away - here are some pics of them mounted! Good quality parts and very easy to install, everything lines up perfectly and both pegs just clear my rear crash bars that wrap around the luggage boxes! I used some blue loctite in the new passenger peg bolt as well as the bolt that holds together the new aluminum peg since that one seems the most likely to potentially loosen over time. My wife has some knee issues from a ballet background and its tough for her to ride more than 1-1.5hrs at a time without stretching her knees out so when we saw these on Dawson's bike at the Asheville 2022 meetup, she was excited to order a set next time Dawson had them available. Thank you Ronnie! She will appreciate these on our ride down to the Vogel meetup in August 2023!

That was me... Drew & Liz. Actually messaged @Woody today to see of Asheville was on for this year. This Vogel trip sounds great tho and already spoke to my wife and we are planning to come. Reading thru this thread, looks like it may be tougher finding lodging but I will see what I can find and book it asap. If anyone knows of any places that still have room available, would be great to hear from you. We look forward to seeing you all again!

Sorry for the late reply, work has been crazy lately and haven't logged on in a few weeks. You have probably already figured this out or gone with one of the other options given here but here are a couple pictures of when I did mine. I believe this cap in the pics is what you are referring too? I didn't see a way to separate it properly either so I just pulled it back as much as it would go and left it attached while I did the point re-build. Just gotta remove the screws that hold the points to the pump and use solder iron to separate the ground wire and then reverse it all to re-install. I hope replacing the points worked for you if thats the option you decided to use! I have torn my bike down pretty far the last 2 winters as I wanted to go thru everything to ensure it gives me reliable service for many years and so far the only thing I haven't been able to figure out is why my fuel meter will not work properly... when ignition on the fuel guage gives me the 8 blinks (doesnt read the current fuel level) which in the service manual means the fuel guage assemble (potimeter I think?) inside the tank is bad. I replaced everything inside the tank the 1st time with a new Yamaha OEM part and it did the same thing and still didnt work so I exchanged the part thinking I just got a bad part from Yamaha.... but the 2nd one did exactly the same thing so I guess there is something else somewhere causing the issue tho I havent personally been able to narrow down any other potential issues (When I ohm the wires that all tests good too)... so I just trip my mileage meter each time I fill up. I LOVE how easy this bike has been to work on/upgrade and having this group has been incredible since anything I cant figure out, someone here knows!

Oh... here is the item# for the point set you would want to purchase if you decide to go that route. Believe I purchased mine from Ebay

20k miles, could definately be the contact points wearing out.... one thing to note is that I have seen fuel pump work fine at idle or just revving the engine but then stop working once you are at hwy speeds since its not able to keep up with the required fuel supply to the carbs. The only tricky part of replacing the points is having a solder iron, if you have one of those its a pretty simple job. If you open up the pump and look at the points you can typically tell what kind of shape they are in, they will start wearing really uneven. I changed out my contact points last summer to prevent an issue since my contacts had some pretty uneven wear. A pic attached showing worn contact points at 28k miles and here is a link from the Facebook Yamaha Royal Star Venture Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/135373523171973/search/?q=fuel pump points

Liz & I have had a great time! Excellent riding in the mountains here and great meeting/talking with new like minded people. We are looking forward to the next one already. -Drew

Wife & I will be there on Thursday sometime early afternoon - we are staying in the T-6 cabin on the river and will come over to T-24 in the early evening after people are back from riding. Safe travels, we look forward to meeting everyone! Drew & Liz

If it was working well before then is sounds like maybe you have a clog? There is a small hole at the bottom that reservoir that can get clogged pretty easy with any piece of trash....it can be hard to see that hole too if the fluid is dirty, maybe a paperclip or needle to explore once you suck out the existing fluid? I use a syringe to remove old fluid. Usually a really good cleaning along with a full fluid flush will solve issues like that (DOT 4 fluid from a new unopened bottle). I use a vacuum pump to pull new fluid thru, just make sure you don't get any air bubbles in the system or it will take a lot longer to get it working properly. Good luck with it, nice that you were so close to home!