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camos

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Everything posted by camos

  1. camos
    Keep a close watch on the expected delivery time and email the seller with any concerns you may have. Always keep the emails, at least until you have the item and are happy with it. If your item does not arrive or arrives in a condition different from "as advertised" you have a month from date of purchase to file a dispute with PayPal. They will want proof that you have made an effort to resolve the issues with the seller. If you have cause to be unhappy PayPal will refund your money. If more than a month goes by PayPal will not talk to you about it.
  2. camos
    I just recently put an E3 on the rear my Virago. While researching a replacement, as I recall, the E3's have different compounds with harder rubber in the middle and softer on the sides giving both good mileage and good grip in the twisties. There are probably better mileage tires and grippyer tires but the E3's seemed to be a good combination of both.
  3. camos
    I just recently put a bigger rear tire on my Virago which dropped the cruising RPM about 2-300 and seem to be getting 10-15 km less per tank. There could possibly be other issues causing the loss but I was watching closely since I was expecting to get better mileage and got less. Not very scientific but a probable real world confirmation of what Condor and Squeeze are saying.
  4. camos
    I've never felt like a deadbeat but since I pay my CC off every month that must make me one. My one and only CC is used for every transaction during the month except for the odd place that does not accept CC's then my debit card is used. It costs $12 per year for the privilege of having the CC (Visa) but but with a certain amount (fairly low) of usage $1 per month is rebated so for me it is essentially free. How good is using the CC company's money for a month for free? Not such a big thing these days but back in the 80's when bank interest rates were 21% the return was significant. I know several people who have built up their CC debt to the point all they can afford to pay is the interest with a marginal amount going on the monthly purchases so they essentially have no credit but still have a huge debt. How silly is that. If one gets into a plugged CC pickle, other than declaring bankruptcy, it's best to get a loan from your bank if you have any equity. Pay off the CC and either cut it up or start using it properly. It is unlikely the CC company will object too much to getting paid off monthly if the card is used frequently as they make 3% on all transactions. CC debt is the real darkside.
  5. camos
    A month and a half ago I bought a Hawk flip-up for US$109. It definitely feels cheap compared to the Arai Quantum 2 helmet I had been using before. The face shield seems a bit on the thin side and tends to vibrate a little. Those are the nit-picks. The Hawk fits my medium head the same as the Arai. The sunshade is dark enough for most sunny conditions and sits far enough down that it is below my line of sight. The closure is metal and seems to be solidly built. The helmet is DOT approved. The chin has a fixed curtain that extends in far enough that there is no breeze from under it. The liner is removeable. The venting seems to work quite well although I have not been able to try it in any hot weather. It looks as though there is enough room to easily mount a mic and headphones but I don't have one yet so that is just a guess. All in all, I am very happy with the Hawk and feel it is a very good helmet for the price. http://hawkhelmets.com/p/Hawk-Helmets/Advanced-Hawk-Titanium-Grey-Dual-Visor-Full-Face-Motorcycle-Helmet/56992.html
  6. camos
    @ Condor: That was the only time I ever tried the bungied lever trick and perhaps you are right that the air would have bled itself out over time. Later when I bled the brakes properly it took about 20 minutes to completely flush and replace the fluid with new doing it without special bleeders or pumps. The Virago front brake is a fairly straight run but perhaps I was lucky or perhaps I used proper procedure by accident. I could be wrong but it appears to me the trick is the drain hose off the caliper bleeder must go up before it goes down into the waste container. If it doesn't there is no air lock and the air in the hose will continue to infect the bake line. I've done it that way the few times I have had to bleed brakes and never experienced a problem. I have not yet had the privilege of bleeding my Venture which appears to be a more complex system so only time will tell.
  7. camos
    I changed the brake pads on my Virago during a break at work. Unfortunately I was not prepared for issues when retracting the pistons and ended up cracking the bleeder to get them in. So with no brake fluid and no brakes the best I could do was get it to three pumps before it would harden up enough to get brakes. Time had run out at that point so I pumped up then bungeed the lever closed, loosened the reservoir cap, turned the handlebars so the reservoir was up. Checked it on the next break and could see bubbles in the sight glass. Pumped it a bunch of times then left it to sit again. After work the brakes had improved to one pump which was better than expected and good enough to get me home. At home, bungeed it again and the next morning a half a pump got to hard. Ended up doing that for four days before it I had time to bleed them. By that time they were still a little spongy but that method works surprisingly well. I figure pumping it up to hard before bungying with the lever pulled to the grip the relief hole must have opened as the pressure fell off, enough to allow the air out.
  8. camos
    I've never had to deal with this but from reading on here it appears to be quite common for a worn clutch lever pivot to deactivate the cruise control.
  9. camos
    So, it dragged a bit when he jumped it with a car battery but was that jumped at the battery or jumped at the starter? Could make a difference. Something else that could make a difference is the ground to the frame goes from the engine instead of from the battery. There could conceiveably be cruddy connections somewhere in that mix. Could be a faulty starter, relay or battery. I think more information is required.
  10. camos
    My Virago came with a pair of Bridgstone Spitfire II on it. Recently wore out the rear after putting 30,000 km (18,000 ) and replaced it with an Elite 3, don't know how may miles was on it before I got it. The new tire handles way better than the old one ever did, to the best of my memory that is. Probably some of it has to do with old worn out tire versus new tire. Only have about 1000 km on the Elite and wet traction is the most noticeable improvement.
  11. camos
    I'm going to agree with Goose on the Bridgestones. I just replaced the Bridgestone Spitfire II rear tire on my Virago with an Elite 3 and experienced a dramatic improvement. At this time the front is still the Bridgestone but it will be coming off this Winter when I have more time to arrange a better deal than is available from the local MC shops here in B.C.
