jeff1

I have recently purchased a '94 Goldwing SE, will be selling the '89 Venture. Went with a Wing partially due to availability of parts/accessories for it, I like the looks of it and it has a real alternator. Had alot of stator troubles with the Ventre and am sick of dealing with it.

I had something like this happen to me about 20 years ago with my '86 Goldwing, 2 up pulling a trailer. The trigger at the time I believe was having to brake hard from high speed (70-80 mph). It was the end of a trip I was tired and not paying as much attention to what was going on ahead of me as I should have been. I was able to recover control by backing off on the brakes and then passing car ahead of me on the shoulder. Scared the crap out of me. I don't pull a trailer anymore. In my opinion I think the Goldwing's inherent lower center of gravity was of some help in being able to recover control.

Earlier this month my girlfriend and I left Rochester MN about 6:30 AM and did got back about 12-13 hours later. We rode to LaCrescent MN, had breakfast there the proceeded to cross the Mississippi to LaCrosse WI. From there we rode along the river to Dubuque IA the rode back up the river on the Iowa/MN side. We stayed on state and county highways and put on around 475 miles. It was a fun ride. There are few things better than enjoying a ride with someone whose company you enjoy.

Has anyone out there done much touring with a passenger on the FJR? Just curious what your passenger thinks of it. I'm looking to replace my first gen, my lady friend likes riding it, I don't want to get something that would be less comfortable for her than my present ride.

I had something similar happen. I had replaced the stator and R/R with the kit that I purchased from Earl (Skydoc) late last summer. Earlier this year I had vaiations in the voltmeter similar to what you are describing along with intermittant momentary stalling of the engine. The tachometer also tended to flicker. The problem ended up being a very slightly loose positive battery cable. The bike cranked fine when cold, cranked a little hard when hot. Because of the hard cranking when hot I thought perhaps the battery was failing, a load test revealed it was fine. How I finally found the problem was at one point I stopped for gas and when I went to leave I hit the starter button and everthing went dead. I moved the wiring by the battery and got the bike started went home and proceded to clean and tighten the battery post bolts with a wrench vs. a phillips screwdriver. 1000 miles after I did this everthing is operating normally. I have no one to blame for this but me as I put the battery in. I feel a little stupid that this even happened as I know better. I was close to contacting Earl and tell him that the stator I purchased was failing, I would have been completly wrong. Moral, pay attention to the details. Good luck, Jeff

I am about 40 mi south of Lake City.

Call me old and intolerant, I have NO use for Facebook. I do not feel the need to let the whole world know what I am doing. Jeff

I went with Sirius diaphragms about a month ago for reasons stated above. Went through same procedure a bought for same price as Snaggletooth. I am happy with my purchase. Have not rode the bike yet after installation, other things to repair. Wouldn't matter if it was ready to go as we are still getting that white crap falling out of the sky. Where is the global warming ??? Jeff

I have the same issue with my '89, been this way a couple of years, it collects a film of oil (actually more of a grey slime) at the top of the coolant in the recovery tank. It takes about a year to collect the film. I took the breather/water manifold apart, I think this is what some have referred to as the twinkie, and it appears this is the source of my leak. There is an oil pressure passage that is very close the coolant passage. I have not been getting any coolant in my engine oil, my guess here is that engine oil pressure is higher than the pressure in the cooling system and possibly the gasket was probably good enough to keep the coolant where it belongs when the engine was not running. I have my doubts about the water pump as there is a weep passage that allows coolant or oil that leaks past seals to leak to ground. It could be the source if the passage was clogged but my experience with seal setups similar to this (Deere engines with gear driven water pump) is the when the weep passage gets plugged the coolant ends up in the engine oil and not the other way around. In my case it almost definely was not the water pump as I have been intermittently losing a small amount of coolant out the weep passage but no oil. If your passage is not clogged and there is no oil coming from it the water pump probably is not the source of the oil leaking into the coolant. I looked, second gen and first gen use the same gaskets for the twinkie. It's a good idea to check the water pump but If you have not decided to do so already I would recommend removing and disassembling the twinkie, especially since you are already going to have the carburetors off. At that point most of the work is done and gaskets are only about $20. Wish you well in finding your leak. Jeff

Have an Avon Venom in front and EIII Rear. Put Avon on first and was going to put an Avon on rear after the EII wore out. Then found that some people on this site had sidewall cracking issues with the Avons so I bought an EIII for rear. The fact that the EIII was less money didn't hurt either. Both tires seem to wear well and wet weather traction is good. The EIII is better than half gone and is starting to make a little noise in corners but it does not bother me. I will probably buy EIIIs next time. Avon would be my second choice.

Per recommended on this forum I decided to check the diodes in the TCI on my '89. To me they look OK. There are 2 Diodes in the center of the board in line with the 8 diodes that I see are normally replaced. They are marked ZD1 and ZD2 and appear discolored so I have 2 questions. 1) Should I replace the 8 diodes regardless of they look? 2) Does anyone know anything about the 2 diodes mentioned above? The bike runs fine. Inspecting this board is strictly preventive. As far as I can tell this TCI is original. The bike has 90K on it. Thanks in advance Jeff

What happened to us is that when our Windows 7 machine updated to IE 9 we ended up wit an error message that IE encountered a problem and needed to close. What I did to fix it was to turn off hardware acceleration and use software rendering instead of the graphics processing unit (GPU). This was done so I could get on the internet. I then used Windows update to update the driver, then turned hardware acceleration back on and presto IE works. Instructions for this can be found in IE help or on the Microsoft website. Jeff

Recieved something similar a couple days ago as a text message on my phone. It said that I had won 4th place in a Best Buy contest along with a passcode to claim my prize. This all seemed odd as I rarely go into a Best Buy and while I purchased a hard drive from them a couple months ago I did not remember entering a contest. The link, BestBuyContest.net also was a red flag. A quick internet search confirmed this is a scam. If it seems too good to be true it probably is. I have to wonder how they got the phone number as I have had this phone for less than a year and the phone is used mostlyt for work. Jeff

Maybe that is what is wrong with mine, the head light will go out for a split second then come back on. Does anyone know what the reserve lighting unit actually does?

I use John Deere 15w40 diesel oil. Use it because I work at a John Deere dealer. Have put 30K miles of the 89K miles on the bike myself with no issues.