BlueSky

Or you can remove the plug and put back in the plug cap. then lay the side of the plug against the engine and turn the engine with the starter and see if there is a spark at the plug gap. If you have spark on all cylinders, determine if the carb diaphragms are doing their job. On a Gen 1 you just remove the fake gas tank cover and air cleaner and watch the carbs while you blip the throttle. I'm not sure how you run your bike while looking down the carbs. And i would immediately put a half can of Seafoam or my favorite Gumout with PEA to the gas to start cleaning the carbs. On my Kawasaki when I first bought it one cylinder was dead. I confirmed spark to the plugs but didn't check the plugs. One of the plugs was dead. Only plug I've ever experienced being dead in my over half century of working on autos and some bikes.

I bought a used Layton 25' travel trailer in 89 and kept it for 4 years, until the kids got too old to be interested in camping with the old man. I was divorced at the time. Anyway, a week after buying it, I towed it 600 miles to Disney World with a WDH but no sway control with a SWB 86 F150. I was a road hazard without sway control. After I got back home, I added a Reese dual cam sway control to my Reese WDH that had 1,000 lb bars. It was very stable after that. Anyway, a couple of tips I'd like to pass on. One is to disinfect the potable water system periodically. Another is to not leave the awning up in a rain storm unless it is tilted down a lot so water will not build up on the awning becuz if it does the weight of the water can bend the awning aluminum roll tube or whatever the proper name is. I bought it for $5300 and sold it 4 yrs later for $3300 with the bent tube. It was a lot of fun but I'm not too keen on towing a TT.

Anyone who thinks they would like to ride it should start and ride their motorcycle with the clutch engaged the entire time even when starting! I rode my Concours home from work one day with the clutch engaged but I was able to get the bike rolling in neutral with the engine running before putting it in first gear. I was able to make it all the way home because traffic conditions allowed me to roll through several stop signs on the way. It's not something I would like to do again.

Amazing that someone would try to build a bike like that. You can't stop without killing the engine. What were they thinking?

One rider's reason for trading his Indian Roadmaster. I stumbled onto this video last night.

I let my 07 sit too long, about a month, and the battery was very weak. It turned the engine when I tried to start it just a little and then nothing. The battery ckecked 12.2 volts. I put a smart charger on it set on auto charge and left it overnight. Then the charger and my meter checked the battery voltage at 12.9 volts. I recently bought the bike so I have no idea how old the battery is. The bike fired right up.

When I looked on the T4 bottle, I didn't see the auto spec such as SN listed. It may do fine in auto engines. I don't know but it doesn't list the spec the manual says is required.

I think one reason the gas mileage is lower than other trucks is the fact that it comes with a 4.30 ratio rear gear. Other trucks typically come with a 3.55 or lower numeric ratio. The Dodge does have an optional 3.90.

Very Nice! Is it a 4x4? I test drove one a few months ago and liked it but since I retired, I don't put that many miles on my truck and it still does the job quite well so I had my old 2002 F150 painted and kept it. The paint on the top and hood was in bad shape prompting a decision.

Banana Cream Pie! Just how far are you from NC?

Every year late winter or early spring I get the runny nose allergies and this is what works for me. https://www.vitacost.com/boericke-tafel-allergiemittel-alleraide

It's still illegal according to federal law. So, if there is someone the feds want to nail really bad, breaking the federal pot law may be just the ticket. I'm retired now. But, I was subject to drug tests my entire working career. So, it was always a NO NO for me since it was a career ending event if I tested positive.

When I went to the last high school reunion, I couldn't believe how old all my classmates had become! Those reunions are when you realize how old we are. My oldest sister is 78 and widowed. Lately she has been spending time with a guy we grew up with who is her age. I had not seen him since high school and not in a million years could I have guessed who he was when I recently saw him. You have to be tough to get old!

Based on knowledge gained from my auto hot rodder days, many hot rodders just used mechanical (centrifugal) advance with a total advance of around 36 degrees combining the idle setting and the centrifugal advance. But for road use when an engine is running at low throttle at a steady speed the fuel mixture is lean and the engine could use more advance for optimum fuel economy. So, hooking the vacuum advance to the manifold vacuum would give you max advance at low throttle and lose it for full throtte which is ideal. I never understood why the vacuum advance would be hooked up to ported vacuum (above the throtte plates).

Things are changing as more and more states are making pot legal on the state level.

War story warning! Back in the 80's when the Shearon Harris Nuclear Power Plant was being constructed, a contract engineer who worked there and had lots of other contract engineers placed there working through him wanted his leased Ferrari driven back to CA to turn it in ran an ad in the paper for a driver to drive the Ferrari from NC to CA at their expense. Of course he got lots of responses and he selected a guy who drove up on a Porsche. It was driven back to CA and turned in without incident.

I have a comment on the article. The lower ZDDP may not be detrimental to auto engines because almost all have roller cams or roller rockers reducing the friction on the camshaft. If current auto oils are used in a remanufactured flat tappet cam engine during breakin, the cam will be destroyed. This leads me to believe that auto oils should not be used in our old motorcycle engines. Or at least I ain't using it in my motorcycles.

Looks good!

When you are determined and hang in there, it's always satisfying to complete a successful job. Congratulations! I'm one to talk but losing weight is the best remedy for arthritis I think.

I was just watching the weather channel and they showed a train that had been blown over. The cars were empty but still blowing over a train is scary.

Maybe so, but last winter was colder than normal and this winter is shaping up as warmer than normal. I just got my electric bill for last month and it is twice as high as it was for the same month last year. (central AC/heat pumps) During the 1996 to 2000 time frame, 4 hurricanes came directly to Wilmington, NC with the eye of all of them going over my house. There haven't been that many in recent years so I remain a little bit of a skeptic.

Having just recently endured a cat 2 hurricane by the time it arrived at my house, I would evacuate for a cat 4 for sure. My subdivision looks like a war zone with all the cut up trees stacked in front of the houses. The majority of the homes had one or more trees fall. A few of those fell on the homes. A cat 4 hitting a trailer park would be extremely scary. I hope he does okay.

In 2007 the 4.6L triton V8 was a 2 valve engine and it is quite good. It is infamous for blowing out spark plugs due to the few threads in the heads but if torqued properly, they don't blow out. My 2000 F150 5.4L V8 2V engine didn't blow out a spark plug in 170k miles when I lost track of it. My current 2002 F150 5.4L V8 2V engine hasn't blown a spark plug in 151k miles. (knock on wood!) And it isn't that hard to repair with a timesert if a plug blows out. In 2004 thru 2010 the 5.4L engine was a 3V with VCT and that can cause serious issues if oil changes aren't frequent.

The 4.2L V6 is a very good engine. It should last a very long time. The 5.4L V8 was not as reliable if the VCT (variable cam timing) gave problems.

It would seem that deer are very stupid animals that they would charge across the road as they do in front of vehicles. That is what convinced me that they were put on earth to be food.