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straycatt

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Everything posted by straycatt

  1. straycatt
    Yearly!!???
  2. straycatt
    Thru the years I've done R&R on many aluminum parts that were clear coated but got scratched, or just oxidized and needed to be polished again. I have always sanded off the clear coat, then done whatever needed to be done to shine the aluminum back to where I wanted it.....and then just shot it with a spray bomb clear coat. The longest I kept any of those bikes after rehab was five years, but the reworked aluminum parts still looked good.
  3. straycatt
    I go with how I feel. At 6'1" and 221, I feel fat. The spot that I'm comfortable is around 210....which is where I was at before winter.
  4. straycatt
    Thank you, that is exactly what I was looking for. Plainly the Sonic springs are a lot shorter than stock. It seems like they would be too short to allow for full suspension travel, but they must work the way they are designed. Again, thanks. That sets my mind at ease.
  5. straycatt
    For anybody that has used Sonic Springs, (or any springs for that matter) I have a question. How long are they?? I received my springs from Sonic today, and they are only about 15" long, with spacers that are around 18" long. Every other set of forks I've worked on, the springs have always been closer to the length of only needing a few (3 to 6) inches of spacer. These springs seem pretty short and I'm wondering if they sent the right ones. I'm trying to get all of my part together (springs, seals, fork bushings, etc) so that I can make this a one or two day project with no need to wait for more parts. Thanks
  6. straycatt
    I have to wonder if anyone has ever actually had a Venture stolen???
  7. straycatt
    Hi there, My name is Glenn. I'm a Capricorn, and I enjoy motorcycling, shooting, snowmobiling, boating, and just about anything with a motor on it. I like long walks in the rain, and watching the sun set. I adore puppies, earn a good living, and I'm faithful as an old hound.....but I won't chew up your furniture or make a mess on your rug. (well, not very often at least) I cook, clean, and do laundry. I may be used, but I'm not used up. Well, most of that is true. Except for the part about walking in the rain, and watching the sun set, and not chewing up your furniture or making a mess on your rug. And I don't cook very often or really even clean anything. Come to think of it, I'm pretty much used up, too. Now that it's out there, I don't earn that good of a living either........
  8. straycatt
    I personally have always avoided high mileage motorcycles. There is no good reason to buy a well used bike when there are so many low use bikes out there for just about the same money that sellers think they can get out of the high mile ones. High mileage bikes don't always get proper maintenance, the same as low mile ones, and it's not always easy to tell if a ride has been serviced properly. With low use bikes service doesn't matter as much because, well how bad can even poor maintenance habits hurt a bike with very few miles on it? Every single revolution that the motor / transmission / wheels / etc makes, brings that component one spin closer to death. Yes, all of those things will run for a long time, but still... There are very few parts of a motorcycle that are worse off from setting (in an inside storage environment) than they are from being ridden.
  9. straycatt
    I'd start at $8000.
  10. straycatt
    This is a very common practice around here and it is BS. Corporate or indie, they both are reluctant to mount tires they haven't sold. One very large local indie shop here will mount tires that he doesn't sell, but he wants an extra $15 per tire to do it on top of the $30 he charges for tires you buy from him. I finally found a small indie sport bike shop that will mount and balance for $20/tire. That is just about exactly what it's worth for a tire/wheel that I carry in, already off the bike.
  11. straycatt
    I'll be doing mine around the end of the month. If no one gets to a pictorial by then, I'll do one.
  12. straycatt

