Jump to content

Venturous Randy

Supporting Member
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    6,488

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    1

 Content Type 

Everything posted by Venturous Randy

  1. Venturous Randy
    Ran into a guy today that has an 85 VMax that he said has a rod knocking. I have an 86 crankshaft that is in good shape from a 1300. It is my understanding that the bore is the difference from the 1200 and the 1300. Does anyone know if this crank will work? I might sell him the crank, or try to buy the VMax. RandyA
  2. Venturous Randy
    Chuck, I am glad you have it home and it sounds like a typical old Venture that has had minimal fixing. Most of the problems you mentioned are just things that will need upgrading anyway. Good luck and keep us posted. RandyA
  3. Venturous Randy
    I pulled the carbs this morning and removed the bowl cover on the RR carb. I pulled the pilot jet out and could not see thru it. I blew it out and put everything back together and when I started it, it sounded like it was fixed. As soon as I pulled it out of the garage, I realized it was not fixed. What it ended up being was the plug that I had put on the YICS vent for that cylinder that had come apart. I went to Auto Zone and picked up four new 3/8th rubber cap plugs and replaced the two on the right side of the bike and now it is running good again. I also put about 3/4 can of Sea Foam in about a half tank of gas. I have also noticed that the last tank of gas will ping even under a medium load and that is something this bike has not done on regular gas. I am going to let the Sea Foam soak thru the carbs tonight and with new gas tomorrow, I think it will do good. RandyA
  4. Venturous Randy
    After a great weekend with putting at least 500 miles on the bike and it running great, I dropped a cylinder at lower RPM's today. As I was slowing down to pull into City Hall to pay speeding ticket I got in my wife's Maxima, there was a loud "pop" and a cylinder went dead. It did not sound like an exhaust pop. After I came out and was riding home, I had a definite miss up to about 2,500 RPM's and then it seems like all four are pulling good. After getting off work tonight, I went out in the garage and started the bike and let it run for about 30 seconds at a little above idle. I then cut it off and felt of each exhaust. The right rear was still cold. I put another spark plug on the wire and restarted the bike. It had very good fire. I then pulled the diaphragm and it looked good. I kind of sounds like the pilot jet may be clogged on that carb, but I don't know where the pop came from unless it was thru one of the carbs. I am going to take a look at that plug and may pull the carbs to look at that one. I am open for suggestions if anyone has any. Thanks, RandyA
  5. Venturous Randy
    Now if you really want to hear something sweet, it is a 1st gen at 100mph in 3rd gear, still accelerating!! RandyA
  6. Venturous Randy
    Glad to hear that you did that. I strongly believe we do not have enough brakelights. I have also added one more light. I got an LED unit that is about four inches long that has six lights in it. I installed it right under the rack on the trunk and it works as a 3rd brakelight type thing, up high. I can either set it to come on all six bulbs at once or go from side to side with the two on the left coming on, then the two in the middle coming on as the ones on the left go off, then the two on the right comes on as the center two go off, then it sweeps back across to the left side again. It is very noticable. I also fixed the strobes inside my brakelight. RandyA
  7. Venturous Randy
    Wow Mike, great post and information. Sometimes these things can just about drive us crazy. Sounds like if you do decide to sell it, someone will get a good bike. RandyA
  8. Venturous Randy
    It is hard to think you are lucky after getting nailed by another driver, but you know it could have been worse. That is one of the reasons I ride with my thumb on the horn button that is attached to 135 decibil air horns. It may not always stop the idiots from pulling into you, but it may get enough people's attention that you might not get run over before you can get up. RandyA
  9. Venturous Randy
    Two Things; When you had it all out, did you put the clutch rod back in with the dimpled end at the ball bearing? When at a point the clutch is slipping, reach down and loosen the bleed screw some and then retighten it, Any excess that could hold the clutch open some would be removed. RandyA
  10. Venturous Randy
