camos

My 89 has the fluid level alarm issue and I've read about the bellows in the rear MC but have never noticed it. Is this bellows supposed to be visible through the fill port? @ Banks412 Suggest using some penetrating oil and a socket or box wrench the first time you loosen the filler bolt. They have been known to be seized which has contributed to breaking the reservoir. If the bolt does not loosen easily be gentle with the force. Perhaps a hammer drill will work best.

I'm not going to say anything bad about Marvel Mystery Oil but I've been using it for the past 6 months and will say with a good degree of confidence that it does not do what Seafoam does and therefore cannot take its place. I ride my bike every day and have been adding 2 oz of Seafoam and 2 oz of Marvel Mystery Oil to each tank full. Prior to that I would add 1/4 bottle of Seafoam every 3 or 4 months or whenever the engine started running a bit rough. So far it hasn't run rough nor has it run any better. At a guess it would appear the MMO hasn't done anything either positive or negative.

A little confusion over filling to 5" or 6". Filling to 6" should be safe. Filling to 5" is overfull which I think might cause the seals to blow out.

It's not surprising since the E 3 has been superseded with the E4. I put E3's on my Virago before I ever got a Venture and replaced the tires which came with each of my Ventures with E3's. I think they are awesome tires and can only hope the new ones will be as good.

If you have a MkI or MkII Venture then those are the correct sizes for the rear. If your dealer doesn't know that then you should rely on a more competent source of information....such as these forums.

I have purchase my last two sets of Elite 3 tires from fortnine.ca mostly because they are delivered to my door for the least amount of money. The main issues are exchange rate and border fees.

So if you put in less oil than Progressive recommended, how would that affect the seal?

So was that the solution to the problem? How much fluid did you put in originally?

Since the design is basically a 3 wheeled car seems to me it could easily have handled a 2 liter Boxter 718 engine with 300 HP. That might be a little too scary though. That technology probably wasn't available at the time it was designed. In any case, definitely not a traditional trike.

This thing is unique, take a look. https://www.msn.com/en-ca/autos/autosmotorcycles/cycleweird-short-the-krauser-domani/ar-AAABqai?li=AAggFp0

Well, well, interesting that you think that. As an outsider who has unfortunately become addicted to the salacious ebb and flow of US news, I've been thinking the border wall should take a right turn at the CA border and go north to the Canadian border. Take down the wall at San Diego, then withdraw ICE and let the W coast have their sanctuary states. Trouble with that scenario is there is already an exodus from CA that is infecting Texas and Arizona with the blue flu so it would likely just get worse. Looking form the very mild South Coast of BC, aren't the winters in CO and SD about the same...very cold?

Is that $120 quote just for taking the tires off and replacing with another tire then balancing? For that price perhaps it should also include taking the wheels off the bike. I don't have the time to go through the process that djh3 does. When its time for a new tire I take the old wheel and new tire into a bike shop where they will mount and balance for $27 each.

Perhaps get out of the parking lot and hit the road before the rear tires gets smoked off.

I concur, but are you sure you want to go there?

I think the carbon buildup on the threads would most likely be from leakage around the threads. Even the resistor had a coating of carbon. I mentioned in the original post about the brass insert in the cap being ovaled. My guess is the wear was from the plug flopping from side to side by combustion pressures. Also, as I have previously mentioned in a couple of posts, I thought there was a bit of a valve tick coming from the front left of the engine. Turns out that tick was probably the plug flopping back and forth because the sound is now gone. So far so good, the engine is running very well at this time.

If you don't leave the receiver in when you are not using it, you will probably never have to cut it off with a torch. Keeping the inside of the receiver greased will also help to prevent it from rusting. On the other hand, if you never ride in the rain, it will probably never rust.

I think you are all right, however, this happened three days ago and I've ridden the bike for about 6 hours since then so I decided not to worry about dark possibilities and just replaced all of the plugs. Just going to cross my fingers and hope that those two little bits will make their way safely out the exhaust. It seems to be running well so far at least. I've owned this 89 VR for about 3 years and this is the first time I have needed to change the plugs. It's my guess that whoever put the plugs in did not get that one plug tight enough. It appears I should have checked them all right after I bought the bike but I didn't think of it and just changed all the fluids. Live and learn.

A few days ago the engine on 89 VR started running like crap. Yesterday I found the left front plug cap was loose. The brass insert was elongated which meant there was not a good connection to the plug. Replaced it with one off the 90 VR and it seemed to run a bit better but not much. Today I replaced all the plugs and found the left front plug was not properly tightened and was actually broken. Never seen anything like that before. Hopefully the missing bits will make their way out of the cylinder before they do any serious damage. Not going to hold my breath on this one.

If the press on gauges don't go on and off absolutely right they leak. The screw on adapter is the most important part but the hose makes it relatively easy to align the threads on the adapter even with a straight valve stem on the front wheel. My 90 VR came with angle valves on both wheels and I still sucked at preventing excessive loss when checking the pressure. My 89 came with angled on the rear and straight on the front. I found this type of gauge before getting around to changing the front valve stem. I think it is the best solution. Hard to say what the quality is on the link I posted as it is on the less expensive side but there are probably a few different manufacturers. Be worth a look.

I found a gauge like this one a few years ago and it works great. Mine cost about $9 so perhaps they have gone down in price. The primary reason it works so well is the screw on attachment is about as close to zero loss and you can get.

I've never used tire goop before but have always carried it in my saddlebag for emergencies. Since the guys who changed my tire said the rim was a bit corroded around the valve stem I thought what the H... how much harm can it do. Anyway, we'll see when it comes time to replace the tire. The goop I used this time I had gotten to fix the tire on my wheelbarrow. It lasted until the barrow fell apart and was replaced with one with a solid foam core tire. No more leaks ever again.

When I bought my 89 VR, it came with a front tire that did not hold air for more than a few days. To begin with I tightened the lock nuts on the stem which seemed to work for a while but eventually leaked down. Got a new tire put on and it still leaked. Turned out to be a corroded wheel inside where the stem mounted. The guys who mounted the tire did not check it when they changed the tire. Don't know what they did to reseal the stem but whatever it was wasn't enough and the tire still lost pressure over the course of a month. I decided to put up with it until the tire needed to be replaced. It's my guess the stem needs to be removed and the wheel cleaned up around the stem area. Perhaps even a new stem. Was cleaning up a couple of weeks ago and found part of a bottle of tire gunk for a bicycle so I put that in and the tire doesn't leak anymore.

It's pretty basic but Windows Paint will resize .jpg pix.

It doesn't make any sense to me but from the pix it looks like the mesh part of the jacket is all black rather than Hi-Viz. Is that true or did I miss something?

Good point, I don't know how the MkI's seal but suspect they too would have a gasket. It's always a good idea to put the year and model of the bike you own in your profile. Of course, if I was on the ball I may have noticed the avatar was a MkI.