Venturous Randy

One of the things I dealt with on my trips to Vogal was the heat. Hot, humid heat. But I will say that the evening temps were not uncomfortable for sleeping in my little camper with the way the park is shaded in early evening. For anyone going this time, it looks like the temps for the weekend are going to range from 60 to 70 degrees and not a high chance of rain. So, instead of taking your swim suit for swimming in the lake, you might want to take your long johns. Lew, we haven't given up on trying to make it down for a visit. We are just playing it day by day. RandyA

That's good with all you have been through. RandyA

As long as it is paved, how off the beaten path do you want to go? I know many of the roads from Spruce Pine down to Lake Junaluska. If you want, I could put you together some roads that are good, but they won't be the quickest way. RandyA

Eck, the last time I was through 197 was many years ago and in a cage. I asked recently about the road while in Burnsville and was told that is was a little rough in spots. With all the paved two lane roads through the mountains, I don't know why NC has never upgraded 197. Are you going to be staying in Burnsville or just passing through? If it will work into your schedule, maybe Linda and I can meet you guys for a meal. The Western Sizzlin in Burnsville has a great buffet. RandyA

3K miles in 1.5 years? That's more like a month or less for many on here. Nice pics, thanks for sharing. RandyA

You have to be vary careful using air pressure because if the piston goes off top dead venter, the air pressure will slam it down, turning the crank. The last time I did this was on a small block Chevy engine. I took the spark plug out and fed a soft rope in on top of the piston. I then cranked the piston up until the rope pushed on the valves. To me, this much safer and cheaper. Just make sure you leave some rope hanging out. RandyA

Hey matt, if you want to, sometime we can meet somewhere and get a bite to eat and ride some. Today, we got thunderstorms and just helped a buddy rebuild his clutch slave. Just give me a heads up and we can get together. RandyA

I suspect that if the bearings have never been cleaned and regreased then what you are feeling is probably dried grease. I bet if you took the big nut off and dropped the triple tree about six inches where you could get to the bottom bearing and race for cleaning greasing and then cleaned the race and bearing at the top, you may be good to go. Then again, you could replace all the bearings. RandyA

What gas treatment did you use? RandyA

If going south, the best way to get around this is going south on 80 towards Marion and then west on 70 and pick up the Parkway in Asheville near the visitor center. If you go up the Parkway north from Asheville and then go toward Burnsville on 197 and then hit 80 back toward the Parkway, part of 197 is not paved. RandyA

The trick on going from a motorcycle to a convertible is to continue to wear your helmets. This will keep reminding you of the bike and when others see you, they will know you were a biker............or nuts. RandyA

Speedometer howl is usually the bearing in the inside bottom of the speedometer that has gotten dry and won't howl too long before it locks up. This is very common on 1st gens and there is a lot of info on fixing this. RandyA

Waving is weird. Sometimes I will meet other bikers and few wave, whether solo or in groups and then other times about everyone waves. Sometimes I will meet a group of mostly Harleys and everyone will wave and it is obvious on a 1st gen they are not mistaking you for another Harley. I do usually wave at everyone and actually feel a little bad when I did not see quick enough the other biker that waved until he was passed. I have also felt a little irritation when on a two lane road and I wave and they glance at you and then look away, or a biker pulls up beside me and ignores me. But, it is no big deal and I have been known to pull away from them if they take off fast. I think it is good camaraderie to acknowledge each other but, I think is even more important that others see us wave at each other. You never know when someone had some road rage on their mind and saw a bunch of other bikers wave at you and then decided that maybe road rage might not be a good idea. RandyA

Given the amount of oil that was dumped out very quickly, I suspect that unless it just sat there running, as soon as he moved it and got oil all over the rear tire, he would have known it. Somebody on here broke the same flange on their Venture and I keep thinking he was able to plumb up a remote oil filter on the outlets. RandyA Found it. It was Thom that repaired a broken flange with a remote oil filter. http://www.venturerider.org/forum/showthread.php?t=17084&highlight=remote+filter

$1,500 would not be a bad price if a remote oil filter could be plumbed in, but I would not tell him that. I wonder what he paid for it. RandyA

Then change your spark plugs. RandyA

One part that will be needed to put a V-Max final drive on is the plastic dust shield on the wheel. It is different than the stock dust shield. The part number for this dust shield is; 1FK-25327-00. RandyA

Keep us posted on your Reliance trip and we may be able to meet you there. RandyA

You are right Woody, it is a great site. It is rtl, not ril. I have an Acer laptop running Win 7. This all started whenever I got the ransom/FBI virus and had to do several safe restarts and restores just to get the computer unlocked. I also cleaned out a bunch of stuff and probably deleted something I should not have. I was using Avast that was put on the computer and had Spybot and ccleaner. After this happened, I went back to the Comcast Constant Guard Shield program with Norton, since I use Comcast internet. I have done a couple of virus scans, but don't know if I did it right. I know just enough about a computer to tear it up. I will look at some of this and see what I can come up with. Thanks everybody. RandyA

I get a box that comes up every time I start up that says I don't have rtl150.bpl installed. Anyone know anything about this? RandyA

It could be the CMS needs a solder job, but usually one light or the other will just get dim. So, I would try Gary's suggestion first. RandyA

We are not sure what we can do yet. Linda has started a part time job and they are using her for some fill in. This week she is working today and Friday and sometimes she works weekends. It is in a nursing home, so it goes 24/7. We would love to come down that way and see you and Charlene and let her meet some more members. She had a great time at MD year before last and loves the Asheville rally. So, we will just have to play it as it goes. RandyA

Linda and I took an absolutely beautiful ride over the mountain toward Asheville and rode some back roads I have never been on before. We did end up going through Hot Springs as part of our loop. We did have to do one little backtrack because I wanted to see if a closed road was really closed and yes, the road had dropped a couple hundred feet down to the river. The weather and temperature were perfect and traffic was light, but we had two different encounters with wild turkeys. The first one was having a turkey on both sides of the road and we just slowed and went between them. Later on, we encountered another turkey that was in the road and I blew the air horns and it ran to the left side of the road, did a 180 and then flew back about head level right in front of us. Again, we had slowed down enough that we able to avoid it. We also had to slow once for a vulture in the road eating that was about as big as the turkeys. For the type riding we did today, the V-Max rear was perfect. Only on the short section on the interstate did I want to shift one more time. RandyA

Not necessarily. It would depend on how good your clutch is releasing and when these engines are cold, they tend to pull a little in gear with the clutch pulled in. Put the bike on the center stand and put it in gear with the engine off and rock the wheel. You can also push the rubber sleeve back where the engine meets the swing arm and see if the drive shaft is turning when you rotate the wheel in gear. Another thing you can do is take the cover off the middle gear and see if it is rotating when you put it in gear. RandyA

You beat me Pete. I was going to ask if he has ever greased his driveshaft. That is what it sounds like to me. RandyA