    What you have is a clock spring that pulls the needle back to the stop pin. There is a bell with a magnet that spins from the cable drive. The faster the magnet spins, the more the bell pulls against the spring. What you are actually doing is adding more or less spring tension to the bell which controls the needle. I am not real anal about things, but I do want my speedometer to be dead on if possible. I remember going into a Chevy parts department and asking for a plastic driven gear to change my speedometer a little on my car. The different number of teeth have corresponding colors as they are made out of plastic. The counter guy asked what color I wanted. I told him I did not have any idea, but if he would show me the various bins to look in, I could count. I have found to pull the needle off, a set of curved needle nose plyers work good. Just be sure you are comfortable where the needle comes to a stop before you pull it off. An easy way to calculate speed with a stop watch in a mile is to determine the number of seconds it took you to go thru and if it is less than 60, you divide it into 60, them multiply it by 60. An example would be a reading of 54 seconds. Divide that into 60 and you get 1.111 and then multiply that by 60 and you are going 66.6 mph. If it took you one minute and twelve seconds, that would be 72 seconds to go the mile. Then you divide 60 by 72 and you get .833 and then multiply that by 60 and you get 50 mph. Are you confused yet? Yes, to some extent you are resetting the zero point, or actually a point less than zero. Now you should really be confused. Actually it is real simple, but to get it real close, you may have to do it a couple of times. And be careful of using highway mile markers as they are not always spaced correctly, as in 5,280 feet apart. RandyA
  11. Venturous Randy
    I am courious about this also. Hey Tom, how are you and have you heard from Ken? RandyA
  12. Venturous Randy
    Hey Jim, 6/7 off at 35mph sounds like an awful lot. I tweaked on mine, an 83, and it reads about perfect now. What I did was to determine how much I was off, then I pulled the speedometer. I then lifted the needle over the stop pin and let it come to a rest. I flipped it a few times to see how consistant it stopped. When I was satisfied where it stopped at, I made a small mark and then pulled the needle loose. I then moved the needle in the direction and amount it needed to go and pressed it back on. I then lifted the needle back over the stop pin, put it back together and tried it out. I think I was about 4 /5 mph's off at 60, but after I tweaked it, it is real good. What you will need to do is move the needle counter clockwise. If it was off a quarter of an inch, move it that much and put it back on. It should come to rest that distance from the first mark. That was at least 60,000 miles ago. RandyA
  13. Venturous Randy
    I did what condor suggested on my 83 and have been very happy with the light improvement. I also put in a PIAA bulb with 100/110 watt output. Mine is much better than it was. RandyA
  14. Venturous Randy
    If you are going to do this right, I think you need to remove the entire dash, take the speedometer out of the dash and put grease down inside the speedometer where the cable comes thru. If you continue to ride it with it squealing, even intermittenly, you will distroy the speedometer. I have fixed several of these and this is the only way I have found that the fix works for a long period of time. Even now, if I have my dash out I will pull the speedometer and grease it. RandyA
  15. Venturous Randy
    As far as using tape, a piece of Scotch type clear tape will protect your seal and is very thin and will come off easily. The groove can take the sealing edge off the seal. RandyA
  16. Venturous Randy
    John, when you are ready to tackle 2nd gear, there are some of us that have used the same gear sets, just doing an undercut. You could probably get by for less than $100 doing it yourself. About the only thing you will need to buy will be some gaskets, a thrust washer and the oil. I put over 60,000 on mine after doing the undercut on the dogs and probably would not have had another problem if I had used the new and improved thrust washer(thicker and harder). I just flipped mine over. RandyA
  17. Venturous Randy
    Is your carbs in sync? Backfiring with the breather off is not real uncommon. Some don't even want to run with the breather off. RandyA
  18. Venturous Randy
    As of the moment, the engine is bolted in and the rear exhaust is bolted up. Still got a lot to do and want to spend some time repolishing some of the cases. Engine went in real easy, considering I did it all by myself. To help get the engine in, I used my large floor jack with a large thick board that I mount on it. I also used the spare oil pan to put some more wood on to snugly nest the oilpan in place. I then used pull down straps to hold the engine real good to the jack. It was just a matter of wiggling it in place and bolting it in. I did have to raise the front wheel a little to get the jack and boards out. Well, now it is time to go to work. RandyA
  19. Venturous Randy
    Again Squeeze, thanks for all the information. I am fairly familar with these V4 engines and I had never seen anything related to the o-ring problem. This was all new to me. Yes, the safety wire I used was the offical wire used on USAF jet engines. So it is probably pretty good. In fact, the government probably paid a dollar a foot or more for it. I am planning on checking valve clearances tomorrow and may try to start putting it back in. My problem is my son and grandson are off on vacation till about Sunday. RandyA
