timgray
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Everything posted by timgray
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sad part is there is one rotting away in a fenced area at a long dead motorcycle dealer here in town. The guy went out of business 2 years ago and one of those campers is still sitting there. I remember it sitting there for about 5 years before they went out of business.
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I need fairing clips (the clips that allow you to bolt together the plastic parts. Drivers backrest? how much on that one? also how much for the full radio and CB intercom setup all the electronics and cables and plastic that is for them? Has the transmission got 2nd dead or is it been fixed? if so how much for the engine+tranny?
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If you want one that will last and is warm at night youy need to look at the Cabelas alaskan guide tents. These are dry and comfortable in a raging thunderstorm, will last you years, and you can zip everything up so it's warm on even cold nights. Getting one you can stand up in is going to be hard Most good dome tents that are big enough to stand in are the 8-12 person size and those are HUGE. The coleman "cabin" tents are worthless in thunderstorms and cold nights. I gave up on the cheapies and bought a real tent that stands up to what may happen. My tent was standing and everything was dry in the tent and vestibule during 2 storms that flattened most tents in the campground last year. My wife and I also have the Cabelas Westwind tent for motorcycle camping. the 6 person will pack on the bike and is a lightweight version of the alaskan tent. It also will survive without effort a really mean thunderstorm. Not as warm as the alaskan tent. I spent 2 years testing tents, got fed up with every tent you can find from Coleman and other "cheapie" brands.
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I know why he wants you to get rid of your bike. 1 - your bike is faster than his and his buddies bikes. This really hurts their male egos. Cant have a lady on a faster bike. 2 - your Bike looks way nicer than theirs and he also thinks so. This hurts his feelings that you have a better ride than he does. Men tend to act like 6 year old children when their ego is hurt so they act childish and demand their wives downgrade to give them an ego boost. 3 - His harley biker friends wives and girlfriends have seen your bike and asked, "why is her bike nicer?" and wondering where they can get one. Harleys are known to go down in value fast when parked near bikes that are not harleys and therefore having more Yamaha's parked near harleys will cause a nation wide crash in harley values and stock.
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ARRGH! I'd love a 1st gen with a hack! that would be a fun ride from NY to michigan. Just wish I had cash to buy that.
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not enough info to give you a value. On ebay Mint condition 1100GL from 1983 typically go for $2900-$3400.00 with under 35,000 miles on them and in perfect shape ready to go. A buddy sold his last year for $3250.00 and it looked like it came off the showroom, he had about 58,000 miles on it. Is this bike in perfect shape? Rust? No scratches, damage at all, nothing needed for service and ready to ride for the season? How many miles? Chrome and aluminum looks great? etc... With no details it's hard to give you an idea. best bet for real value is to go search on ebay in the "completed listings" for what bikes have sold for to get a ballpark. Keep in mind, right now is not the time to get top dollar for a bike. I am seeing 2005 harley's selling for way, WAY under what they were selling for last year.
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Motorcycle camping...... There are two ways to do this. and i'll be blunt. Pull a trailer and be comfortable. Pack everything on your bike and rough it. To pack everything on your bike, if you are riding 1up and can pack stuff in the passenger spot, you can bring a lot IF you buy backpacker gear. That means a $250-$500.00 tent $125.00 sleeping bag, and a $79.00 decent inflatable sleeping pad. Plus other gear you need that will pack small. the Coleman junk at most stores is huge compared to the real stuff and are horrible to be inside of during a thunderstorm. A real double wall 4 season tent that is designed to be lived in for extended camping expeditions is what you need.. take a look at the Cabelas tents. when I do a long term camping trip we take the alaskan guide tent. It's as strong as nails and looks like new after 2 years of heavy camping in it and It's warm on cold nights. It packs down to 9" by 30" and fits on the trunk rack. you should get a 3 man minimum for just you. My wife and I use a 6 person tent. If you will not be cooking for yourself and eating at restaurants the whole way you can cut out a LOT of gear. But, you will get caught in a 2-3 day rainstorm on that long of a ride... be prepared to ride through it or to be trapped in the tent for those days. if you can go from KOA to KOA you can wash clothes often and not need as much. Or you can do the rough-rider-biker route and not wash them at all. basically this spring/summer do a test... pack your bike for what you would need for a weeked trip camping in a tent if that fits easily on your bike, then the doubling of the clothes you need for a month run is easy. Again this is easy to do if you will eat at a resturant for every meal and will not cook your own stuff. Cooking makes things much more complicated and bulky. If you drag a trailer you can bring a cooler with food and enough extra stuff that you will be as comfortable as car camping across the country.
