zagger

Eliminating protective gear based on "motorcycle intelligence" will certainly compromise your health when a car pulls out in front of you! Or maybe this can only be used on the roads of the future which don't have bad drivers, potholes, bugs, and gravel. Looks to me that BMW needs to make less money and lay off some of their "deep thinkers"! zag

Nope. imac with chrome.

Some people have made themselves nice little dipsticks to measure this. I just use the end of my machinist calipers extended out 1 inch. Measuring from the top of the hole, the oil should be 24 to 26mm below that level. Basically one inch. Bike should be on center stand for this measurement. I don't have a center stand so I just level it up as best as I can. zag

Per the manual: check valve clearance every 7500 miles or 18 months.

Your bike looks great! You can go here "http://www.yamahaventure.nl/xvz-1200.html" to view the service manual online. Years ago I bought a reprinted paper service manual, I'll see if I can figure out where I got it. zag

Looking through the windshield is bad nearly all the time whether it is bugs or water stuck on the front surface. You should be looking slightly over the top of the windshield. This is achieved by marking it with tape and cutting it down to the appropriate height (after removing it from the bike). A bandsaw works pretty good to make the cut without cracking - then sand the edge. Don't use a reciprocating saw, like a saber saw, since it will tend to jerk the windshield back and forth and cause cracking. If the airflow over your shortened windshield causes head buffeting (violent shaking) then add lowers on the front forks to help move the airflow up and over your head. Once you have the windshield cut down and the airflow moving up over your head, riding is much more pleasant and stuff stuck to the windshield has no effect on your view of the road. This is really an individual adjustment - trying to use somebody else's measurements is pretty pointless. Getting the perfect setup just requires a little time and effort. zag

My '83 has stock calipers which I delinked. Handlebar brake drives both front calipers. The two calipers are linked with a short brake line arcing up over the front wheel. Foot pedal drives the rear. Brakes are good. No idea about more complicated solutions - mine is simple and works fine. zag

Well I can tell you, you are not the only one. I moved my '83 foot controls 18 inches forward - a comfortable position for me. I built the custom linkages which were necessary. I have two bikes with forward controls - I guess that I don't enjoy being crunched up. zag

I like to spend my time zigging and zagging on the small back roads of Wisconsin. zagger

The whole weekend is supposed to be great around here. Just got home from an afternoon ride with a stop to listen to a band playing outside of a waterfront bar. Gotta think of someplace to go tomorrow and Monday - don't want to let perfect weather slip on by. zag

Good Luck! My daughter totaled our minivan when she first started driving. Pulled out in front of someone, who then put a deep, car sized imprint into the side of the van. No one hurt. That was 10 years ago, and she has safely driven ever since that first smashup. My son started driving a few years ago and eventually bought his own pickup truck. Good thing too - he ran into the back end of someone waiting to turn and crunched the front bumper, grill, hood, etc. Since he didn't have collision insurance, it took some work with a winch and installing a new hood to make the truck almost as good as new - if you squint your eyes! And don't notice that the headlights are attached with wire ties and the hood color doesn't match the rest of the truck. I'm hoping that experience stuck deep into his head since he now also has a motorcycle. Best wishes, zag

I have to wonder how anyone could prepare to have some big thing drop into the road right ahead of them? Seems like the person on the bike took reasonable evasive action but the rolled up thing just happened to end up right in their path. Wrong place at the wrong time. Yesterday I darned near ran straight into a cement truck on a 90 degree blind corner (a house built close to the road totally blocks the view of oncoming traffic). This small rural road typically has almost zero traffic - I only saw two cars in about 1/2 hour. But, as bad luck would have it, the cement truck arrived at the blind corner exactly at the same time as I did. And it nearly filled the entire road. And, probably because of the non-existent traffic, the truck driver chose to run through the stop sign facing him at that corner. I didn't have a stop sign in my direction and was moving at a reasonable speed through the corner - only to find the road nearly completely blocked by the oncoming truck. Hard braking, swerving, some rear wheel sliding, and I cleared the truck by 3 or 4 feet - just as he noticed me and started to hit the brakes. Geesh. Darned near got creamed on a back road that I've been riding on for many years. Sometimes luck has a big part in our lives. zag

Ok, I'm probably naive. If someone steals my registration card and insurance card - so what? zag

Thanks! zag

Orlin, Maybe I missed it, but could you give your address? Thanks, zag

"Inflate to recommended tire pressure on tire... Not in bikes manual." Why? Isn't the pressure on the tire simply the maximum recommended? zag

Geesh. What MikeWa posted: tire pressure specs are for cold tires, not ones heated up by riding around. I guess that too much knowledge can be a bad thing! zag

"Just not sure where to start." Grab one wire, identify where it goes and verify the colors, decide whether it stays or gets chopped. There are lots of them you can live without. And a bunch that you need. I'm sure that you can figure out which ones are essential. Of course, none of this is irreversible. If you cut something out by mistake, you can simply solder it back. In my case, I kept none of the original wires since the placement of components was changed. Not big deal to run new wires to replace old ones that were cut out. My real advice is to take your time. The wiring bundle will get smaller and smaller and the job gets easier and easier as you go. You should be able to crimp on connectors (I like the "bullet" style that are easily purchased at a hardware store) and be able to solder. I like to solder each connector after crimping simply to make the entire thing more waterproof. Note: I yank off the colored plastic things on the connectors since they are useless and would melt when the connector is soldered. Then I wrap connectors with fusion tape (the non-sticky, stretchy, black tape that only sticks to itself) to give added vibration resistance and weather proofing. If you add all new wiring (buy a spool of wire from the store or order online) then you are free to route the wires anywhere you like and can clean up the installation to suit yourself. Good luck. zag

I would suggest that you carefully remove all of the wiring, identify the function of each wire, and keep only the ones you actually need. The removal list would be way too long and confusing to attempt online. This is my '83 with the wiring hanging out: Probably will take a couple of weeks to sort it all out. zag

At least it wasn't this: zag

Out of curiosity, where is the gas that the engine is running on? zag

"No, that's not a record. With the older Avon Venom rear, I regularly got 22-24,000 miles." Ok, now THAT must be the record! I don't think that I tried Avon Venom tires but I become used to new Metzelers every 8,000 miles or so. Since mounting and balancing is part of the total tire expense, I found a guy who does tire changing at his house using professional equipment that he got from a dealership that went bust. $20 to mount and balance - just wait a few minutes and it is done. Seems like a deal to me. Of course you do have to bring him the wheel, not just drop off the bike. zag

"It's got about 18,000 miles on it" Is that some new world record? I don't think that my Metzeler rear tires have ever gone beyond 8,000 miles - and one brand I tried went much less than that. zag

Geesh. Voltmeters are pretty darned cheap, and I actually own more than one. Licking batteries, hot wires, or trying to resuscitate some electrocuted person with my fingers up his rectum - not gonna happen! Call me crazy, but I just measure electricity with a meter and stay away from electrocuted people. zag