  20. Venturous Randy
    Yes Jeremy, I did replace the gear set out of the 1300 engine that I had. I also just used the orange o-ring out of that engine. If you remove the pan, which I believe you can do on our bikes while still in the frame, the area where the o-ring is very visable. It would be something to consider the next time you change your oil. At most it may cost you an oil pan gesket. RandyA
  21. Venturous Randy
    Squeeze, you might notice that I started another thread specifically on the o-ring issue. Again, thanks for the link you provided. BTW, I think my situation may have been worse than the o-ring just being bulged out. That still at least gave some resistance on the oil pressure. With mine sticking out like a worm, there had to be a significant gap. RandyA
  22. Venturous Randy
    Jimbob, I thought this was pretty interesting also. Well, I tried something a little different than what I saw suggested. With some safety wire I had left over from my Air Force days, I looped it around the pipe and the bridge like area below the pipe. I looped it twice and twisted it tight, then looped the wires once more around the pipe and twisted it one more time. This appears to be tight enough to slightly pull down on the tube, but allow enough flexibility to allow the pipe to be able to center the o-ring or flex a slight amount if needed as noted in the article. If you read the articles, it is stated that the o-ring does not extend very far down into the hole. This is very true and if you look at the pictures, the bottom of the pipe is bottomed and you can easily see the o-ring. The other problem is the way this pipe is made, it can be pulled up a little bit by hand if you pull at the elbow, so it would not take a lot of oil pressure to displace the 0-ring. I believe with looping the safety wire around the pipe to hold it down, I have the outward motion controlled and still have some flexibility. Squeeze what do you you think about that? I would have taken pictures, but the digital camera is on vacation with the kids. RandyA
  23. Venturous Randy
    As part of the tear down on looking for the engine rattle, I found an o-ring that was broken and looked like a worm sticking out. I mentioned this in my post and Squeeze was nice enough to post some very interesting information that was taken from a V-Max site, but the 1st gen Venture was mentioned a lot. Mine was just like in the pictures, except mine was not bulged out, but broken. There is a lot of information about the cause of this, such as the design, not warming the bike good before reaching RPM's above 3000 and running oil that is too thick. I have probably done all of this. The link that Squeeze provided is: http://www.angelfire.com/ia/z/vmaxoilring.htm RandyA
  24. Venturous Randy
    Wow Squeeze, that was some really interesting information on the orange o-ring. Mine was not only blown out, but it was broken and sticking out like a worm. I also did not see any dampener on either engine. Is this only a V-max part or do Ventures have these? I really appreciate you sharing this with me. I just put the pan back on today with using the o-ring off the 1300 engine. Now I don't know what to do. RandyA
  25. Venturous Randy
    Nathan, I know exactly how you feel. I have had people stand in awe when I tell them my bike will be 25 years old in April. What you are experiencing is pretty much the typical problem areas on the early 1st gens. For the stator, the first thing you need to do is what bongo suggested. Take the left side cover off and there is a connection with three white wires going into a connection. I have seen these connections almost burned up where the connection is not tight enough. In fact, on mine, I just by passed the connection and soldered the wires together and put shrink sleeving on them. The other concern is these early bikes did not cool the stator good and they do get black and short out. I replaced the stator in mine several years ago and it is working fine. Not a big job other than getting the three screws loose that hold the stator on. There are several good comments about how to do this, so do not fret about it. Also noted was the battery and cable upgrades. Both help. The good thing about some of the problems you are facing is these have been improved on in later years. Once you fix the problem, it is unlikely it will happen again. And, you are NOT going to encounter anything someone here is not knowledgeable about. We 1st genners have been through about everything, but we still love them. I keep a journal on my bike and when I go back and read about the things I did in the first six months I owned my bike, it is a wonder I had time to ride it. But, everything I did to it made me own it even more, from the inside out. RandyA
×
×
  • Create New...