Wilzhere

This is great advice,You break it you bought it, plus seeing their Endorsement also.......

in my 45 years and the many bikes Ive have the stem head bearings don't really get damaged from turning left or right they get trashed by hitting pot holes and such, even them road dividers. its up and down damage forward / back movement. this is a picture of a bad bearing/race that needs to be replaced. these were mine and i was bottoming out on the forks all the time or so i thought, so i tore down my entire front forks that weren't leaking and held air, pulled springs thinking i would need progressives but i read that Yamaha springs are 18 inches in length from factory, mine measured 17 7/8 ths. no need for new springs saved me some money, shined up my forks with 2200 grit sand paper to remove any nics in the tubes, changed out the fork seals and the triple tree stem bearings and been great for 2 years now. used Yamaha seals and All Balls bearings. if your bearings look like this replace them, i also found that i did have a side to side wobble when i first got the bike ...this took care of that also.. I now have a great front end...with working anti dive.

I've always found it easier to take throttle cable loose from the throttle handle first, then much more slack is available . makes it whole lot easier to remove the rack I agree that its easier to just remove carb set to do any work other than adjustment of hi/low or diaphragm work.

Ive been repairing on mine for over a year... lookin for a cheap ride ...LOL you will never get them right on and yes you'll have to watch your plugs to determine your idle mixture, then re-sync...i have done all of what you have done and more... except the new fork springs how i fixed mine was to polish the fork tubes with 2000 grit sandpaper before mine sealed the finer the paper the better plus you will find the stem head bearings need to be replaced i used original springs in mine and they don't bottom out. the book says they should be 18"s in length mine were 17 3/4 bfd...my forks don't leak and they don't bottom out at all, but they did .....call me.Wil

Well first off I'm no Yamaha master mechanic,,,, but i bought an 83 venture about a 1 1/2 years ago. its been a nightmare for me. the thing seem to run pretty good found out they run real good on 3 cylinders. #3 would not fire right. finally after new wires it ran so so. then i rebuilt the carbs/ took them off at least 6 times, before going to the with new diaphragms from them people in Canada, started it up and it backfired once, the new diaphragms shredded, all but one. so i bought another set from http://jbmindustries.com/index.html that worked for me great And much cheaper price......then i did the Jason mod and the bike ran like crap ..no mileage, so i tried the shimming of the needles on the carbs no better mileage, went back put the YCIS back on changed the shimmed needles back to stock and finally after the umpteenth time trying to sync the carbs,i got it to sync... it runs good not great but real good and runs smooth , no stumbling at all at idle. and i get 42 +/- miles per gallon which is better then i was getting with all the mods and its consistent. so my suggestion is try to leave as close to stock as possible. I call it Yamaha nightmare. the real trick for me was rebuilding the carbs with the diaphragms from jbm... now im trying to fix the wiring kibosh that PO did, cant get the CMS to stop blinking its warning red little lite from hell, i narrowed it down to the reserve lighting unit, which i believe is causing the problems on the CMS found 4 wires which i believe was another MOD to remove the Reserve lighting unit from the system, heck they even pulled the connectors out of the plug in to the CMS.. Well to go on my, suggestion is to leave it as stock as possible. This was a Beta bike from Yamaha to keep the backyard mechanics hands off of it, so the stealership could do the repairs, i have found the two punch marks signifying 2nd gear repair and stat-or oil cooler repair, 2nd gear still screwed up so i short shift so i wont blow the transmission, so that's my experience with a 1983 Yamaha venture xvz12tk..i bought this for the creature comforts but it been a nightmare, don't trust it and i wont ever...I'm to old to go back to Yamaha repair school.Its a money pit.....i have parts i been trying to give away and cant.if you search my post you'll find them, maybe you can use them LOL Good Luck to ya!!! I"m sure i'll be back to edit this post PS i also have a !979 Shovel-head FXE bought new that has 160,000 miles on it with out a tear down,,,stock motor yea shes half USA and half Japanese and she leaks a little oil everyday ...but keeps on Putin

is there a way to bypass the sensors so the CMS does not see that the sensors are not there? for the brake lights? like the sensor mod for the battery which i have done successfully? also trying to find and maybe mod the oil level sensor? any help people? also found wires disconnected from CMS i believe???? yel/red to yel/green.......green/green/red is this an attempt to remove reserve lighting unit? my headlights and hi/lo switch and indicator do work Thanks Wil

73 views no response..must be dumb ass question...........

hows is your gas milage if you dont mind me asking .... thanks again for info Wil

Well Randy thats really good news to my Noobie eyes, since i probably will have the problem sumwhere down the road. I do want to ask if they the TCI of the newer bikes have the same 2 plugins? And the vacumm hose you mentioned is the one from the vacuum boost thingy up underthe fairing next to the battery? Does anything else have to be rewired, with the switch over? Ive been reading and rebuilding a 83 xvz12tk for over a year now and this is the first ive seen this mod mentioned. I apologize for Hijacking this thread, if i am? I'm pretty new to this forum stuff and im old...LOL Thanks to all people here on the Venturerider.org for all the info i have gleaned.... Wil

Thankyou Folks for the info. I see that they work for many years. Wil

Guys i need some help..Has anyone used these parts to rebuild a 83 ventures carbs, i dont need the float needles/ seats. just the gaskets. really just the jet block gaskets and 0-rings, all my float bowl gaskets are in good shape. these look identical ....has anyone tried to use these? are they interchangable? 1985 [TABLE=class: cms_table_fTbl] [TR] [TD][/TD] [TD]Yamaha[/TD] [TD]Vmax 1200[/TD] [TD] any ideas? I've tried punching my own gaskets with no sucess, cant find the right gasket material. Must be another YAMAHA trade secret.[/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] Thanks Wil

Guys i need some help..Has anyone used these parts to rebuild a 83 ventures carbs, i dont need the float needles/ seats. just the gaskets. really just the jet block gaskets and 0-rings, all my float bowl gaskets are in good shape. these look identical .... 1985 [TABLE=class: fTbl] [TR] [TD][/TD] [TD]Yamaha[/TD] [TD]Vmax 1200[/TD] [TD] any ideas? I've tried punching my own gaskets with no sucess, cant find the right gasket material. Must be another YAMAHA trade secret.[/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] [TABLE=class: fTbl] [TR] [TD]Thanks[/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] [TABLE=class: fTbl] [TR] [TD][/TD] [TD][/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] PLEASE JUNK THIS THREAD >>PROBLEM RESOLVED

i believe its a dark brown color of some sort, sorry, but i dont really know.

It aint just you, i'm beat also... been reading and working with my 83 for almost a year now, am im just ready to take a big loss, seems these were their beta bikes which i have come to a conclusion to stop throwing money at. myself i have been a machinist since i was 18 and now im 66, trained by the Torrington company, which sold out to Timken bearings,and now they have sold out to some Japanese company. well back to reality ...i should have been reading reviews of the yamaha venture for 1983, i know guys love em here, but i dont get it. mine looks nice, did run good till i started to upgrade stuff, and found out Yamaha Stealerships and after market parts suppliers think there MADE OF GOLD...BLAH BLAH BLAH. im gonna start selling parts real soon i think.. seems theres more money in selling parts for em. Dont get me wrong i like the bike but its a B*tch to work on, the manuals are all wrong. the list of problems is a mile long i wanna go back a year and get something else... My sympathies are with ya! Wil