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dont know if it's a michigan thing or just the guys I ride with, but most over here use the FRS and GMRS radios. the Midland helmet and bike kit with one of their handheld radios seems to be the most popular. I'm getting a full autocom intercom that will hook up to one of the frs radios as well as music. -
the only really hard to get tools you need are the spark plug wrench and the dipstick. And I mean hard to get as in Home depot does not have them. I took out my mint toolkit from my 83 and stowed it away in the garage and replaced everything with better box ends with racheting. If I hate working with the tools in my garage, I'll be screaming at them on the side of the road. Get tools you like to use in there. and a real screwdriver. The ones with the OEM kit are junk.
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I am looking for a 83 boost sensor to keep on hand. Have any left?
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One thing I learned over the years from cage driving and Bike riding... If you build a kit for your bike, USE IT to maintain your bike. If you hate the tools in it when you are siting at home, then you will be throwing them when you are on the side of the road in rain at midnight. Make sure it has the tools that are needed and work well for you. I took out my Yamaha Kit and replaced all the wrenches with box end wrenches that ratchet and made a kit that is a joy to use and still has everything needed to completely work on the bike while being small. Instead of a spare set of plugs I have some emery paper and a plug gapper in there with 1 spare spark plug. I have yet to see a sparkplug completely fail on the road that cant be made to work with some emery paper and a gapper. Remember you only need to limp it another ~250 miles to a real service location not completely repair the bike for the rest of your 4800 mile road trip. Bulbs I dont carry because the headlight wont kill both elements at once and we havea Reserve lighting unit. Tail will run with only one bulb. I have many of the above items but a couple of "wierd ones" 1 ball of rubber putty in a baggie. it's great for plugging a leak and then covering with duct tape. I fixed a radiator hose with that on a 102 degree day and it was spraying coolant all over the place. 1 - 3" long stick of epoxy putty in a baggie. Sometimes you gotta glue something and it's the only solution you can figure out. This is typically a last resort as that stuff is a pain to remove. 1 - small hammer. That's to beat the @#%!$## $^@%^ @#$@#$ on the !@#$@# %@## bike. 1 - backpackers 1 gallon colllapsable/folding jug. Being able to get water for you or your bike is a good thing. Hoofing it for 2 miles carrying water in a pair of ziplocks over and over is not fun at all. Finding a small leak in one of those ziplocks makes it even more not fun. I used to be able to find "motorcycle flares", they are 1/2 the length of a regular flare but I have not been able to find them for a few years now. I know the ones in my kit are dead, 3 years old. Replace your flares!
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The G8's also have a huge aftermarket for them. You can buy a supercharger kit that will add another 225hp to the engine. Too bad they made the car look like every other sedan on the road. They are unremarkable in looks, but can be made to scream like a crazy banshee.
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Upgraded to TWO badboy air horns. I was ready for it and even I jumped when I hit the thing. I think I'll be scaring cagers into thinking they just cut off a semi truck instead of a motorcycle. I got rid of the fairing air ducting (it's useless anyways, I could not feel air from those vents even at 70 and an un-gloved hand in front of the vent.) and installed them in the space with their horns pointing down. you really have to take off the front fairing to get them in there though. but it's worth it. http://us.st12.yimg.com/us.st.yimg.com/I/rodi_2044_487357928
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Another 83 Venture Rat Chopper
timgray replied to motorbiketim's topic in Venture and Venture Royale Tech Talk ('83 - '93)
That bike should eat most any Harley and crotch rocket alive without any effort other than keeping the front wheel down. you must have lost at least 120-150 pounds of the bikes weight, which makes it even faster. Very clean and cool extreme mod! -
Does anyone make a universal slip on that will work? or are we all doomed? It's wierd my buddy that has a yamaha XS750 from 1979 has more parts available for his older bike than we do for ours.
