BlueSky

Check the front brakes to make sure the fork seals aren't leaking. If they have leaked in the past, there may be some oil still on the pads. If so, you may be able to use some concentrated soap like Simple Green to clean the pads. I did that on my Kawasaki and it worked out fine.

It does sound like it may be running out of fuel. But, if it is only doing it on a couple of cylinders, it could be dirty carbs. Maybe shotgun the carbs? Ignition problems seem to be worse in the higher gears too. I deleted my photobucket account, so maybe this annoying tag will go away tomorrow when their people go back to work and act on my deletion.

Summer of 2014, I worked a job that was about 283 miles from home, so I rented an apt and drove home on the weekends. I have a Superchips tuner for my 2005 Dodge Magnum Hemi car that allowed me to tune the engine for 87 octane or 91. I was using so much gas at that time that I tuned it for 87. According to my rough calculations, I did get a little better fuel mileage tuned for the 91 but I was saving about $12/week running 87. But, my car has MDS which shuts off 4 cylinders when cruising to save fuel. Driving down I95 in South Carolina at 80mph with the cruise set, it didn't take much of an incline for the computer to switch the 4 cylinders back on. I thought it was missing at first before I realized that it was switching the 4 cylinders off and on. That demonstrated a slight hp/torque decrease in the 87 tune. I set it back to a 91 tune afterwards. I like the tuner because it did improve the throttle response noticeably and increased the hp/torque by 12hp/15 ft. lbs. according to the Superchips site and it felt like that was about right. The site has a dyno graph for my engine showing the results.

Last year on my trip to Wyoming, I was curious about the low octane gas that was available. I'm told that at the higher elevations, 85 octane is all an engine needs that would require 87 at sea level since the air is thinner. I still bought 87 octane for my truck not knowing that 85 was okay. And, I was able to notice a huge difference in the horsepower of my truck at the higher elevations. I wasn't checking fuel economy on the trip but it wasn't good.

I use ethanol free 93 octane gasoline in all my yard tools and motorcycles because it is available locally and I've found from experience that the carbs don't clog up as bad when sitting a long time. Ethanol will emulsify water if any is in the gas. Otherwise the water will settle to the bottom of the tank and cause running problems.

Don't know what kind of "fastener" we are talking about. But, if it is a phillips type head you really need JAS screwdrivers and/or JAS bits for the impact driver. I just bought both from vesseltools.com.

The photos of the engine shows the oil cooler. This bike looks massive in the frontal view.

Won't open for me.

The front view makes the bike look HUGE!

I would suspect that if you are riding double in the hills, you would notice if a cylinder quit firing. I've never used Seafoam but I did notice that it costs $6.99 a can in the local Walmart. I use Gumout for high mileage engines because it has PEA polyetheramine in it like Chevron Techron. I've used enough Gumout to know that it won't harm a carburetor.

Thanks for the article. It's always a good thing to review what can happen and keep us thinking about how to avoid a crash.

Okay, let me guess. Her husband came home unexpectedly!!!

Yes, I've ordered some things for my Kawasaki from them this year. No complaints about their service.

Well, if you did that without dropping the bike, you did good! Glad you are going to be hanging out here!

You are probably aware that the RSTD V4 has about 75hp instead of the 98hp in the Venture.

I bought a gel seat cushion from onlygel.com for my Kawasaki. It's about an inch thick. It does raise me up a bit which isn't a problem on the Kawa except that it puts my head more into the turbulent zone behind the National Cycle Plexifairing 3 windshield. So far I've used it with the clips or hooks that hook under the sides of the seat on both sides. When I sit on it and compress the seat the hook may come loose. It did come with a strap that can go under the seat all the way across but I haven't tried that yet. The cushion appears to be high quality. Some highway pegs may be what you need. I bought some cheap ones for the kawa and I can't get them tight enough to keep from turning on the crash bar.

I told my wife that the only cruise I ever wanted to go on was the Alaska cruise. I had no interest in going on the Caribbean cruise. Of course the only cruise we've been on was a Carribbean cruise. I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would. Maybe one day we will make it to Alaska one way or another.

Both my boys drive stick shifts. The oldest is 38 and all of his cars have been stick shift, Escort and several Mustangs. The youngest (25) has a Miata. After he totalled his first Miata, I bought a cheap auto Mustang for him. My daughter has always driven an auto. She was accident prone like her mother for many years but finally turned into a good driver. My ex has always been an accident prone driver. Current wife has never driven a stick. I taught her to drive at age 42. She is a careful driver, so far accident free (knock on wood).

Google "Stratoliner specs" and see what you think. This is what Cycle World said about the Stratliner: This technical package helps make the big Twin a very flexible engine. But its very large displacement doesn't hurt! In any case, Yamaha claims a peak output of 91 horsepower and 117 foot-pounds of torque at the rear wheel. That is Big Business, and, after some time in the saddle, the latter figure is pretty easy to believe. The Stratoliner not only grunts away strongly from a standstill, but also easily torques past traffic, rarely requiring a downshift with the slick five-speed transmission. Twin counterrotating balancers keep engine vibration in check. The torque is the same as the goldwing. The GW has about 118 hp from what I read. I wouldn't buy an air cooled bagger but the power probably is adequate.

The "new" V-twin will be plenty powerful for that bike. It' basically a Stratoliner engine and if I remember correctly, it has close to 100hp. But with 125 ft. lbs. of torque it should stretch your arms all you want. If you don't mind the air cooling, you'll probably like it.

Did you switch both coil leads, input and output?

Nice!

A member of the Kawasaki forum posted this procedure for cleaning his carbs. Sounds like a good idea. "After consulting with the Sea Foam people (one working day response -- excellent customer service) about potential damage to O-rings, diaphragm etc. (short answer: none), I decided on the following course of action: 1. Drain the float bowls and took note of the quantity of fuel (around 75 ml in my case). 2. Turn off the petcock, and disconnect the fuel line. 3. Using a graduated squeeze bottle, refill the carbs through the fuel line with the same amount of Sea Foam as the quantity of fuel drained from the float bowls. 4. Let sit for 24 hours. 5. Drain bowls, reconnect the fuel line, flush with new fuel and then repeat the process. 6. After the third time, make sure all the Sea Foam has been drained. Reconnect the fuel line. 7. Bike started on the button within five seconds -- better than it has all in the years I've had it."

Lot of junk there. Seems like so many have locked up engines. "bill of sale"? May be hard to title.

Sounds good.