BlueSky

My wife had a DNA test done. She is from Siberia, Russia. One surprising thing was that it said she was 5% Native American. The Russians did settle Alaska and sold it to the USA. Many Russians lived in the Washington/ Oregon area early in the history of the country as I remember. She insisted I had mine checked so I did. I supposedly am about 94% West European with the highest percentage Irish, about 28%. It also said that with "low confidence" that I was 3% African,

VanRiver, How are you liking your K1200LT? (thread hijack!)

Wonder how much a 150lb plus spouse sitting in the sidecar would affect the drive? It looks like some ingenious engineering. The K1600 is a beautiful bike!!

While I agree that the training is necessary and justifiable, not many of us would want to or could afford to subject our motorcycles to the kind of abuse those bikes go through while training officers. But when the taxpayers are doing the funding the sky is the limit.

Welcome! You don't have to own a Venture to be a member. Lots of owners of many brands on this site.

You may have heard lots of people recommend not using Fram filters. This video will help explain why.

Training in short sleeve shirts?

There are a least two videos on the internet showing how to eliminate the BMW servo controlled brakes.

Well, that didn't last long.

I got new truck fever a few months ago and test drove a Ford SWB 4x4 with the 5.0L. It rode harder than I like and driving around town normally it didn't feel any perkier than my old 2002 F150 Scab 4x4 with the 5.4L 260hp engine. Stepping on it was a different story. I test drove a Dodge Quad Cab 4x4 5.7L. It had such a smooth ride. I didn't notice anything I could complain about. I used to be 6' but being the old fart that I am now, I have shrunk to not much over 5' 10". But the tightwad in me overcame the new truck fever and I'm still driving my old 2002.

Probably be less expensive to get yours repaired. But, tempting to buy new. Decisions! Decisions! I'd probably buy new. If you had one of those home warranties, they always pay for repairs. You'd never get a new appliance. One of my neighbors has a home warranty and they keep repairing his 25 yr old heat pump. I got tired of the constant repairs on my two Rheem heat pumps at 15 yrs and had both replaced with more efficient more reliable units. I noticed the difference in the electric bill because they are more efficient. That was ten yrs ago and last year I had to call the repairman for the first time and the part was still under the ten yr warranty.

I was skeptical when the ecoboost first came out and I still am to a certain extent but they are proving themselves it seems. Over a million sold as of 2016. They are the most popular engine in the f150 since 2011 I believe. https://www.torquenews.com/106/ford-has-sold-one-million-ecoboost-f150-pickups https://jalopnik.com/heres-how-a-ford-f-150-ecoboost-held-up-after-200-000-m-1790602670

I wish you the best in your fight with cancer. A few days ago this story appeared in the news. I started taking turmeric as a supplement afterwards. https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/5258742/cancer-patient-67-beats-the-disease-with-the-help-of-turmeric-after-five-years-of-chemo-failed/

I didn't take it as Ford bashing. Facts are facts. I used to be a Chevy guy but I don't really have any brand preference any more except that I have a phobia about GM products now. The finality of that was caused by having 3 new not rebuilt but still bad engines (GM Goodwrench engines) installed in my last Chevy a 1986SS Monte Carlo by the Chevy dealer and then the fact that taxpayers lost billions of dollars buying GM stock at an inflated price to save them and selling it at a loss. Seems like we lost a bunch on Chrysler too but I'm not sure. Ford ended up saving themselves without costing taxpayers as I understand it. My wife has a very reliable Infiniti (so far) and I bought one Mitsubishi and two Mazdas all great cars in the past for my wife and stepson. I've owned several other foreign cars in the past, a new 75 Honda Civic that was a POS bought before Honda got the car quality up to snuff, a 81 Chevy LUV (Isuzu) that was a disapppointment, the red paint faded terribly in the 18 months I owned it, along with several other defects, and a 80 Ford Fiesta made by Ford of Germany which was a reliable car but had terrible brakes. I bought the Dodge Magnum Hemi because I got a great deal on it as a leftover and it had what i was looking for, V8, RWD, an independent rear suspension. I didn't want to spend the money for a BMW.

I agree with you in general. I'm old school also and I would buy the V8 over the ecoboost. But, the first generation of the "triton" engine with 2 valves/cyl plug blowout issue is resolved with torquing the plugs more. I put 105k on my 2000 F150 5.4L with no problems. I sold it to a friend who had the dealer replace the plugs and it had 170k on it when he sold it with no plug blowouts. I currently have a 2002 F150 5.4L that had 69k on it when I bought it. I changed the plugs myself at 119k miles and just torqued them properly which is about twice what the manual says. It has 148k on it now with no blowouts. Other than the plug blowout possibility it is a great engine. Google million mile van and read about an E250 van with the 5.4L 2V engine that finally blew up at about 1,270,000 miles. The plug snapping issue with the 2004 thru 2008 5.4L 3 valve engines can be gotten around by using the proper technique. Some of them have variable cam timing issues though that can kill the engine. My 5.7L Hemi engine in my 2005 Dodge Magnum has a reputation of dropping valve seats and destroying the engine. It turns out that the valve seats did not have a tight enough press fit in the aluminum heads and sometimes they drop especially if it overheats. The 95 Mark VIII with 4.6L DOHC engine that the Magnum replaced had a possibility of valve train breakage that destroyed some of those. So, there aren't any perfect vehicles out there it my knowledge especially with high mileage. The first car I started driving in 1960 was the family 55 Chevrolet 6cyl. It needed a rebuild at 60k miles because of excessive cylinder wear. My first car was a 56 Chevy convertible with a 265 V8. A piston cracked causing me to rebuild it. My next car was a 59 chevy 283 cu in V8. A lifter collapsed in that engine. On and On. I rebuilt several engines in GM cars I've owned. I quit having engine problems when I started buying Fords.

Certifying it through the EPA tests will be interesting. To extract that much power with that much fuel economy, it must have an eye popping compression ratio and that usually gives high NO pollutants. One of the more interesting things said was that the Germans in WWII has bombers that used these engines and could fly from Germany to South America without refueling. Those Germans came up with much advanced technology back then, rockets, jet engines, and this. I'm sure there are many more. Just glad they didn't develop the A bomb first. The turbo engines don't lose much hp in the mountains making them excellent choices for towing.

FlyingFool, you are falling behind. The F150 3.5l ecoboost is proving to be a good engine that will tow more than the V8s and accelerate quicker. A f150 with a 2.7L ecoboost has been available the last couple of years with plenty of hp and torque.

I don't know but my 85 ZN700 Kawasaki that only had 1k miles on it when I bought it in 2009 had the original plugs in it that were 7s. I think the manual suggests the 7 range for lots of short trips and the 8 for lots of highway riding on my Kawa.

NGK DPR7EA-9 is one range hotter actually. https://www.sparkplugs.com/Data/uploads/Charts/NGK_Plug_Chart_1.jpg

Here is a video link. Don't know if it will help.

It's a beautiful bike but sitting beside the Harley at the stoplight, it looks like it has a really big butt!

Wilmington, NC gets snow about once in ten years and we got 2 or 3 inches a week ago. It hung around for a while since it was also unseasonably cold but now it's gone and the temps are heading to the 60's tomorrow.

Amazing! Who would have guessed that many have occurred? I remember that we were warned in the 50's not to eat snow cream because of fallout from the above ground testing.

Here is one. https://orlando.craigslist.org/mcd/d/new-2018-yamaha-venture-now/6446704586.html

Well, sounds like I was wrong when I stated that Yamaha hadn't upgraded anything on the Gen 2 Venture in the 14 years of production.