camos

You can find out about the Motorcycle Ride For Dad here: http://www.motorcycleridefordad.org/ Then there is the other prostate ride called Ride to Live on June 6, 2010. Find more information about it here: http://www.vanisland.ridetolive.ca

I was in the Ride For dad on Saturday too. After the Parade of Chrome most of us went on a poker run from Langford over the Malahat, through the backroads from Bamberton to Cowichan Bay, and Crofton almost to Chemainus then back to Cobble Hill for lunch. After lunch we went through Cobble Hill to Shawnigan Lake then back to Victoria. Great weather, lots of twisty roads and not too much traffic makes for a fun ride. Here are some pix of the bikes as they were lined up for the parade. There were only two Ventures that I saw. One really mint 89 Royale and a 2nd gen that unfortunately was hidden behind the two guys talking.

One often forgotten thing to do after draining the fork oil the very first time is to put a cup of mineral spirits in each fork, work it a bit then drain and fill. Old fork oil can block the little ports in the leg.

I guess no one is perfect. There seems to be some inconsistencies at the federal level too. In the article it mentions the reason for focusing on the criminal element rather than an ordinary illegal alien has to do with resource management. Since the Sheriff Department is not federally funded why do they care that Arpaio is focusing on all who enter the US illegally, after all it is a federal law he is enforcing. An unnoted inconsistency is the different focus in enforcement within the DHC between the Canadian border and the Mexican border re: the recent thread on strip searching a Canadian girl who was going to volunteer at an organic farm. Fact or fiction, people who get necessary things done in an efficient manner deserve to be lauded. Way-ta-go Joe!

Got this forwarded to me in an email and thought I'd share it with you all. He is the kind of guy we need more of. You all remember Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona , who painted the jail cells pink and made the inmates wear pink prison garb. Well......... SHERIFF JOE IS AT IT AGAIN! Oh, there's MUCH more to know about Sheriff Joe! Maricopa County was spending approx. $18 million dollars a year on stray animals, like cats and dogs. Sheriff Joe offered to take the department over, and the County Supervisors said okay. The animal shelters are now all staffed and operated by prisoners. They feed and care for the strays. Every animal in his care is taken out and walked twice daily. He now has prisoners who are experts in animal nutrition and behavior. They give great classes for anyone who'd like to adopt an animal. He has literally taken stray dogs off the street, given them to the care of prisoners, and had them place in dog shows. The best part? His budget for the entire department is now under $3 million. Teresa and I adopted a Weinaramer from a Maricopa County shelter two years ago. He was neutered and current on all shots, in great health, and even had a microchip inserted the day we got him... Cost us $78. The prisoners get the benefit of about $0.28 an hour for working, but most would work for free, just to be out of their cells for the day. Most of his budget is for utilities, building maintenance, etc. He pays the prisoners out of the fees collected for adopted animals. I have long wondered when the rest of the country would take a look at the way he runs the jail system and copy some of his ideas.. He has a huge farm, donated to the county years ago, where inmates can work, and they grow most of their own fresh vegetables and food, doing all the work and harvesting by hand. He has a pretty good sized hog farm, which provides meat and fertilizer. It fertilizes the Christmas tree nursery, where prisoners work, and you can buy a living Christmas tree for $6 - $8 for the holidays and plant it later. We have six trees in our yard from the prison. Yup, he was re-elected last year with 83% of the vote. Now he's in trouble with the ACLU again. He painted all his buses and vehicles with a mural that has a special hotline phone number painted on it, where you can call and report suspected illegal aliens. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement wasn't doing enough in his eyes, so he had 40 deputies trained specifically for enforcing immigration laws, started up his hotline, and bought 4 new buses just for hauling folks back to the border. He's kind of a 'Git-R Dun' kind of Sheriff. TO THOSE OF YOU NOT FAMILIAR WITH JOE ARPAIO.. HE IS THE MARICOPA ARIZONA COUNTY SHERIFF AND HE KEEPS GETTING ELECTED OVER AND OVER. THIS IS ONE OF THE REASONS WHY: Sheriff Joe Arpaio (in Arizona ) who created the 'Tent City Jail': **He has jail meals down to 40 cents a serving and charges the inmates for them. **He stopped smoking and porno magazines in the jails. **Took away their weights. **Cut off all but 'G' movies. **He started chain gangs so the inmates could do free work on county and city projects. **Then he started chain gangs for women so he wouldn't get sued for discrimination. **He took away cable TV until he found out there was a federal court order that required cable TV for jails, so he hooked up the cable TV again.....BUT only let in the Disney channel and the Weather channel. **When asked why the weather channel, he replied, "So they will know how hot it's gonna be while they are working on my chain gangs." **He cut off coffee since it has zero nutritional value. **When the inmates complained, he told them, "This isn't The Ritz/Carlton...... If you don't like it, don't come back." More On The Arizona Sheriff: With temperatures being even hotter than usual in Phoenix (116 degrees just set a new record), the Associated Press reports: About 2,000 inmates living in a barbed-wire-surrounded tent encampment at the Maricopa County jail have been given permission to strip down to their government-issued pink boxer shorts. On Wednesday, hundreds of men wearing boxers were either curled up on their bunk beds or chatted in the tents, which reached 138 degrees inside the week before. Many were also swathed in wet, pink towels as sweat collected on their chests and dripped down to their PINK SOCKS. "It feels like we are in a furnace," said James Zanzot, an inmate who has lived in the TENTS for 1 year. "It's inhumane." Joe Arpaio, the tough-guy sheriff who created the tent city and long ago started making his prisoners wear pink and eat bologna sandwiches, is not one bit sympathetic. He said Wednesday that he told all of the inmates, "It's 120 degrees in Iraq and our soldiers are living in tents too, and they have to wear full battle gear, but they didn't commit any crimes, so shut your mouths!" Way to go, Sheriff! Maybe if all prisons were like this one there would be a lot less crime and/or repeat offenders. Criminals should be punished for their crimes - not live in luxury until it's time for their parole, only to go out and commit another crime so they can get back in to live on taxpayers' money and enjoy things taxpayers can't afford to have for themselves.

