Jump to content

greg_in_london

Supporting Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    714

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Everything posted by greg_in_london

  1. greg_in_london
    Sorry - just had to jump in and say that this is really not true. Or not completely true, anyway. Admittedly the strains on a tow hitch are less than an uninitiated person might have thought, but when you are rolling along a bumpy road, or even worse a gently undulating one (or concrete slab motorway...) the weight of the trilaer has a definite effect, particularly if you have a noticeable nose weight. We all know how our bikes react to bumps, but the trailer will too. With a centre of gravity ahead of the axle the trailer will be pushing up and down on the hitch in time with the bumps. The effective force is amplified because the hitch will be so far behind the BIKE's centre of gravity. Last month on the Czech motorway from Brno towards Prague the concrete slabs started an oscillation on the trailer (up-down, not side-side) that had the nose of the sidecar and front forks dipping and rising by a good few inches until I found a speed where it did not happen (so much).
  2. greg_in_london
    Others will give a more definitive answer, but other posters have said 10-12% of total weight for tongue weight, which will be 10-30kg depending on trailer loading. Yamaha doesn't recommend a figure. It tends to be academic as you'll reload each time you travel anyway - and then you'll drink some beer, use some charcoal and add more shopping. Any space will be filled with your partner's clothes... (therefore don't get anything with too much space - if it has, find a reason for large empty water containers. I don't know anyone with an 06 RSTD, don't don't know anything particular about their wiring. As I have a sidecar, I ran a live connection from each light circuit into there, but connected them to relays with a live from the fuse box. My sidecar and trailer lights are switched on by the bike lights, but without adding any loading to the wiring. I've never had a bike with a warranty and am in a different country anyway, but if you have to go to court, 'reasonableness' is usuall y the deciding factor. If your horn falls off, that's got nothing to do with a trailer being fitted. If you add loads of lights and burn out an alternator, or pull near a tonne of weight and burn out the clutch, Yamaha might say that you wrecked it with some justification. Depends what goes. Advice - check out some other people's set-ups. Try it out before going far. Load the heaviest stuff as low and as close to the axles as possible - and make sure it can't slide about.
  3. greg_in_london
    Those are the ones I mean. They have a much higher load rating than bike tyres and, well, with a trailer I don't do much more than 55mph anyway. As I said, my tyre supplier (Watlings in Catford/Rushey Green) warned me off - it'd be an interesting experiment, though, especially if someone else did it....
  4. greg_in_london
    Is that price per litre or per gallon - if it's per litre that sounds like it's getting tough, but if it is per gallon it is still phenomenally cheap.
  5. greg_in_london
    I have that problem because of a leaking clutch master cylinder - it's worth checking that you're not losing fluid. Mine is a bit older, though.
  6. greg_in_london
    I had always suspected the slave cylinder, but the rate at which it lost fluid was so slow that it wasn't worth touching it. The master cylinder leak is getting onto my glove and leaching the dye out over my fingers ... ugh.
  7. greg_in_london
    I don't know how everyone else's clutch is, but on my Venture, there has always been a fair bit of lever movement to operate the clutch, I have had to top up the cylinder periodically (though it had never become any worse) since buying it eleven years ago and it has been prone to getting bubbles in the line. A couple of months ago I was greasing the pin and checking it for wear when I noticed that the pin (asymmetrical with a shoulder/seal part way down) could be replaced the other way round, thus giving the piston much more movement. Like this the clutch was much better, but it did weep brake fluid. Not drastically, but a couple of months and 4,000 miles later (we did a long Summer trip) the clutch master cylinder was empty. If it gets no worse I'm tempted to keep it as it is, but I'm looking for a rebuild kit. Has anyone else had any reason to play with these ?
  8. greg_in_london
    If you block yous off, can I have your RHS one please. Pretty please. I bought mine as a non-runner and on the first run, my RHS one fell out - eleven years ago. I've had an ugly hole there ever since.
  9. greg_in_london
    I don't know what you mean, but I can see other peple's pictures, but not yours (either). Just had to fit another Avon Venom. It seems the Elite 111 bias belt asn't available over here at present and the heavy duty Metzelers are all out of stock (and expensive). Conti Tours aren't readily available either. I had wondered about the emergency car tyres which are much narrower, but was warned off by my tyre supplier. That may have been a gut reaction, though. We don't really use them in the UK.
  10. greg_in_london
    Hi, We got back Saturday night and I started work again today. Our school Summer holidays are 5 1/2 weeks and we went away for 3 1/2 weeks - after I had upgraded the suspension. I used a 1200lb/in spring on the back and the 12kg/mm springs in the front. It made a great improvement which meant we survived the Polish roads. Still not total comfort exactly, but bearable. We did 3,400 miles between 6th and 30th August without significant problems. Dover to Dunkirk. Over the border from France into Belgium, camped the night before visiting Holland (Eindhoven) for coffee an then staying with friends in Dusseldorf for a few days. Then on to Poland via Magdeburg and Neubrandenburg (beautiful campsite by the lake, but awful cobblestone road to get there. Two nights near Coszalin on the Baltic Coast and a couple more overnight stops (although we missed Marienburg Castle because of time lost in traffic jams around Gdansk) before we got to the wedding in Lithuania where I played the pipes. A couple of days at another lakeside campsite near the Polish border then we headed south via Warsaw and Cracow before reaching Strakonice in the Czech Republic for a music festival. A few days there before we had to head back. In Bavaria we were invited back to another bike/beer/music rally in October and then we visited a friend of a friend for a few days North of Stuttgart. Finally another couple of days heading back, including a stop-over in Gent. Oh yes, then we ran out of petrol seven miles from home, but some friends came out and saved us and we went for a pint. And found the girlfriend's son has acquired a dog while we were away, but that's another story. A great trip,though.
