bongobobny

I might have been thinking of the 1st Gen boots as those o rings are removable, and I've never had the boots off of my 2nd gen...

It was chilly today in Orlando, only i the low 70's...

I lovingly refer to my wife as "Ballast"

Try Auto Zone, that's where I get mine. The Auto Zone ones are made by DEKA which are manufactured in Pa. There is a member here, Earl, Skydoc_17 who is a distributor for them who will give you an excellent price on them delivered to your door! Sorry, I forgot the number of the battery, something like STX 1800 or maybe 1200. I'm an old fart and suffer from CRS (Can't remember s...)! You can either PM or call Earl to order. I also believe he is listed in the member vendor forum. Earl sells a lot more than batteries too!

The boot is there just to keep moisture and dust out! As long as you can MacGuyver something to accomplish this life is good! As FF mentioned, keep the heat sink free to do it's thing...

OK, here we go! 1. Tire brand is a personal choice based on driving style, etc. I'm a Dunlop E4 fan myself. The main thing to consider is make sure the weight handling capability is high enough for your 900 pound bike plus driver and passenger weight. Speed rating is up to you and how fast you plan on going and not as important as load capacity. 2. Final drive oil, you want to use 80 weight or 90 weight, myself I prefer a synthetic with an older bike and I sometimes use the Bel Rey brand, more so with shock oil... 3. Yes, NGK works fine in our bikes. The gap should be around 0.035" I personally spend the extra money on the Iridium plugs as they do last longer. It's a known fact our bikes eat plugs... 4. As far as batteries go, as John Arbuckle once said, you get what you pay for!! Walmart batteries will work fine as long as you don't mind replacing them every year or two. A lot of us go with an AGM battery as they are stronger, delivering more cranking power. Unless you have already switched your battery lines with heavier gauge wires and switched over to a 4 brush starter, you're going to find when hot the bike will not turn over very fast, and an AGM helps out a little. Also, chances are the Wally World battery will not let you use the electrolyte probe on it and the battery Icon on your CMU will flash. AGM's and sealed units will also not let you use the probe, but the good news is there is a modification to eliminate the probe and turn the light out! 5. Can of worms!!! 15W-45 or 20W-50 is fine, synthetic or Dino. The most important thing, DO NOT use any oils with any kind of friction modifiers in them unless you like your clutch to slip!! We have a "wet" clutch, and any modifiers will cause the clutch to slip! Actually, using cheaper diesel oil works out fine!!! 6. That is your personal preference! As long as there are no holes in the filter or it is not plugged up then go for it, I guess. The main thing is these bikes do not run very good without a filter... If you need it, there is electronic copies of the service manual, he owners manual, and wiring diagrams available for free on this site in the Technical library!!

The Computer Monitoring System should have nothing to do with whether or not you have any lights such as headlights, driving lights, etc. The CMS just monitors all the different things like battery electrolyte level, brake fluid level, whether or not the kickstand is up or down, etc. and is "downstream" or on the other side of the main electrical. Now I am ASS-U-ME-ing that by no lights you mean the CMS display is blank and none of the icons are lit. This probably means there is no power coming to the backlight of the LCD or ground is missing. I would start there... As far as the 41R goes, that is the right number for the 1st gen Venture, the other numbers pretty much refer to different revisions or different manufacturing dates. There is only 2 CMS units for the 1st gen, the '83 and the '84 through '93. The '83 is just a different mounting but the rest of the years are all interchangeable.

Yup!! Looks like the guy does good work!

Well I guess there's always that possibility! You can always find a cheap voltmeter at a lot of places for $5 to $10 and confirm it, and then you have a spare one...

Filed it and spent the refund months ago...

My choice would be drill the two holes but that's just my opinion... Quick and easy and less hassle with remounting them!

Which type blinker fluid did you use?? The organic stuff can break down faster, you should use the synthetic stuff, and don't overfill! Sorry, couldn't resist! In all seriousness, if you are reading an AC voltage then indeed the R/R is bad! There are devices called diodes inside them that convert AC from the stator to DC to feed the battery. With the bike turned off you won't see the AC but with the bike running you will see AC if the rectifier part of your R/R is kaput!

Yup, those look right to me, too! I'm not home right now to look at mine, but from what I remember you make all gone with the stock mounting brackets...

People are basically cheapskates, UT...