That's an interesting comment. While indeed stating the obvious, nowhere did the statement by az1103 tell anyone how to live their lives. It is really about how he chooses to live his life and leaves everyone to draw their own conclusion about the wisdom of their actions. As for me, ATGATT is a rule not to be broken on the street. I have a pair of leather chaps that can go over whatever I am wearing at the time in a minute or so. It's the boots that take the most time to put on but since I like walking without pins and screws they get put on every time. A loose mesh jacket works great in any weather and will help prevent having an arm that looks like hamburger to wrap around my lovely lady. Light weight padded leather gauntlets aren't a problem in hot weather and will hopefully keep my hands so they can gently hold my ladies face when I kiss her lovely lips. Wearing a helmet is the law here there so there is no option but then I do like having lips to partake of the previously mentioned pleasure. ATGATT is all about me which does make me appear very self centred. Oh well, perhaps in my next life I will be less imperfect.

I managed to get May 15 off so I'll be attending The Motorcycle Ride for Dad in Victoria again. Anyone else going, besides Sailor and me? Suggestions on how we can meet up in the crowd?

I've been pondering what to do about the handlebar position as well. Spent a few hours moving the various parts around and found no perfect position, for me, was available without a modification. The most comfortable was achieved by swivelling the lower pieces slightly forward and the upper pieces down as far as they could go. I think a reasonable good position could be achieved by removing the small stopper tit so the upper pieces can be turned down a notch or two. In making these adjustment there are issues with the handlebars bumping the mirrors at full lock and also the issue of contacting the main cover. Rotating the lower pieces forward made them stand up higher which helped with clearance. Adding a two inch riser to lift the lower pieces up would likely be a good start. Here is a link to a Venture chopper build you might find interesting. Risers were added to the stock handlebar setup here as well as manipulating the upper and lower handlebar pieces. The stock position of the handlebars on my Virago had the same wrist cramping affect as the Venture does. After pulling the triple tree for some maintenance I discovered by accident that rotating the bars back and down gave a very comfortable position that is not at 90 degrees to the front wheel. You might be able to see what I am talking about here with the Virago. This position is what I was trying to achieve with the Venture.

