zagger

Hey, thanks for the response - not. I will make a mental note to ignore your posts from now on. This is supposed to be a two way communication, not just some automated fact finding service like google. zag

Hmmm - I just bought one (Yamaha P/N 93900-00031 and there is another small number printed on the package, K141205A) and the diameter of the threaded portion is 7.68mm and the diameter of the round end that sits inside the wheel is 13.97mm. To install it, you have to remove the tire and push it through the wheel. zag PS If you are thinking about replacing the valve stem because it is leaking, you might want to try sticking in a new valve core which is available in hardware stores and auto supply stores. It uses a "short type" valve core. I got ones made by Victor and they fit just fine. You do need a little tool to unscrew the valve core - Victor makes one: P/N 00714-8. Or you might luck out and have a valve cap that has the little slotted thing built into the end (I have one that I have set aside for many years).

1983 1200cc. With Vmax boost valves. Fast bike. Only been to about 120mph or so while passing a long line of Harleys, but I'm guess it could go faster if opened the boost valves a little more. zag

Yep, lots of fireworks in our neighborhood last night. Unfortunately, one of our dogs has a complete panic attack with fireworks and climbs all over us in bed, panting like crazy. We tried ordering some sedative dog treats - but after reading the instructions (like don't touch with bare hands, and bring the dog for emergency care for any overdose) we decided not to give him the dose. Booming went on until about midnight before quieting down. Hope the ammo is used up and we won't have another night of this. If I didn't have sensitive dogs, I wouldn't care much about neighbor's fireworks at midnight. Now I just wish that they would go to bed. zag

Is "Disirement" actually a word? If so, what does it mean? zag

Hey Orlin, If someone wasn't camping at your place, where would you suggest that they get a room? Looks like the rainy weather might take a break and I'm thinking of coming. zag

"Keep it straight, we ain't no fools,,, we leave them in WI." Hey there! Lots of good riding out to the Mississippi. Been all over the US and the best stuff is right here. zag (in WI)

Hard to know where the safest riding is. I just got back from a wedding near Chicago and had a chance to visit with a family member who crashed his new Harley a few years ago. Ground off one leg and now has a metal tubing leg and a cane. He was riding on some rural road with Harley friends and a farm tractor pulled up from a field right in front of the group. Several bikes when down and slide on the paved road. Sliding on the roadway with the weight of the bike on his leg forced an emergency situation where his leg had to removed at the knee. Although I think that rural riding is much safer than riding in traffic with half of the drivers focused on text messaging - serious accidents can still happen. I haven't heard yet what caused the NH crash. zag

Tried to buy some short shotgun shells at Cabela's. They had zero idea of what I was asking for. Completely useless. Bought them online. Cannot imagine why I would ever go there again. zag

Of course! Bike ownership is not req'd. I'd suggest that you head south on Highway 1 along the coast for as far as you feel like going. You might not get another chance. I suggest that you book a room if you don't plan to do the entire trip in a day. Not many places to stay and they are not cheap. Very beautiful scenery and LOTS of turns. zag

Forking by Frank used to be a very good supplier of fork tubes (do they still exist?). When I first raked out the front end on my bike, I bought extended fork tubes from them. A couple of years later I switched to a leading link design to improve handling - not due to any quality issues with the fork tubes. zag PS Just did a google search and they appear to still be in the custom fork tube business.

Everyone should have a chopper before they die! My first bike, back in my teens, was a chopped 650 Triumph. I rebuilt the engine but didn't notice one tooth missing on the kick start gear. If you happened to land on that dead spot, the free-wheeling kick start lever would totally bust your knee in reverse. Very nasty. I usually pushed it over to an nearby hill and started it with the clutch after rolling down the hill. My current venture forks are extended quite a bit. Not happy with the slow handling, I rebuilt the forks with a leading link (my design) which actually moved the front wheel forward even more - but reduced the trail dimension down to 3 inches. Very quick handling now. zag

For whatever it is worth (probably not much), I have used Rotella T4 15W-40 in two bikes for many years. No issues or problems. I buy 2.5 gallon jugs at Farm and Fleet but I pour out the amount I need into a smaller size jug which has a sight gauge on the side. Trying to juggle a 2.5 gallon jug while slowly pouring into the engine is just asking for a mess. zag

Well, it is May 5, 2019 and the spring crud run is on for today. Around here, thousands of bikes head to two small towns in rural Wisconsin and hang out so that the riders can drink beer, eat brats, and wander around looking at bikes. The general idea is to go to Pine Bluff, WI in the morning and when you feel the urge, head up to Leland, WI with whoever you like and taking whatever route you like. Absolutely zero promotion is done for this event, and yet it has grown steadily for 25 years. The weather forecast for today didn't look very good and I rode through light rain from my house to the first town - even though the forecast called for rain later in the day. Fortunately, the rain stopped and it was a nice day for riding. Very hard to guess at total attendance since all the roads are packed with bikes and every parking area and the nearby fields are filled with bikes. Just heading to the first town, I was riding by myself but eventually I was in a pack of 15 or so bikes all headed to the same place. My friend's Bonneville salt flat speed bike (650 Triumph) was there - ridden by the young guy who rode it on the salt flats. Turned out to be a nice day after all the bad weather forecasts. zag PS Was inside getting a beer and the guy standing next to me asked the lady behind the bar who were these crud guys? She had no idea. I introduced myself and told him that I was one!

