MiCarl

Yeah me too. I saw that post about the tailpipe smoking. My first inclination that it was probably snow vaporizing..........

Not really sure why you put the table extensions on for a cycle. Necessary for ATV or lawn tractor. I use that lift in the shop. Pretty happy with it, but there were 3 issues: 1) Welding slag made it difficult to insert/remove the drop tail. A minute with a die grinder fixed it up. BTW, that drop tail is WAY better than a removable section because you don't have to fit the wheel down through a hole or slot. You can swing it to the side whenever the bike lets you. 2) The axle on the end of the ram has circlips that hold the rollers on. On mine the slot for the circlips wasn't square and the clips would climb off and fly away. I ended up drilling it and replacing with cotter pins. It's mild steel and drilled easily. 3) There is a plate washer on the vise screw, just inside from the handle. The screw presses against the washer when you clamp the vise. Mine was not lubricated from the factory and wore the screw and washer to where it would bind and not operate smoothly. Fortunately I have a machinist neighbor who was able to fix me up. I suggest you disassemble the vise and goop that washer liberally with high pressure grease.

Want to sell the remnants of the cruise?

Disc brakes have some drag because there is no spring that retracts them. You should be able to turn the wheel without much difficulty, but you won't be able to just spin it up and let it coast.

I think that's probably a 920, not 950. The early Virago's were not the best bikes Yamaha built. I'd think that the guitar better be worth quite a bit to do this trade.

I've got a couple software licenses that tie me to windoze. As soon as Microsoft backs me into a position where I need new licenses I'll probably switch to Linux.

The needle just pushes onto the shaft so it can be adjusted to a different angle. To do it you need to remove the cluster and the speedo from the cluster so you can hold the back side while you spin the needle. Delicate work...... Is the odometer pretty accurate? If not you might have the wrong size tire, wrong speedometer drive etc. If you do tackle the speedometer take some time to lubricate the input shaft and odometer gears. A drop of very light machine oil (clock or sewing machine oil) in the bearings of the speedometer shaft is also probably a good idea.

The oil company marketing departments would have us believe the unless we use their oil we're damaging the engine. The only oil related engine failure I've ever seen was a Suburban driven by my ex-wife. It's unclear how long she drove without oil before it failed.......

Here we don't have pot holes. We have freshly plowed fields with intermittent pieces of pavement............

I don't think that's going to work. The CB gets it's microphone signal from the intercom, not the aux in port. Otherwise when you used the CB you'd be retransmitting the radio or mp3. There are bluetooth adapters that will let you use your bluetooth headset with the motorcycle audio system. You're going to have to lay down 4-5 Benjamins to get one though.

What you need is a very narrow car tire. In other words, a small car. Small cars (at least modern ones) don't have 16" wheels.

The mute button doesn't affect the intercom, only the other sources.

Not quite. The rider controls the maximum volume of all the sources. The ATT knobs allow either the rider or passenger to reduce individual headset volume from those levels.

Sounds like crudded up carbs to me too. With the ethanol that almost all gasoline has now the shelf life isn't near what it used to be. I wouldn't drain the tank. I'd drain the carburetors, put enough fuel treatment (with stabilizer) for 10 gallons in the tank. Cycle the ignition switch a few times to get the treated fuel into the carbs. Maybe even run it for a bit. Let it sit for a week and top off the tank with fresh fuel. Try it out - you might get lucky.

I was wondering about that. It seemed to me that there should have been a frame rail sticking clear through the Malibu. The Bel-Air being frame-less explains a lot. Last month I hit some black ice with my '04 Colorado. When the wild ride stopped I went head on into the concrete barrier between me and the oncoming traffic. I was doing maybe 50 when it broke loose and the Colorado was totaled. It crumpled so nicely I didn't even have any bruises from the shoulder harness. I'd almost driven my '97 Yukon that day. I'll bet the Yukon would have been drivable after but don't know if I'd been able to drive it.......

Only thing on the shelves around here is .40S&W, .45ACP and a few shot shells. Which makes sense since I need .380ACP.

Get something that is comfortable and you can shoot well. Stopping power is meaningless if it isn't on target.

I've only done MKII, but I think the MKI is the same. There is no need to compress the shock/spring assembly. When the bike is on the center stand the shock is fully extended so the only forces on the pivots are due to the weight of the swing arm itself. The spring pre-load is "captured" by the extended shock. You may find it helpful to use a jack to carry the weight of the swing arm, but you don't want to compress the spring.

That sounds like a timing problem. Any chance the plug wires are on the wrong plugs or the coil leads are switched around?

While you're in there pull that crossover pipe and the drain valve. It'll be full of crud. Clean it up and rebuild the valve or you'll be back into it in a week.

If you decide to replace the fork tube shoot me a PM. I can probably get hold of aftermarket tubes for way less than Yamaha will charge. But still pricey. I'm not aware of any place other than Yamaha to get the dust seals.

Your compression numbers are pretty low but should be high enough to light starting fluid. The diaphragms aren't your current issue. Plugs that will fire in air won't necessarily fire in the cylinder. I'd try new plugs, no choke, and starting fluid through the air box (filter out so it doesn't burn if you get a back fire). Lots of cranking amps - either a boost box or jumper cables to a non-running car or truck.

If you had them out once they should come easy this time. You might stick the springs back in to help hold them from spinning. Thanks Rick. Shows how many 2nd gens I've done....................

There is a socket head cap screw in the bottom of the fork that holds the damping rod in place. That's the bolt he refers to. Problem is when you turn the cap screw the damping rod tends to turn inside the fork. Often times an impact wrench can essentially hammer the cap screw loose. Tip for the next person: this tends to work best while the fork is still on the bike with the spring installed. Yamaha is fairly unique in they put a 12 point cut out in the top of their damping rods rather than having them smooth like most other forks. You can engage a tool into the damping rod to hold it while you extract the screw. That head is exactly like a socket you use to turn a bolt or nut. I've got a tool at the shop which is a piece of threaded rod with a nut welded on each end. I engage one end in the damping rod and hold the other with a wrench. One of the nuts is ground under size so it fits two different size damping rods. I don't recall either size. Without making a tool like that there is another trick you can use. Get hold of a bolt where the head fits that socket in the damping rod. Put two nuts on the bolt and jam them as tight against each other as you can. Drop the bolt down into the damping rod and hold the nut with a socket and a couple extensions. I know this is clear as mud, but hopefully Dingy will pull a picture from his library to show the socket in the end of that damping rod.

I hit black ice Jan 3 and totaled my truck into the concrete barrier between opposing traffic. Since it was immobile and a hazard I called the Police. That cost me $175 and 2 points for "too fast for conditions". So much for being a good citizen. If anything like that happens again I'll just call a tow company and hope the constable never hears about it.