Freebird

OK...I found my notes on how I did it. It is back now. Don

No problem. I'll take a look tonight or tomorrow morning and get it back in there. I don't remember now how I did it.

I hate to hear this. It is a problem that I fought for months and though I think I have finally got it corrected, I'm not at all sure what the fix was. Mine got so bad at one time that it made my wife sick to ride with me. I actually flew her home from a trip because she couldn't take it anymore. I think there are several things that can be checked. First of all, check the Petcock. The nipple that the gas line connects to is just a press fit into the petcock. Turn off the petcock and then remove the gas line. Use a small piece of wood to place on the end of the nipple and gently tap it in with a hammer to make sure it is seated well. Mine at one time was leaking just a bit there. I reached down once and found gas on it. Did not solve the problem though. Check to ensure that all cylinders are firing properly. With the gas mileage you are getting, I suspect yours are OK. You would be getting much worse mileage if that was the issue. Check that the carbs are seated well. This may be the issue. Look at the bottom of the carbs where they seat in the rubber intake manifold boots. Make sure they are seated well into the books and that the clamps are tight. Check the TOP of the carbs where the airbox slips over the top. There is only about 1/2" for the boots to slip over the top of the carbs and I have found that they WILL slip off. Make sure that they are seated well on the top and that the clamps are tight. You will probably have to remove the gas tank to see them well. When putting my carbs back on after re-setting the floats, I found them to be a bit difficult to tighten and keep them seated. The clamp kept wanting to rise up on one side and slip off as I tightened it. This can be a hard problem to find. On my first '99 I had this problem as well. It was under warranty at the time and I had it at 7 dealers and they never found the problem. It reached the point that my wife would not ride with me at all because it made her sick. Just like you, I could pull into the garage to park and it smelled like I had dumped gasoline on the floor but could not find a leak anywhere. Yamaha sent service specialists to the local dealer and they never could find the problem either. They changed out many things, TCI, Plugs, Adjust mixture with a gas analyzer...and on and on and on. They finally got frustrated and just decided to claim that there was no problem. I ended up filing a lemon law suit again Yamaha that took 18 months to resolve. Can't tell you how that ended up because part of the agreement was that I sign a "non-disclosure" statement. I finally solved the problem by systematically going through all the things that I mentioned above and it went away. I later got a great deal on another '99 with almost no miles on it and sold my original. Last year I started having the same fume problem with it. Just last night I finished going through all the things that I told you above and think that I have again corrected the problem.

Well folks, as I posted a while back, my '99 RSV has just not been running right. Not only had fuel mileage really gone down last year but this year it also just didn't seem to have the get up and go that it once did. I have really been fighting with this trying to figure out the problem. Last weekend I decided to sync the carbs again and noticed that when I pulled the vacuum caps off to connect the Carbtune, the engine would also die when I pulled the caps off cylinder 1,2 and 4. One at a time of course. When I pulled the cap off number 3, it made no difference. So I decided that cylinder 3 was probably not firing correctly or at all. I changed the plug and it made no difference. I then removed my Dyna3000 and installed the old TCI again. That made no difference either so I re-installed the Dyna. I had bought a spare set of coils off Ebay last fall so went ahead and changed out the number 3 coil. That made a huge difference. It appeared to be firing after that. I could pull the vacuum caps off any cylinder and it would no longer try to die. So even though the coil ohms out OK according to the manual (well actually I found a mistake in the manual on testing the coils but I'll do another writeup on that), it appears to have a problem under load. So I took it for a ride and found that it runs better and idles better but guess what? Something was still not right. I could feel that it still didn't have the power that it once did and confirmed it by opening her up on a back road and 90 MPH was the absolute top speed. No good at all. I also noted a surging when I tried accelerating hard. Not really a miss or cutting out just surge then flat then surge again. I took it back home and put a new set of plugs in it but still no good. When I got home last night, I decided to use the clear tube method to check the float levels with the carbs on the bike. I found that I could not do that due to the fact that the last dummy who had the carbs off had put the float bowl covers on the wrong carbs, front to back, so that I could not get to the drain screws. (that dummy would be me last fall). So I ended up pulling the carbs again. Checked the float levels and found one to be a little high but not all that bad. I set them correctly, put the covers on the proper carbs this time and re-installed the carbs on the bike. The hardest part about this job for me is getting the rubber boots from the air box properly seated and tightened on the top of the carbs. I actually wonder now if I did not have one of them seated good and it was sucking air there. I made sure that I had them seated good this time. So, I fired her up and took a little ride. I knew immediately that my bike was back. Acceleration was strong again the way I knew it should be. I found an open stretch of road and hammered it. I took her to 110 MPH in 4th gear and she kept climbing when I hit 5th. Man it felt good to have her running right again. I backed off around 112 as I was out of good road. Note that I have my speedometer corrected with a Speedohealer so my speeds are accurate. So, all is good again. I'm not 100% sure what exactly corrected the problem. I feel that the coil was bad. I also know that one float was a little high. I suspect that I was sucking air at the top of at least one of the carbs. All I know is that it FINALLY runs like it should again. It will be interesting to see what my gas mileage does now. I'm anxious to fill it up and find out. Will report back. I have to believe that it will be back to normal now. I was also having a problem with some fume smells that were really bothering Eileen. I'm hopeful that will be resolved also.