Past halfway on the side stand is normal. The oil needs to be checked while on the centre stand on a level surface. If the top of the oil level can still be seen in the sight glass there is not too much oil to run the engine. If the level is above the top of the site glass AND smells of gas then change the oil otherwise it is not necessary. It's possible but unlikely to have a bent shift fork. To my knowledge the usual cause of a bent fork is kicking the shifter when it gets difficult to shift. This difficulty is most often caused by a dirty and/or dry outside shift linkage. A cleaning with WD40 followed by a shot of clean engine oil or grease will fix that before hard shifting or damage occurs. It's normal not to be able to shift past second without the engine running or without the bike moving. It should easily shift down into first or up into second though. Sometimes neutral can be a little difficult to find without letting the clutch out a bit first to give it a bit of a jolt. The engine should be able to be started with the side stand up and the clutch pulled in. With the clutch pulled in the bike should be able to be moved even when it is in gear. Possibly the clutch is not properly disengaging.

When you say the oil is full do you mean over full as in more than half way up the sight glass? If it is that full the pistons could indeed be locking up. Open the oil filler cap and see if there is a gassy smell. It is not unusual to have a float stick and let fuel dribble down the pistons into the oil pan. If that is the case, sit the bike on the centre stand and tap the float bowl to see if that will free the float. Drain the oil, change the filtre and put fresh in no higher than 3/4 up the sight glass or less.

The bend in the hose from the bleeder valve to the waste container must be above the bleeder valve before going down to the container. This will leave brake fluid sitting right at the valve and will prevent air from getting sucked back into the system. If the hose does not have this fluid lock, bleeding the brakes will take close to forever.

Thanks for the schematic Gary. Is the headlight fuse and the start switch already in the circuit or does some rewiring have to be done to get it that way? Also would not running the main light feed through the start switch somewhat choke the feed to the relay? What I have been leaning towards doing is to add two relays, one each for hi and lo beams. Tapping in to the hi/lo beam wires near the headlight to power the relays should, I think/hope, address the warnings while bypassing the skinny stock wiring through the CMU for the headlight. If the relays do not have enough resistance to cancel the warning some resistors could be added to help out. This method should still allow the lights to be turned off by the stock start switch while supplying power for hi/lo directly from the battery. I have yet to investigate the reserve lighting and do not even know what that is, other than the obvious, or how it works.

So the dimmer switch receives power from the relay rather than the headlight? I think I may be confused. Seems to me using one relay would require using a 5 terminal relay with switched power from the dimmer to 86/85 to ground. Connecting from the battery to 30 with 87 connecting to hi beam and 87A connecting to lo beam. This provides a direct connection from battery to lights through the relay eliminating the undersized Yamaha wiring and switches. What it doesn't do is turn the headlight off when starting.

I've been thinking about adding a relay to power the headlight hi/lo directly from the battery, essentially bypassing the connection through the CMU. It could be done using one relay with normally closed going to the lo beam with the switched circuit going to the hi beam operated by the dimmer switch. Or alternatively using one relay for each of the hi and lo beams. I pulled this quote from another thread. Gary what relay option did you use? The first one would seem the simplest but may not allow the lo beam to be shut off by the start circuit.

This thread describes the best 1st gen Virago starter fix which is essentially changing the left side case to a 2nd gen so the newer starter will fit. Many Virago parts are interchangeable between years and models but not all of them are compatible so it is important to give the year and displacement when asking a question. ViragoTech is a very good forum with a lot of knowledgeable people to ask questions relating to those bikes.

Why not just wrap the wires and the brake line together with a slightly larger tubing? I'm thinking it would look neater.

There are a lot of threads on the ViragoTech forum about converting to a single carb single manifold setup. That is going from two to one though. There is a kit that includes a new carb with the manifold that can be purchased for about $600 that works quite well out of the box. Or another one where you buy just the manifold and install one of the stock carbs or one of your choice that is much cheaper but requires a lot of messing with needle sizes to get to work well. In general this modification does work well and gives quicker acceleration at the bottom end but not quite so much HP at the top end, which is not such a bad compromise for most normal riding conditions. Probably would be much more complex to do on a four cylinder engine. Instead of a new carb setup, it seems to me the effort and $$$ would be better spent on converting to fuel injection perhaps like this setup for the VMax.