Dan, don't waste your time with that 3rd one! You're getting too old to tinker!!! Buy a ready to go turnkey one! That Valkyrie might be fun...

I use State Farm for all of my insurance needs primarily due to to how well they handle claims, not how cheap they are! They are prompt and fair and I am very satisfied with their claims handling!

A couple of things when replacing the "O" rings on the bottom of the boots. First, make sure the O ring groves are clean and there are no scratches in the groves that would cause any kind of leak. Rubber sealing against an uneven surface is one thing, but if you have a gouge that is quite another thing!! If you magnify a gouge, it has in essence a 90 degree angle to the edge which rubber can not effectively seal up! Second, try to polish the flat surface on the intake side of the head to also insure a good tight seal. At least get any and all carbon deposits off of the metal...

Maybe this will help you understand. With the linkage pointing down, which is correct, when you pull on the lever it makes the shifter move CCW. If the lever was pointing up and you pull on it the shifter will move CW resulting in the shifter action being 180 degrees out of phase! By changing the location of the lever by one tooth either CW or CCW will move the the toe pad either up or down...

Heh!! Laugh it up you Northerners, laugh it up!! When we got to Sun City SC this afternoon, the grass is green, the trees have leaves on them, and it was a nice balmy 73 degrees!!! Sorry, no pictures today, nothing exciting to take a picture of other than a house in a gated community where we are holed up in until Saturday morning..

Heh!! Several inches of snow on the ground at home, and it was a nice 73 degrees here in sun City, SC...

Greetings from Wyethville, VA! We are on our way to Florida this year. We are only doing an 8 day cruise this year followed by a week at a timeshare outside Orlando, and then a weekend in Key West. Looking at the weather back home, it looks like we got out of town just in time! We did see some snow yesterday in New York, Pennsylvania, and west Virginia, but no major snowstorms. It's nice and sunny here but a little chilly. We're on our way to Savannah for a couple of days before our cruise out of Canaveral Sunday. I'll try to post some pictures as the time goes by...

First off, Welcome aboard fellow WNY'er!! Hope to run into you this summer!! Larry makes an excellent hitch, I don't know if the other guy bought the one above, but if not that one would be a good one! I'm not sure if Diamond R is still selling them, but that is anther possibility. You could also try the Hitch Doctor. You also may luck out and some member might have one laying around not in use... Be sure to check out the WNY Rally this August!! http://www.venturerider.org/forum/showthread.php?133915-Wny-regional-rally-2018-august-16th-19th&p=1031669#post1031669

Sure glad I'm halfway to Florida today...

Was it ever financially rewarding???

Auto Zone, Advance Auto, etc! You want a simple 12 volt SPST which stands for Single Pole, Single Throw relay. Single pole means there is only one set of contacts for the electricity to flow through, and single throw means the contacts are either connected or disconnected, as opposed to a double throw which means when one set of contacts gets disconnected another set gets connected. What that means is when you energize the relay, electricity goes to one place, and when you de-energize the relay the electricity goes somewhere else. A single throw just sends electricity someplace when turned on (energized) and shuts it off when turned off. An SPST relay has 4 prongs. Two of the prongs are for the relay coil. The coil is what turns on the main electricity or turns it off. A relay is just a simple electromagnet! When you apply electricity to the coil, it becomes an electromagnet and it draws the secondary contacts together and completes the circuit for whatever you are trying to control. The relay coil draws very little current, but the secondary contacts can handle a whole bunch of current! When you buy your relay you can use a 30 amp relay just fine, but you can also use a 40 amp relay as well. Here's the good news, you can and should use your existing horn wires to trigger the relay! You simply hook up the two wires to the coil and be done with it! It does not really matter which wire goes where as there is no real polarity to the primary coil. Next, you need to hook up a wire from your battery to one of the relay contacts. Use 14 gauge wire or 16 gauge wire at the thinnest. the other relay contact gets a wire hooked from it to the horn plus contact. the minus horn contact gets a wire going to ground, use the same thickness wire as you used on the horn plus and battery wires. If you look at the relay bottom you should see which prong is what, or you will see some numbers for each contact. Sorry, but it's early in the morning and I haven't had my coffee yet, and I'm also getting senile so I don't remember what number is what. I'm sure some younger person like FF knows on the top of their head which number is what... There's today's lesson in electricity!