BratmanXj

For a reasonably stock bike and reasonable loads the SkyDoc Kit, PCW or EBC upgraded diaphragm spring is the most likely recommendation. If you tow a trailer and ride VERY aggressively the Barnett plate upgrade is slightly better as you can swap the coil springs.

Bike goes 4-5k miles on an oil change on full-synth Rotell, all depending on how much I ride that year. My work car goes 6-7k on semi-synth but it is ALL highway light load driving Wifes & Mom's car do a lot of short trips or sit for 4-5 days at a time, they get 3-4k mile oil changes

IF you can find a 12v opener for your garage door you can do a pretty slick thing and wire it to your high beam headlight. I had this at my hold house, can't find it for the new house: short across the switch so it's "always on" get 12v power from your high beam and flash your brights to open the garage door.

On my old HD Road King I had Kustom Krome bagger bars; forearms were straight out from the elbows and knuckles were "facing forward" so my wrist didn't kink outwards. I've been trying to find something similar for the Venture but the mount "under" the fairing forces you to look at the Bagger Bars with that horrible looking back-bend in order to get the rise without the pull back.

I bought my bike with 48k miles and previous owner always had it dealer serviced. Bike was in Excellent physical condition and so far has proven to be in very good mechanical condition. My HD owning friends were shocked I bought a bike with "such high mileage" but after all the stories on here of guys with well over 200k on the earlier version I simply respond that "I'll be broken in by time you hit your 3rd rebuild." So far I've done a lot of general maintenance and minor upgrades for my own comfort (braided brake & clutch lines, R1 brake upgrade, stratoliner front wheel when changing tires, heavier fork oil, DIY highway bar stabilizers, valve check). I did buy the bike with a known bad rear shock but knew the cost going into the bike, I've since upgraded the clutch spring while replacing a leaking clutch slave. I think I'm good for another 100k before anything else goes bad!?! As for passenger comfort: I'm 6'2" and the wife is 5'1", we came off a HD Road King where she was comfortable but somewhat cramped (front to back). I bought this bike when she was 5 mo. pregnant and we still had room between us! The seating height is an issue getting on (short leg problem ) and she says she feels like "a beast" when perched up so high; but then again the whole seating experience is much taller than other cruisers/tourers on the market both driver & passenger.

Hell, I struggle to launch my ski's with my mother's FWD Ford Escape (my AWD Escape does fine), I'd hate to even try with 1-Wheel-Drive. Thank god mom's got a cottage and I bought a floating pier that I can park the skis on, launch once & retrieve once per year and commute back and forth on the bike regularly.

Has anyone looked to see if the coil-springs of a Mk1 pressure plate are up-gradable? When I replaced the diaphragm spring on a built RS Warrior with a Barnett pressure plate we replaced the stock Barnett coil-springs with their heavy duty springs since we were still experiencing some slippage.

I went from an 88ci Harley Road king "down" to the Venture while saving money for a house (put more than $8k in the bank in doing so!) and my buddy rides an '06 SE Ultra with the 103ci. He started making cracks about his bike vs my "new" bike with a smaller motor... that went away real quick the 1st shot down our favorite backroads.

Uh...Yes Please! I'll shoot you a PM.

Everyone has their preference, it wasn't a sales pitch but simply explaining why when you go "Double Darkside" and run a rear tire on the front why you would reverse the rotation of the tire. I currently run a 130/70R18 on the front of my venture and there are no "front" tires in that size that last more than 6-8k miles on these bikes so I run a Michelin Pilot Activ rear on my front... As for the advertisement for the reflective Shinko on a RS Venture...

Rear tires are designed for forward propulsion, both the structural components and tread design are for "rearward" pushing forces. Front tires are designed for breaking, structural & tread for "forward" pushing forces.

The worst offender of this in my riding group is a Fire Fighter/Paramedic who formerly was a large diesel mechanic. The old adage of "A mechanic never has a running car" is always in my head.

Anyone seen the advertisement in this months Motorcyclist Magazine for the Reflective sidewalls on the new run of 777 tires... Btw, it happens to show them mounted on what appears to be a '99 RSV with the tour pack removed.

I filled the cavity in the seat with 5 min epoxy and set the bolt back in place to let it cure.

http://fox17online.com/2016/04/21/grandville-man-dies-in-motorcycle-crash-on-u-s-131/

Road Rods have been around a while now with a few companies making full kits to do the conversion. Like the trikes, I would have already expected HD to expand into the market and make them in-house. Now for the 500cc & 750cc models; HD wanted to build a "World" bike they could sell in the eastern countries that get taxed hard on big engines or when manufactured out-of-country and figured why not sell them here. Expect some parts-bin engineering on these little bikes over the next few years to see a touring version as well.

I also went "Darkside" and running an 130/70-18 Michelin Pilot rear on my front.

I put a Stratoliner S polished 18" wheel on the front of my bike. Found it on eBay for $200 shipped with the floating front rotors.

Never had seat time in the Seca but have done time on a Turbo as well as Supercharged bikes. Like Wizard said once the turbo hits it takes everything you have to keep control; they were not "street-able" bikes with the way the power curve hit. If you were mid-corner and accidentally gave even a slight twitch of the throttle the bike would walk out from underneath you. Turbo Lag is awesome in a car where you have the seat to contain your butt but not so cool when there's nothing holding you down.

ABS Plumbing glue works on MOST motorcycle plastics. I've repaired a crack in my lower caused by a stray bird and still holding strong 2 yrs later. Just fixed the side covers on a friends '85 Suzuki Madura as well.

I picked up a bag of 30 from McMaster Carr last go round....shoot me a PM and I'll gladly throw a few in an envelope for you.

Large syringe like you would use when injecting a marinade into meat. Most have a screw-in needle that you wouldn't need in this instance, as the "tip" alone should be small enough to fit inside the schrader valve.

As it's on the throttle side it might have something to do with compensating for the rotational forces of the drive shaft on the clutch side of the bike. I removed the covers when I was still running the stock front wheel and did not notice anything odd with the way the bike handled or tracked. I have since switched to the 18" wheel of a Stratoliner that came with floating rotors and a smaller "insert" weight rather than the disk/cover. I did install the weight on the 18" but yet again did not notice anything significantly different.

1. A mighty-vac can be had from Harbor Freight or Amazon for $40 2. You can rig up a tube and funnel system to feed into the schrader valve, but that's going to be a slow process.

I went to 10 weight BelRay Synthetic. I used a might-vac with the collection cup to refill my front forks. Put the lower bolt back in and pull the schrader valve. Hook up the Vac pump and fill the (measured) collection cup. Pull 2 psi of vacuum, invert the cup and slowly release the pressure and it will suck the oil into the front forks. I figure if the front forks can handle 7psi of pressure it shouldn't have and issue with 2 psi of vacuum, seals are still good 2 yrs later.