I have never understood what passing lights are.To me there are four kinds of auxiliary lights for a vehicle, driving lights which are a pencil beam that reach way down the highway, fog lights that have a wide short beam which light the sides of the road and the area between the headlight and the focus point of the low beam, daylight running lights which essentially have no beam and just say here I am, and finally off road lights which are a flood and can be as powerful as you like to turn night into day. Yamaha and probably most other MC's have the skinniest wire they can get away with that will handle the stock lighting requirements with no regard for the health of the battery not even considering the limitations of a generally pathetic charging system. If you want to add aux lights of any kind with a significant amount of power they should have a relay with a #14 or #10 power wire fused and fed directly from the battery. The relay coil can be powered as necessary to get the aux lights working in the manner desired by tapping into the stock wiring. If the lights should be on all the time (DRL's) with the ignition pick something convenient like the front turn/running light to power the relay or add a switch to turn them off independent of the ignition while still having the backup of not forgetting to turn them off with the ignition. If the lights should be on only with the Hi beam, tap into the Hi beam circuit to power the coil or similar for Lo beam only operation. It is true that adding a relay adds one more complication that can go wrong but not doing so can do harm to the stock wiring and switches with the higher amperage being drawn through components that were never designed for that amount. The lights will also work to full capacity with a decent sized power supply wire. If DRL's are all you are after with the passing lamps then LED's (PAR 36 are the ones I think) are the way to go and wire them directly into the ignition system with no relay.

Consider wearing a mesh jacket. I've worn one with armor in 80F on the west coast, which is hotter than 80F inland and suspect it is just as comfortable as just a shirt. Mesh jackets may not offer as much protection as a tighter weave one but is a good compromise which will certainly slide further than a shirt.

Now I'm really scratching my head. I found some of the missing pix from the La Connor trip in a different folder from where they were supposed to be. If you haven't met Larry and Danette yet, here they are. Larry, Danette and Bella in Camano Danette in La Connor Larry in La Connor

I fully intend to inflict myself on you and Danette again this year and perhaps more when my house is done. The Anacortes ferry from Sidney is almost a direct link. There has got to be at least 6 members on the lower Vancouver Island so it should not be too difficult to find some good riding companions and some interesting roads for you over here.

Generally PNW would stand for Pacific North Wet but this year it stands for Pacific North Warm. I've been commuting on my bike since January 10th. As for rusting... Naahh... we are made of stainless.

As international shipping is outrageous, last Fall Larry Dearborn (Silverdeer0454) offered to take delivery of some parts for me. Last weekend I was finally able to get it together to make the trip from Saanichton. Larry braved the rain, well mostly drizzle, to meet me just below Blaine to escort me to Camano where he lives. The next day, Saturday, was a gorgeous sunny day and Larry, Danette and myself rode from Camano to La Connor. We saw the eagle in a tree by a tulip stand and iron pony boyz RSV parked on the main drag of La Connor. Unfortunately we did not get to meet Larry (another Larry) as if the world could stand more than one. :happy65:We had a wonderful ride and a great day along with a few hundred other riders. To top it off, Larry BBQed us some flat iron steaks. Never heard of that cut before but they were tender and delicious. He did fail to deliver on his promised famous potato salad but that was not enough to spoil a perfect day. I did take some pix but managed to lose them in the transfer from the camera to the hard drive. Fortunately the other Larry wasn't such a dunderhead with his pix so you all can appreciate to some degree the good day we had. I want to extend a special thank you to both Larry and Danette for all they did to make this weekend memorable. Helping me with my parts and for their wonderful American hospitality by inviting a complete stranger into their home. Larry and Danette are true VentureRiders.

So is it likely the "Phillips" screwdriver that comes with Yamaha tool kits is really a JIS?

I watched the video but could not hear what he said, no computer speakers, but think I got the gist of it. Probably similar to what I've been doing for decades. The way I set my side mirrors is to first make sure the rear view is centred on the back window then watch a passing car in the rear view mirror and set the side mirror so that vehicle is visible before moving out of range of the rear view and with the passing car visible in the side mirror until it can be seen in my peripheral vision. To verify the setting is correct, with my head against the side window I can just see the rear of my vehicle in the side mirror and a similar movement towards the centre of the car checks the other side. Knowing your mirrors are set to provide 360 vision makes a shoulder check about 90% unnecessary although I still find myself doing it because I'm used to doing it on the bike. This mirror adjustment also seems to work OK when backing a trailer just by leaning a little left or right. I put a pair of the convex mirrors on the Virago just before it went on the road in Jan but so far I have not come to terms with their usefulness. I find myself leaning over to look around them. Perhaps they were put in the wrong spot, the inside end of the mirror, and a move to the outside lower corner will be less intrusive.