If you mean plumbing pipe - then the answer is no. And I didn't use the original fork tubes since they were much too short. The leading link front end was made out of fairly thick wall steel tubing (1/4" wall as I remember). The tubes which go through the steering head had to be turned down on a lathe a little bit so that they fit correctly. I had to bring the rough tubing lengths to a shop with a hydraulic bending machine so the bends could be made without distorting the tubes. Then I cut them to the proper lengths and ground a taper to the ends of the tubing so that the welding could start at the inside diameter of the tubing and fill the tapered area all the way out to the OD of the tubing. My welder was to small to handle material of this thickness and my welding skills were too limited so I had to have a shop do the welds. I simply tack welded the pieces together in the proper position so that the welding shop just had to finish the joints. As I recall, they would start each weld using their equipment and then grind off my little tack welds as they progressed around the tube. I bought a small milling machine so that I could machine the pieces where the leading link joins to the fork tube and the pieces on the leading link which hold the axle. Each of these machined pieces goes inside of the tube a little way (about 1") and has a taper where the weld had to be made to join them to the tubing. The front end took an entire winter for me to build. That is why I suggested that you might want to buy the extended straight forks which I used initially (I just remembered they were machined by http://franksforks.com/). These longer fork tubes had to be made in a shop that specializes in fork tubes since they replicate all of the details on the stock fork tubes. They are still in excellent condition and are sitting in my basement shop. If you want an extended front end, these tubes would get you going and you could decide if you were up to taking on the project of a completely custom front end. Of course, even these fork tubes will require angling the steering head so the long forks don't cause the bike frame to sit up at an angle. Cutting the down tubes and bending the steering head upward and reattaching everything is enough of a project. zag

I noticed that you had a question about wiring. On my bike, I traced each wire, figured out what it was for, and cut it out. Nearly everything can be eliminated, if you want. When I got done chopping wires, I rewired the bike with only the stuff it actually needs to operate. If you don't cut out wires, you are left with bundles of wire that are impossible to conceal without the stock plastic fairings and covers. There are plenty of online sources for quality wires in all sizes, colors, and types of insulation - I wouldn't try to use the junk stocked by your local hardware store. The wire should be tin coated so that it is easy to solder (not just bare copper) and you will need a decent soldering iron. Before soldering, you slide one or two pieces of heat shrink tubing over the nearby wire and after soldering you can slide the heat shrink over the area of the solder joint and seal it up. I used heat shrink that has an internal coating of meltable sealant so that the final solder connection becomes completely sealed. Although it seems pretty permanent, the sealant will crack open if you ever need to remove the heat shrink tubing for some reason. zag

Hello? You still out there? zag

I've had Progressive Insurance for my motorcycles for many years. My policies run until the middle of May and I renew them each year. So this year I got an email from them in the middle of March suggesting that I should renew online. OK - so I did that and put the renewal date for the middle of May when the policies actually expire. So - now it is the first part of May and I got a letter in the mail from Progressive saying that I should renew right away or the coverage would expire. I called the insurance agent who handles Progressive and they agreed that my online payment was made and would post in the middle of May as I requested. I called Progressive and they agreed that the payment had been made online and would be recorded in the middle of May. Of course, the phone guy I spoke to had no idea why I was receiving notices in the mail when the renewal had already been done. He admitted that they get lots of calls like mine wondering what is going on. I strongly pointed out that he needed to rip their IT folks a new one for their complete incompetence. Then he asked if I wanted to continue getting paper invoices, or should they just email me. Using fighting language, I suggested that they should have their IT idiots hand deliver everything using their personal cars until they start to get a clue. Just a warning if you might be thinking of bike insurance with these fools. zag

I had fork tubes made by a shop (I forget the name) and used stock lower sections. The total length from the bottom of the axle clamp to the upper end of the fork tube is 42.5 inches. I still have them and they are in excellent condition (both the chrome tubes and the lower sections). If you are interested in buying them, I could make you a good deal! By the way, I wouldn't consider using something like pipe for the fork tube since the OD is critical and they need to have a fairly thick wall to handle the load. Making them is a pretty tricky machining job which is made even more complicated by the long length. zag

I'd say to just go for it. You will learn a lot in the process and end up with a one-off bike that you created. I enjoyed the whole process, with all of the struggles. Years later, it is hard to remember the details. Still runs great and is fast. zag

I would recommend ones that are as thin as possible if you want to minimize what you feel. I have two - one of them is flat and intended for a back pocket, the other one has a curve and is intended for a side pocket. The plastic ones are also quite easy to reshape using a heat gun if you want to change the general shape. zag

A couple of years ago I saw a guy at the grocery store with a big cowboy six shooter in a holster - seemed to be creating a bit of concern with the other customers as he moved through the store. No idea what or if they were thinking, but their reaction is exactly why I keep my 380 in my pocket. I bought a couple of pistol holders made out of very thin plastic (I forget the manufacturer's name) which simply keep the pistol oriented muzzle down so that it is easy to grab inside of a pocket. If you don't hold it in any way, it tends to go upside down and is hard to get into your hand. zag

Yes. I started by cutting most of the steering head off the frame and angling it forward before welding it all back together. I put on extended straight front forks but I hated the slow handling. Then I built the leading link forks which actually moved the front wheel even farther forward. Surprisingly, the handling became super responsive. Measuring the trail dimension, it is in the range of most sport bikes. And the front wheel is extended even farther forward than the long straight forks put it. And when I park the bike, there is zero tendency for the front wheel to crank over to the side, it just sits there, pretty weird. zag