LOL...no offense taken. The Kia's were kind of like Honda when they first started being sold in the USA. Lot's of quality issues. They have come a long way since then though and we have had no problems at all so far. Besides, I understand that they are building a new factory and will be making them in Georgia soon.

You can only add one picture. If you look at my signature, you will see both maps and my Freebird graphic but I did it by using my photo editing software to combine all three pictures into a single picture.

HEY NOW....we have had my wife's Kia Sorrento for about 3 years now. Never a problem and it's never been in the shop for any reason. 4X4, plenty of power and pretty comfortable. She loves it. I haven't driven it that much but the few times I have, I like it.

They say there there are rider's who have been down and rider's who WILL go down. Apparently, some think that anybody who rides a lot will do so sooner or later. I really don't know that I believe that but I've been down a few times and can't say that I have ever enjoyed it. Any crash that you can walk away from is a good one though and I'm just thankful that you weren't hurt even worse and very thankful that your daughter was not hurt. I'll also keep my eyes open for parts for that MM. You are right, they aren't often seen on Ebay.

Tom, Is this still happening today? I made some changes that should have corrected that problem.

I don't have one either I don't think. I'll look when I get home. I did see one on Ebay tonight.

I had one already scanned but can't find it now. I'll look when I get home. May have it saved on a CD.

HA HA....I saw them first. http://www.venturerider.org/forum/showthread.php?t=23849

So far, things still seem OK. I'm thinking that it was the banner auto refresh script that was causing the problem. I hope that's all it was. Time will tell.

I don't know about that. Not sure when there was a change but I know that my '88 used the same 5 pin as does my '99 and they are the same through current models.

OK...I'm still experimenting. I've turned the banners back on but turned off the auto refresh. They will now change only when the page is refreshed. Let me know thinks work OK or if you start having problems again.

Well..so far...it looks like the banners may have been causing the problems. I hope so, that is easy to fix.

I just disabled those banners. We'll see if that was the problem.

On my second gen, I use the tool that came in the took kit and then a 17MM socket and ratchet on top. Works great.

I'm surprised that YOU haven't done these. http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Yamaha-Royal-Star-Tour-Deluxe-Venture-Saddlebag-Bra_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ10066QQihZ011QQitemZ320264948362QQrdZ1QQsspagenameZWDVW

Yea...mine is set at 7250...maybe 7200. It will go much higher but Dyna doesn't recommend doing so unless you install heavier valve springs. In fact, it may be 7,000 that they actually recommend.

OH Boy...here we go. Let's see how long before this one turns nasty. Please prove me wrong folks.

I'm keeping a watch on it and trying to figure out what might be happening. It appears to have nothing to do with how many people are online. When it happened yesterday, there were not many people online at the time. I have also submitted a ticket to our hosting company for their input and monitoring. We'll get it figured out. By the way, there ARE a couple of things that happen late at night/early morning. I don't remember exactly what time I have them set for but I have the site doing automatic backups and also submitting sitemaps to Google and Yahoo. These are a bit server intensive but the problem yesterday and at some other times you are reporting are certainly not happening during those times.

I don't know of an actual kit. All I've seen is individual parts. Floats, diaphragms, etc. Sorry, wish I could offer a better solution.

Tom, I've never seen that one at all. Next time it happens, please let me know exactly what you did that caused it. Thanks

Today was the first time I've had a problem too. While you may have been getting no errors, I was getting dozens of emails about MySQL error "too many connections". I ended up having to increase the max connections to the database. It seems to have corrected the problem. I'll continue to watch it. I suspect that we were being attacked by some bots trying to get in because we didn't have enough folks online at the time to cause the too many connections problem.