    Beartooth

    straycatt replied to phill12's topic in Watering Hole

    Karl, I use firefox as well and what I had to do is hold the left mouse button down and scroll over to highlight the entire link.....then go to edit and hit copy.....then paste that in either your open browser window or another window, enter and it opened. Fantastic video Phill. Even brought my heart rate up a little thinking about riding that.
  13. straycatt
    Thanks Phill, I finally got it to work. Great video. When did you go?? There doesn't seen to be much traffic? I'm looking forward to the Beartooth pass vid. That ride is on my list.
  14. straycatt
    Hmm, this one won't work for me either.
  15. straycatt
    Yup. He's got another video on there of his ride back down. Way less eventful but very good scenery.
  16. straycatt
    I have no heart burn over what he was wearing. We all choose our level of risk and it's a highly individual choice. But the crash was totally self inflicted. You can see in the video as he goes down that he had his fingers on the brake lever. This little bit of ice, on a level, mostly straight road should not have been a crash. No brakes and maybe pull the clutch, and he could have sailed right thru.
  17. straycatt
    While I appreciate your intent, that link is NOT a history of helmets. It reads a lot more like an strongly biased opinion piece with a gung ho slant towards mandatory helmet use.
  18. straycatt
    Receipts for what? Any paper that shows you have bought oil/filters for a DIY oil change still doesn't mean that particular oil/filter was used on that particular bike. If they're demanding paper on dealer oil changes.....they can't. DIY maintenance does not void the warranty. It seems to me unless they can prove improper maintenance, you win. What are the chances of you getting your hands on some of the oil from your engine to do your own used oil analysis?
  19. straycatt
    If there is nothing wrong with it........ it's not a steal, but it IS a very good deal.
  20. straycatt
    Thanks. The reason I ask is that I've been considering using the "super slippery" RaceTech bushings when I rebuild my Gen 2 forks next month, but I'm having a hard time justifying 4 times the cost if there is no real benefit of either performance or extended life.
  21. straycatt
    Rocket, have you found that the ultra-high dollar bushings from RaceTech are worth the money? OEM bushings are like $20 for a set (Partshark) versus $80 for RaceTech parts
  22. straycatt
    That sound exactly like what my bike is doing, but those were some of the very first things I looked at. I can find no excess play in the swingarm. The shock is starting to groan but it still has fair damping and though it will leak down to about 25 psi (I usually run 30-35 psi) it does hold air. This bike has only 35K miles on it. I'm going to replace it, but will have to wait until after my youngest daughter gets married this coming August. I suspect that one side of the forks has lost its damping (bad seal/weak spring/plugged oil passage) and that is the culprit. I need to do the swingarm maintenance but I figured on doing that when I replace the shock. It could also be a combination of all of these things is giving me the wobble.....slight slop in the swingarm-going away rear shock--weak forks.
  23. straycatt
    Thank you Rick. That does help quite a bit. I hadn't found that information from RaceTech in my search of their site, and I'll need to study on the tech pages for a while. I too, will look forward to any tech articles you write and please know I appreciate the effort. I keep hoping that the guys that have reworked their Gen 2 Venture suspension will post up what they did and how they feel it differs from stock (thanks for what you've said Seaking) but I'm starting to think that maybe there are just not very many people that have done anything with their front end. For my particular situation what I'm really trying to do is cure a sort of wobble feeling from my bike in high speed long sweeper corners. I know that I'm due for a new rear shock before too long, but I thought that I'd do the neck bearings and forks first (less cash outlay). Wheel bearings are good all around and only about 5000 miles on both new E3's so suspension is the only thing left. Again, thanks to all for the help.
  24. straycatt
    Hmm, more things to think about. I know the factory Yamaha springs are .90 or .92, I forget which. That makes a 1.2 roughly 30% stiffer than stock. If that carries over to a 30% harder ride out of the front end, that is a LOT stiffer. My logic with the 1.0's is that I'll maintain the plush ride and by going to 7-10 weight oil still stiffen the dampening enough to offset the softer spring. It may not work that way but that is the idea. I don't mean to hijack your thread Jeff, and I know that ride quality is very subjective, but I'm trying to get as much info as I can on this before I tear mine apart. As much work as it is to get to these springs I don't want to do it twice. There doesn't seem to be a lot of discussion on exactly what spring brand/weight/oil/preload every one is using. I too, thank everyone for the information.
  25. straycatt
    I've been looking for information on the RaceTech springs as well and even after posting the question here, came up empty. Apparently no one is using RaceTech springs, and though I haven't called RaceTech, I have sent them several emails, none of which have they returned. I have decided that, while I want a tad stiffer front end I still want a plush, soft ride. So, I'll go with the 1.0 springs as a middle ground, probably from Sonic and no emulators. I'm also thinking 7 or 10 weight oil to slow things down a little on compression. I also plan to run 0 psi of air in the forks. RaceTech also offers some supposedly "extra-slippery" inner and outer fork bushings that they say are a must for smooth fork operation, but are in the neighborhood of 4 times as costly as OEM bushings, and I can still find NO information from any one that has used them. These thoughts are not based in any experience with the RSV, but are extrapolated from what I've gathered on past posts here and elsewhere on the web, and on my own work setting up other motorcycle forks. I as well would love to see more info on what those who have set up RSV front ends have done as I need to order my parts soon to be ready as soon as the weather gets warm enough to work in an poorly heated garage.
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