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you would not want to run with both on. you run with the low beam when on low beam, and then high beam for the high. Running with both on would melt the eye-sockets of every oncoming car driver. These things are incredibly bright on their own. I am hoping I can get some example light pattern photos to demonstrate. As for the 86+ headlight assembly, All I need are photos of it in a bike from many angles first. After that I'll gladly take you up on the offer to fine tune the 86+ assembly. the hard part is coming up with a "trim" piece to make it look good. I'm not goot at fiberglass so I wont be able to make anything for trimout.
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Paint the reflector inside bright glossy white instead of it's dingy grey. That makes them nearly 2X brighter. Also I can get you LED tail lights that are way brighter than regular bulbs. They cost about $55.00 each. and even have a set of white led's that aim down for the plate. I was impressed with them at the Harley dealer, but not $110.00 + tax impressed.
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Chains on a trailer are safer than no chains IF they are used right. the chains need to criss cross under the toungue to cradle it if it was to pop off. this eliminates the trailer flipp flopping and tumbling. it just will waggle around like a crazy maniac. they also need to be tight so the hitch cant drop far. I see guys with chains on dragging on the road and not crossed. the only way you can legally not have chains is to not use a hitch ball but a pintle hitch where it's impossible for the hitch to let go of the trailer.
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LED tail lamps will set off an indicator that LOOKS like a headlight warning indicator. they have to have a load resistor added. I went nearly insane one weekend after upgrading my brake lights. Trying to figure out why my headlight indicator was on again. The way the info center works is coils of wire around a magnetic reed switch. if there is not enough current flow to make a large enough magnetic field it will not close the reed switch and have the indicator on. I gave up on the LED tail upgrade and painted the reflector white inside the tail housing. I have yet to dissect a Reserve lighting unit, I would love to get a schematic of one down on paper and figure out a repair procedure.
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The problem I see on a 86+ is that it will not be as nicely trimmed out. the 83-85 has a glass cover over an inset lamp and it looks to me that the 86+ has a shaped lens that sticks all the way out. I am sure I can make this work on both, but the 86+ will not look as good. I need to wait for photos of the 86 headlight assembly before I can see what is needed to be done to make it work for all 1st gens.
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Got a lot of measurements from the 1983 1st gen. That one will be far easier to make the upgrade to. I am working with a couple of people to get a plate laser cut that I can try on a parts bike a few miles away. The lights will have to set forward closer to the glass than I thought they would because of how shallow the headlight area is and how much wiring is jammed behind it. Anyone know that the 83-85 bikes are identical as far as the headlight? I really hope so.
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The darker the better. I actually love the Grade C maple syrup over all the Grade A clear stuff. Way more flavor, sweeter, better in every way. It's really hard to find anything other than Grade A except at a local source. Even the "farm stores" around here all simply sell someone else's packaged stuff. but then I like grade B honey over the Grade A as well. more flavor and it makes a incredible Mead/Honey Wine....
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Both of those go to an agree, or join us page. they dont go to the actual content of the other sites message-board. I found their resolder instructions but it does not list that pin 1 - headlight, 2 - blinker, 3 - brake light, etc.... Thanks though!
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I have my Computer "information display" out for re soldering and I am photographing steps so others can understand this one better. I had only one "cold" solder joint and it in fact did not look cold to me but what happens when you run too much current through a incomplete joint. I am sure that it's the one for the headlight low beam, but would like to confirm it. Does anyone have a pinout of what pin is for what on the unit? The one pin that needed to be re-soldered was all the way to the edge of the connector.
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Notice that MOST of the crashed bikes are crotch rockets and the riders were wearing NO protection gear. Honestly, every time I see a motorcyclist doing something stupid, 95% of the time it's some kid on a crotch rocket wearing little to no gear. I watched a very dumb kid do a jesus stand on his ninja on the interstate around here doing about 90 with his buddies all around him. He lost it, took himself out and three of his friends. They would have been less dead if they did not do it in heavy traffic. Nothing wrenches your gut like watching a car roll over a freshly downed bike and rider. here's the fun part. I pull over to help. All the "buddies" gunned it and took off. These kids today are NOT bikers, not by a long shot.