saddlebum

I found the elite 2 i had on my bike was bad for tracking road snakes but I have not had the issue with the E3's. On the other hand the E4's have on a rare occasion grabbed a road snake but the asphalt was extremely hot on those few odd occasions.

Well @cowpuc I am inclined to believe that due to covid and resulting lack of meet and eats and rallies the cat just decided that going from a practice audience to being the main audience for Marcarl's speechifying was just more than it could handle and is currently hiding under some neighbors porch. BTW just for the record I have no issue with the dues. What we get out of the site is worth it in my book and if it helps to safeguard our web site from annoying pests, even better. Now back to the vote ----I vote NAY----as it would be unfair to the CAT

Boy have you got that right and not just the strength that goes bye bye. About two weeks ago I did a four day canoe trip. Portaging with a 50lb pack was not bad, once you got your legs to go straight from being cramped up in a canoe for 2-3 hours. Got to the point were I thought maybe I could convince my son to portage the canoe with me in it so I could avoid the painful agony of slowly unfolding my legs as I got out.

Annnnnnd if you come to the events You can pull up a chair (and trust me you will need a chair) to listen to @Marcarl do his speechifying.

When working with apprentices I often use plumbing instead getting too high tech when trying to get them to understand circuits. Works extremely well.

I bumped into Sunman on the road some years ago about the time Don started asking for membership fees. It was at a Tim Horton's. I saw this guy riding a Venture and struck up a conversation with him were at some point I asked him if he was aware of venturerider.org. Boy you would think I kicked a hornets nest. He told me he had, was a member and who he was on the site but quit and proceeded to give me the whole rant about why and his beef about the $12 membership fee. The same rant Puc just posted in post #8 . Needles to say I could not get out of there and back on the road fast enough. I am surprised after all this time that this pot is still boiling.

As you well know the membership has come to be about more than just the bikes. Its about the people and friendships formed through the bikes and there are many here who can no longer ride but stayed on because they have become friends and family (and maybe a little addicted to being associated with a bunch of nuts). A lot of those members still even attend some of the rallies or M&E's even thought it may mean caging it to get there. Nice to see you you back again.

Here is simple explanation without getting too technical. A volt meter and ammeter or amp meter work differently. voltmeter indicates the state of charge while an ammeter indicates the load placed on the electrical system. Take a very low battery for example. as it begins to charge voltage will be low increasing as it reaches full charge. On the other hand the ammeter will read high and drop off as the battery reaches full charge. Turn on additional accessories and the voltmeter will go down while the ammeter will go up. in simple terms the ammeter indicates the demand placed on the electrical system while the voltmeter indicates the available power to meet that demand.

13.6 to 14.2 is normal charging range for most vehicles. Start getting into the 15+ range, more so above 16 volts, though it will not harm any electrical devices on the bike for the most part, you will, start boiling your battery dry. The higher the overcharge the faster you boil your Battery. On that note Before jumping to conclusions as earlier stated check voltage at the battery with a known accurate voltmeter. You should not overcharge with everything turned off but also you should not under charge with everything turned on. Also when checking charging voltage, Don't take reading right after starting the bike. The battery needs to build up full charge before you can get an accurate reading. Right after starting the bike you should see the voltage gradually climb as it charges the battery. Eventually holding steady when it reaches its max. charging voltage. Also a Regulator controls the ALt charging voltage based on the voltage it senses at or from the battery. If there are dirty or poor connections between the battery and regulator, the regulator will will sense a low voltage condition causing the Alternator to overcharge.

Also Guilty, have developed a bad habit at times of stopping and balancing the bike rather than putting my feet down. Last ride as I started to pull out and had to suddenly stop again, I almost did the same thing, pretty sure if there was loose gravel under the front wheel I would have dropped it. A nice feeling to know that you can balance the bike, at a dead stop, for a few seconds but ultimately much safer to do a proper stop, plant your feet and check traffic properly. Specially in back country roads, with dips and blind bends, were cars almost always go well over the speed limits, which is were I was at the time.

Came across this

Great Pics. Thanks to those of you that posted them even though you total accomplished making me and sad that I had to miss you all this year.

107C ! Assuming the C is for celcius, That's no garage, that's an oven. The water would be evaporating out of the batteries. My bike sits outside all year even in winter and the battery stays in the bike.

I have run through two sets of E3's and they got dangerously hard before They wore out probably why they got unrealistically high millage, I think the rubber got so hard they just quit wearing down. I have been Running E4's for the past two years and I do like them but they are not cheap to buy. Have you ever run the Shinko SR777? I have been looking at them and the Shinko tour master 230.

In A nut shell, What shinko's have you run and which did you prefer and why. Also what was your overall opinion of the E4 performance wise compared to other tires you have run.