  11. greg_in_london
    It depends a bit on how happy you are with the standard shock, whether you will have a pillion and how heavy the sidecar is. If you're keeping the standard shock with air assistance I'd try a 6" 650lb, 700lb or 750lb per inch spring. I had another shock made and the 1200lb/inch spring is right for me, but my outfit carries a lot of weight.
  12. greg_in_london
    Posting from the Czech Republic - 2,500 miles on. The Sonic Springs just arrived in time and I now have effective front suspension again. Sits much higher with about an inch or so or comprssion before I sit on it and uses three to four inches of movement as I roll over the bumps. The back suspension is riding much better with a much more reasonable amount of ground clearance. The suspension has still struggled with Polish Roads and Czech motorways in particular, but that´s probably down to the weight of the trailer stopping it from working properly. Overall much better.
  13. greg_in_london
    Fitted the spring and I have ground clearance again - on a quick test run it feels better, but I'll be happier when the front fork springs from Sonic arrive as well. I'll post a couple of pictures later.
  14. greg_in_london
    Am I boring everybody here ??? I picked up the 1200lb spring today and it has more coil clearance. Hopefully tomorrow ...
  15. greg_in_london
    Ho ho...
  16. greg_in_london
    The manual says 300ml, so drain the old stuff out and put more in - surely you have to buy 500ml to top it up anyway, so why not give it a change ? If you suspect you have a serious leak, that's something else to worry about (check how much you remove).
  17. greg_in_london
    You can download the manual from the technical downlaods of the UK venture site www.yamahaventureclub.co.uk
  18. greg_in_london
    Years ago Goodyear were really rated for tyres to fit on sidecars, but looking at their website, the smallest 16" tyre they do is 175/80/16 which is the same as everyone else. Shame...
  19. greg_in_london
    Call me a bloody fool. I went to pack a couple of photos and realised I'd left the memory card in the laptop at my girlfriend's when I uploaded the pictures above. I got the shock out and started dismantling it. I went to take a picture with my phone, but the battery was flat. I took the old 850lb spring out and it was a 1000lb spring !!! When did I upgrade that ??? Rang DFaulkener and I'll have to drive down to swap it for a 1200lb/in spring. That seems one heeluva upgrade to me ~404lb/in ~> 1200lb/in, but it matches the change on the front fork springs: 0.4kg/mm (K1) ~> 1.2kg/mm recommended by Sonic Springs and the maths works out. Because the 1200lb spring has 7 coils as opposed to 8 on the 1000lb I'll have more clearance too. Fingers crossed it will work out.
  20. greg_in_london
    [sorry - I've given up trying to paste the table - it may be that there's a size limit on tables, perhaps on the number of columns ?] The spring came yesterday - I'm going to try and fit it today. It's a fair size - dia 15mm springs - I took a couple of phots, but couldn't find a ruler to put next to it so I used a mug of tea. The overall length is 8" - 20cm. There are eight coils and each is 15mm, which means I have approximately 120mm of spring and 80mm of gap (just over 3"). If you look carefully at the pictures, though, you will see that the flattened off ends of the spring overlap each other top and bottom, reducing the amount of spring movement that I have there. Measuring the gaps between coils gives me figures from 78mm to 90mm depending on where I measure it (the opposite side has more gaps/less spring, if that makes sense). Either way, that means I have about 3" of movement. I need a good 2" for suspension travel (I had my shock made 1/2" overlength, plus 40mm standard travel) and want to leave 10% movement unused to make sure the spring is not damaged/weakened, so the maximum preload I can use will be about 3/4". I'll take a couple more shots as I do it.
  21. greg_in_london
    I have a suspicion that some of the oil doom mongers may be right for a change on the VR. I have always used a good quality car oil - the best available at a reasonable price and recently put in a good fully synthetic modern oil. Now ever since I've had my VR it has had a slipping clutch on wide/full throttle at around 3000 revs (peak torque). Although I bought HD springs I never got around to fitting them as the clutch never got worse. I seldom wound it to full thottle and if I wanted max acceleration I just backed it off as I went through middle revs. Then I fitted a sidecar and began pulling a trailer and still the clutch has become no worse 20,000 miles later. At the oil change the clutch has worsened slightly again, but without causing a problem. While touring, I suppose that climbing through the mountains could lead to a problem, but probably in a place where overheating would be a problem if I didn't slow down. I'm not going to recommend anything except a good synthetic (well other oils are good enough, but I think sythetic is better), but possibly the friction enhancers upset the VR clutch - some other posters recommend a diesel oil (as apparently they don't have them ??).
  22. greg_in_london
    Yup - the gas mileage/petrol consumption. Good to see I've not become too predictable already ..
  23. greg_in_london
    There's a radiator on Ebay, too.
  24. greg_in_london
    Given what they can charge and the development that's already taken place, I really can't see why there shouldn't be a choice of tune selected by the flick of a switch (as per a few current 600s) - different fuel management and maybe valve timing to give either maximum power or low down grunt. What I don't understand is why/how they detune an engine to give less performance and then uses MORE petrol. I could cope with torque at lower revs and less overall power if it meant I could cruise further (and faster without stopping) with less vibes. Is that really so much to ask ? With this size of engine, how about a diesel version, if only for the European market ? (Our eleven year old Golf 1.9 turbodiesel produces 90hp, but there's a 110hp version - newer ones produce more - and it can do over 60mpg in a >1 tonne car !)
  25. greg_in_london
    I'll let you know, but I'm hoping to be away as soon as I receive the springs if all goes to plan. Unless it's raining and I stop in an internet cafe I won't be able to comment until September. If the springs don't arrive until after we go, obviously we won't know then !
×
×
  • Create New...