  12. camos
    That looks like a tidy little kit, I like the idea of storing the plugs in the handle. Thanks for the tip.
  13. camos
    Replacing 10 year old tires is a good idea, they are getting into the range of who knows what could happen. I got my tire at Adrenalin on Pembroke St in Victoria. They had the best price I could find in town but it cost $190+tire levy+taxes for a total of $244. Wasn't paying very close attention to the old tire and it needed to be replaced immediately or taken off the road. Still had a month to go on my insurance so chose to bite the bullet. Kinda kicking myself for getting caught unawares. Motorcycle Superstore had the best price I could find at the time US$130.99 but they don't ship to Canada. One of our members lives on Camano Island offered to be a shipping point. The Anacortes ferry from Sidney costs US$43.90 return for an MC and driver. Might be worth exploring alternate possibilities since you have the time. I occasionally get a weekend off and would like to do some fun rides. I'm renoing my house and for the past year I have had no time for any fun stuff. I commute on my MC from Feb to Nov. I'm hoping once I get back into my house, perhaps this Winter, that there will then be time in the Spring to do some fun runs. There are some great roads in the area.
  14. camos
    Well actually you didn't say that. Quite clearly you made an incorrect and potentially unsafe statement with no qualifications so if anyone is arguing it appears to be you.
  15. camos
    I've been planning to get a plug kit this Winter but did not know there were different kinds of plugs. Can someone recommend a kit with the correct type of plug? Thanks
  16. camos
    I wonder if someone who could do it would put the essential diaphragm purchase info in a thread in the tech library? It's pretty hard to find the necessary info in that very large thread.
  17. camos
    @GaryZ Tatonks was comfortable about hooking up his battery until it exploded just as you have been comfortable about doing the wrong thing for 20 years or so. You said: "I stand by my statement "A charging system does not force current into a load, the load draws it" and I also think you guys do not understand what a load is." and you are almost right. Unlike a 50w light, a dead battery will draw an unlimited load to the max output of the donor charging system. That includes drawing a load higher than it's internal connections can handle, ergo the exploding battery. You are standing on an erroneous assumption that some of us guys don't understand what a load is.
  18. camos
    For what it's worth, I have a similar set of fork boots on my VR and like the looks of them too. Had a look on the Daystar site and found these ones which might fit, haven't measured the forks to be certain though.
  19. camos
    Well, I say I'm not mistaken. Just because you did it once does not mean you will get away with it all the time. I have not done an exhaustive research into this so I cannot define for you under what circumstances hooking up a car or truck charging system to an MC battery will cause damage. I only know one person who had a problem doing it but have read over the years of quite a number of others who have had wiring burn and batteries overload when hooked to a running vehicle. Just because some seem to get away with doing it or even if it is most, why take a chance? Unless the vehicle has a really bad battery, there is no need to have it running when trying to jump an MC. I can only speculate about the situation you describe, perhaps your battery was not totally dead. A completely discharged battery will try to charge at whatever rate it can and the vehicle system will sense the load and supply up to it's max output which could be as much as 75-100 amps more or less. Take the chance if you want but it is not a good idea in all situations.
  20. camos
    My 90 VR makes me a 1st gen owner but so far I'm only riding my xv1100. I put an Elite 3 on the back of the Virago 3 days ago and it seems to work very well in both the dry and the wet. You in Sooke? I'm in Victoria but with a bit of luck I'll be back in my house in Saanichton in a couple of months.
  21. camos
    Just a little qualifier: Jumping a MC with the car running can very easily melt something since the MC charging system is designed to cope with a fairly low total amperage. Jumping with the vehicle off should not hurt anything on the MC that is in decent shape.
  22. camos
    Almost everybody has their own preferences so I usually try to refrain from giving unasked for advice but I've been thinking about what I would do to organize a computer if I had a terabyte of space... so what the heck. 1. Install Windows on the 80 g drive formatted as one partition. 2. Partition the terabyte drive into 3-4 logical drives. 3. In Disk Management, change the drive letter of 1 logical drive to point to C:\Program Files. 4. Change the drive letter for another logical drive to point to C:\My Documents. 5. Change the Virtual Memory to a fixed amount using the Windows suggested total amount on each of 2 drives, the system drive and one of the un-dedicated logical drives, essentially doubling the size of the cache. Doing 3 and 4 will allow the use of the default Windows folder usage which is most convenient while keeping program data and personal files off the system partition. Doing 5 will prevent the cache from automatically fragmenting the hard drives every time the computer is rebooted. Hope you don't mind these suggestions.
  23. camos
    The bigger HDs are faster. They are all 3.5" so the increased capacity is in multiple disks with multiple heads and higher data density. The bigger drives also generally have larger caches that help to speed things up as well.
  24. camos
    If you find another 80 g drive it will probably cost a fortune. Today without even shopping around you can get a 500 gb for about $50 and a terabyte for $100. With such a small HD it certainly makes sense as suggested to get a new big second one.
  25. camos
    Just in case your son does not know this... If the hard drive has enough room, WinXP can be installed in a different partition which will create a boot menu with the choice of the original and the new install to boot into. None of the programs installed on the original version will work unless they are reinstalled into the second version. With this setup there are two options. First option just transfer the program data files to another HD or a memory stick then do a complete reinstall of Windows. The Dell support disks will erase all data and reinstall XP in the original condition it was when purchased. The second option is to find the corrupt file/s in the first install and fix them. With the computer running on a second version of Windows the system files of the first version can be written to without any problem. There is a possible third option which is to get an upgrade fersion of XP or Vista if you prefer and install that over top of the old XP. I haven't played with Vista at all and only somewhat with XP but I used that trick all the time on W95, W98 and W2K operating system.
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