A few things, that I always try to make people aware and take into consideration of regarding tires, regardless of the vehicle are: 1) long lasting tires do not always have the best traction. The high millage is often due to harder rubber which often results in poor traction particularly on wet roads. 2) Tires with better traction often have softer rubber which often results in faster tire wear. 3) When trying to decide which tire gives you the better bang for your buck millage or price alone are not the best indicators. You need to calculate it out to cost per mile or KM. plus take wet road traction into consideration. 4) Just because a tire still has lots of tread left on it does not necessarily mean a tire is still good. I had a set of E3's with extremely high mileage almost double the norm with plenty of tread left on them but had to replace them because the rubber had gotten so hard that my back wheel was sliding out in the corners and on one trip coming back from a WNY rally the whole bike slid sideways on a ramp. At first I thought I hit an oil slick but as time went on the issue got worse. 5) Be wary of the Avon Venoms on the 1st gens. They seem to work fine for the 2nd gens but a few of us (myself included) with 1st gens have found them to cause the back end of the bike to wag like a dogs tail once you get close to 100KM/Hr or 60MPH. I was fortunate enough that the dealer I got the tires from replaced them with another brand of tire.

That's odd, I installed a Deka ETX glass mat in my bike 6 years ago and it is still going strong. Even after forgetting to connect the battery saver to the bike the last two winters and which allowed the battery to go low enough where it barely cranked the engine over.

Hey ! Who you call'n old

Your not alone on this cowpuc I too often cruise my 1300 along at less than 1500 RPM in 5th and was still able to accelerate even if there was a slight up Hill grade without the need to down shift. Does the bike just get up and go under full throttle? No, but it does gather speed. Now granted if I need to quickly get up and move I need to drop 1 or two gears but for just a lazy comfy cruise along 5th gear suits me just fine. I will sometimes shift 1,3,5

See if you can get hold of a pressure tester and pressurize the cooling system. Start with a cold engine at room temp and leave it sit for a several hours even overnight if you can. Check the pressure to see if it drops. Also park on a dry spot or slide something under the bike so you can see if there are any drips after awhile. You may have to make an adapter out of an old rad cap for this purpose. Hate to say it but if you cannot see an external leak you may have an internal one, though I do believe they are very rare on these bikes. After you have had pressure on the cooling system for a good spell preferably all day or overnight pumping it up if it is dropping try cracking the oil drain plug to see if any coolant comes out of the crankcase. DO NOT crank the engine over while your are performing these tests as you want the water and oil to separate if in fact there is water in the crankcase. Next if no answers are found here then drop the pressure on the tester and fire up the engine to see if it builds pressure on its own. There will be some build up as the engine warms up but you want to watch for is a drastic build up. You let off some pressure once the engine warms up and watch it again for pressure build up while hot. Also if you have run the bike for a spell Check your oil while and see if it turned milky or has milky streaks in it. sometimes if there is enough coolant in the oil you can smell it.

Based on some wiring jobs I have seen over the years its sometimes better to just chop the whole mess out and rewire from scratch. Some people really do create birds nests with their wiring technique's and its just plain simpler to start over with a clean slate than to try to decipher what they were thinking at the time.

Passing lights and driving lights are the same versus fog lights. Passing / driving lights are more along the lines of high beams and in some states and provinces have to be wired so they can only be turned on during high beam operation. The term passing light comes from the fact that some people flash their high beams or driving lights to let another driver know they tend to pass. On the other hand fog lights have a narrow horizontal beam designed to allow you to see the road without glare back from rain or fog. These are usually tied in with the low beams so they can only be turned on while the low beams are on, because in some states and provinces it is illegal to drive with only the fog lights on. You will often see were a vehicle has both driving lights and fog lights , the driving lights switch on and off with the high beams if the driving light switch is in the on position and the fog lights will switch on and off with the low beams if the fog light switch is in the on position. As stated earlier, in some states and provinces it is a legal requirement that the lights be wired up to function in this manner.. However having said that Motorcycles don't seem to have to adhere to this requirement the way other vehicles do, though I would imagine if an officer in one of these jurisdictions really wanted to lay charges he probably could.

It means get a good set of hearing protectors

During the riding season I would not spend the extra money on premium gas. I find these bikes actually run better on regular anyway I know mine does. But when storing the bike for winter, then I look for alcohol free gas and even then I wonder if its worth it as Seafoam or any other good quality gas stabilizer is usually pretty effective. The main concern with alcohol in the gas, is that it absorbs water. During the riding season your burning off enough fuel that there is no significant water build up in the tank. But when sitting during the winter, warm and cold cycles cause condensation in the the tank and the emptier your tank is the more air space you have hence more condensation and so you should always store with a full tank and some sort of stabilizer in the fuel. After adding stabilizer to the fuel I run the bike for a bit to get the treated gas into the carb then top up the tank. On the other hand some will close the fuel valve and drain or run their carbs dry. In my case the petcock is seized and the drain plugs are PITA to get to. I have this particular bike since 2006 and so far the worst after storage issue I have had is waking the old girl up. For the first few miles she will be a bit sluggish until she has had a few good highway miles under her skirt.

The motion pro is deceiving in that when you think you are closing the screws your actually opening them and visa versa. So you turn in to open and out to close so to speak.