BlueSky

Yamaha chose to get into the wannabe Harley market. That's okay. I suppose that big V twin should have passing power on the road. I hope they sell enough to come out ahead financially. Those of us who prefer an older Venture, or Goldwing, or BMW have those choices.

Back in 2010 when I was thinking about buying a Kawasaki Voyager XII I was reading the info on the Voyager site. One thing I read was a detailed post with photos of two guys who rode on the Florida to Alaska annual ride. One was riding a 250cc Suzuki and his buddy was riding a 600cc Honda Silverwing Scooter towing a trailer. So yeah, we can ride and tour on our bikes no matter what they are. Some are just easier to live with than others. But there ain't no perfect anything out there. I've only ridden briefly 3 touring bikes or baggers, a 2002 Kawasaki Voyager, a 2006 Honda Goldwing, and my current 89 Venture. My favorite is the Goldwing, followed by the Venture and then the Voyager. The Wing was easy to handle, smooth, quiet, and I had no complaints except for the price. The Voyager had very little leg room, was top heavy, and had the loudest transmission I've ever heard. The Venture comes in at number two in my opinion. It's top heavy, has a cheapy feel about it, but has the best sounding engine I've ever heard when the throttle gets a little love!

Good Point! Back in the 30's riders rode bikes with air cooled V twins. Now it's 2017 and Yamaha comes out with their new touring bike that has an air cooled v twin. Hilarious depending on your sense of humor!

http://www.partzilla.com/parts/search/Yamaha/Motorcycle/1984/XVZ12DL/FAIRING+2/parts.html Looks like partzilla has them. Member crue69 has a 89 parts bike. You can PM him and see if he has them. Check partzilla for both years and see if they have the same part number

Today I noticed that there are two Gen I part bikes for sale for $500 in the classifieds. They are nice looking bikes too but high mileage.

No carbs! Fuel Injection! on the 2001 and up Goldwings as I understand it. When they went to the 1800 six.

It is normal for a metal "sludge" to build up on the magnet. That is why the magnet is there. I don't think it is anything to worry about. It there are large metal shavings there, then you have a problem.

Gosh, it's only a motorcycle! The Gen I, Gen II, and Gen III bikes are very different from each other. About the only things common between the 1st and 2nd Gen are the V4 engine and shaft drive. Not much else is the same, seating position, style, fairing mount. The Gen I has nothing in common with the Gen III that I can think of. Okay, they both have frame mounted fairings. the Gen II and III have similar seating positions. It's very understandable why someone could prefer one Gen over another since they are so different. They are motorcycles but we are passionate about motorcycles or we wouldn't be participating in this forum.

It's all about image and bells and whistles. The new Stratoliner has that. Yeah, one of my bikes is air cooled. But I paid $1200 for it and it has a 10,000 rpm redline and it's little 700cc four produces 74 hp, almost as much hp as the new Stratoliner.

I don't think any of the manufacturers publish the hp of the V twin cruisers. If they did it wouldn't help the sales. If you buy a FJR the hp number is readily available. They are proud of the FJR hp number!

No input from cowpuc yet? He must have the tears wiped from his eyes by now!

It's not a Venture. It's a Stratoliner!

Perhaps the low mileage tells the story. They haven't been ridden much. Not unusual at all for motorcycles to not be ridden much and then the owner sells rather than keep paying insurance and suffering depreciation or making payments in one of those situations. One owner did say he was in the military and was being transferred as his reason. When I bought my 85 Kawasaki in 2009, it had 1k miles on it. When I bought my 89 Venture in 2014, it had 6k miles on it. The drawback to buying a BMW in my opinion is that they are expensive, parts and labor are very expensive and overall I don't think they are as reliable as a Japanese bike. The good part is that the engineering is top notch. I've never test driven a BMW auto because I've been afraid I would buy it! LOL!

I bought my first bike in 1971. Almost immediately afterwards I bought a Sears impact driver that I still revere. Recently, I bought JIS 5/16" shank bits for it from Vessel Tools. Priceless tool!

I looked on craigslist and found a 2014 BMWK1600GTL with 4200 miles for $16,500 and a 2014 with 4900 miles for $15,500. Lusting!

The BMW K1600GTL is as close to the perfect touring bike as you can get in my opinion. I'd love to have one. Bring More Wallet! And it weighs about 200lbs less than the new Stratoliner.

Give Skydoc a shout. He sells a rear caliper for the MKII that has the bleed valve on top. I'm sure he can tell you if it works on the MKI.

I suppose cowpuc hasn't calmed down enough to comment on the forum yet. Riding all the way there to see the historic unveiling of a new Venture with the Vmax engine and being disappointed is a real bummer.

I can understand why they went to a V-twin, much much cheaper and trying to pick off some Harley sales, not BMW or Honda. But, I cannot understand why they didn't use water cooling. At least Kawasaki added water cooling to the Voyager. I know air cooled bikes CAN last a long time. I recently talked to a Harley owner who had over 180k miles on his. He did a lot of touring but he said he never rode over 65 mph even out west. I don't want a bike that I have to baby to get it to last.

A while back I read an old internet article about the Los Angeles Sheriff's dept test of new potential police bikes. One or two of them were Harleys. One thing that really stuck to my memory was that the specifications provided by Harley for acceptable oil temperature was 410 degrees F. That is a mind numbing temp for oil in my opinion and completely rules out a heavy touring bike with an air cooled engine. How long would one last with Puc running across the desert at 100 mph? He would need new engines about as often as new tires.

Stratoliner engine instead of a VMax engine:95:

It's a beautiful bike I admit. But I'd never buy an air cooled touring bike. I don't think the Honda Goldwing or the BMW 1600 have any competition from this one.

Air cooled! Just what Puc needs to tour the southwest desert! NOT!!!!

I hate screw extractors. I think every time I've used one it broke off and as I remember I ended up replacing the part the bolt was stuck in. I hope you can grind the bolt head off!

Most of us have subjective opinions about everything including oil. The only reason I posted about the FJR1300 owner is that he gets his oil lab tested and his opinion is not subjective, but based on the lab report. Like I said, for what it's worth.