VanRiver

Amen brother....the landfills are filled with broken dreams!!....did you hear the one about the guy who disposed of a computer hard drive that contained a couple million dollars of "bitcoins" on it, never to be found again. I too have a few stories where they end with "well the garbage man picked it up and we never saw it again" after hours of searching and rummaging through bags of stinky wet garbage trying to find that receipt, bracelet, ring, or part that went missing. Anyway, I'm sorry for your loss! But nothing that money can't fix!:mo money:

Saw this picture and thought it was worthy of sharing.....nice design to keep your passenger from jumping out....or people from jumping in, depending on your perspective. I'm designing a prototype from my Venture as we speak....this would be the only way I could get my wife to ride with me!

Congrats @Venturous that is exactly the color combo I would get if I could afford it....in the meantime 1986 is as new as I can get with my Venture Royale. I also own a 1984 Goldwing Aspencade but it looks bloody prehistoric compared to your beauty! I know you will be "Venturous" on a Wing too. Enjoy and ride safe!

Yup @mralex714 nailed it....a total wet TCI. Time to relocate it to the top of your airbag and keep her dry before there is permanent damage.

Thanks Flyinfool! Yes I have been bitten by the LED bug already..thanks in part to some of your prior forum posts and advice...one of the best pieces of technology advancements in along time in my opinion....nice light, low power consumption, and they fit in places that we could only dream about a few years ago (like Led strip in reflectors). As you said, can't have enough LED's, the theory has spread from the Venture to my house, I've started to replace all the lights in the house with LED too. I wonder how different the world would be if good ol Thomas Edison would have created the LED light bulb first back in 1879 rather then the carbon filament bulb.....sure would have conserved ALOT of energy used over the years.

Hey Silverado6x6.....sounds like you got a heck of a deal! Hope you can solve your tech issues as I would love to see a pic of your new acquisition, as well as the other 17 scoots you have in your "obsession"....I mean "collection"! You mentioned in another thread that you are also a GoldWing Guy.......I also have a 1984 GoldWing Aspencade in my stable, but to be honest I like my 1986 Venture better....I don't want to start a debate, just stating my personal preference since I'm able compare them side by side....but someday I would like to pick up a new GL1800.....a boy can dream.

Great story @Bob and Mary , would love to see a picture of your Venture! Yes these bikes are not for the "novice" or "faint of heart" if you are not used to them. I had a similar experience but from the outside looking in.....I restored two 1986 Venture Royals this year as a father son project with my Dad. My Dad is 73 years old, has been riding motorcycles all his life both personally and professionally, is a retired Police Officer who chased "bad guys" on old Police Harley's for over 30 years, and taught me EVERYTHING I know....not to get too sappy but he is truly my personal mentor and Hero. And got me my first motorcycle when I was 5 years old, so he's kinda cool too. Anyway, I got the scoots all fixed up over the long Canadian winter and we went for our first ride together on the matching Venture's (Big Day as this was the climax for all the wrench turning and garage time we spent over the winter)......now the kicker, my Dad is unfortunately not the same big "Burly Policeman" at age 73 that I remember (getting old sucks!), plus he also hadn't been on a "big" motorcycle for around 20 years. Long story short I was scared as hell that he would take a spill on this "maiden voyage of the Venture" while he was still getting used to the bike and having the training and muscle memory of riding come back to him....I would never forgive myself if he hurt himself!!!!! I was totally stressed as I followed him down the road and I could see that he was showing a little stress too but didn't want to admit it to me. The good news is, it all came flowing back to him and the next thing I know he was telling me via my helmut intercom that he wanted to take it on the highway to see what this old girl could do. After a nice 1 hour ride cruising the highways and byways of Southern Alberta we headed for home....he was happy, the restored Venture's performed flawlessly, and I was finally starting to relax with the feeling that my worries about my Dad not being able to handle and enjoy the bike was me just being over protective of the man that had done things on bikes that I could only dream of, including high speed pursuits, learning to fire a weapon while riding, and how to properly lay a bike down at high speeds or in the police training sand pit (he has all kinds of great stories)........Well we exit the highway and head for my driveway to park the bikes in my garage.......I have a automatic gate at the entrance to my property that requires me to punch in a code for it to open.....so I pass my Dad and head to my keypad to punch in my code.....the next thing I know I see a flash in my rearview mirror and see my Dad and his Bike laying down on the left side. I mean completely flat with the left mirror touching the pavement. Panic set in and I have never dismounted a motorcycle so quickly in my life to see if he was OK. Long story short, the slight angle of my driveway, high centre of gravity that my Dad was not used to, plus the sheer weight of our lovely Ventures got the best of him while he was waiting for me to open the gate, and he laid her down on the very first ride. My nightmare had come true!!!.....but at least he wasn't going 100 km at the time!! Good thing was he was smart about it, once he figured he couldn't hold her up he basically rode it down with hands safely on the handlebars and feet safely tucked in on the pegs and let the crash bars do their thing. Pride was the only victim in this story. Screw the bike, as long as he was OK.....I can fix anything on that Venture, but I can't fix my Dad!! I was worried that after the incident he was going to say..."this is not for me"....but rather we stood the bike up together and he hopped right on it again and drove it up the driveway, parked it, and proceeded to ask when we would be going for our next ride.......but that we should probably not tell my Mom about the "little incident in the driveway"! Anyway, lessons learned for me that day: 1. My Dad is still my Hero! 2. Ventures are Awesome machines! 3. It takes time to get used to a new bike, to understand it's personality and unique characteristics. 4. If something that is 800+ pounds wants to fall over.....it is going to fall over.....no matter how strong or weak, young or old your legs are! 5. Mom's don't need to know about everything that happen on Father/Son Rides (sounds weird coming from a Man in his 40's, but it is true) This is my Dad back in the saddle with his sweet 1986 Brown Venture Royal, my Black 86 is the background (picture taken several rides after the "maiden voyage incident"....If you are reading this please don't tell my Mom!)

#Silverado6x6 is the Alaska Venture Hoarder.......I'm mean collector! I too have a problem with motorcycle hoarding. Why have 1 Bike when you can have 15 instead?....my wife says I have a "problem" and need to get "help"....I believe it is a talent and one of my many endearing qualities! Thanks Silverado for saving a dieing breed of excellent motorcycles, and #Godlover getting 3 Ventures right off the bat is a great way to start a collection....or illness (according to my wife)!

Well both of my 86 Venture projects are pretty much done, they are running like a dream, and we are enjoying the open road now...Thanks again for all the advice and help from the guys and gals on the forum!!!! I have kept one bike completely stock (that is the one I restored for my Dad), the other bike (mine) I'm upgrading and updating it to make it my own. I have already added the following: 1. Added as many chrome accessories as I can find and afford from Ebay, 2. I have done the R6 Blue Dot brake upgrade 3. Upgraded Final drive to a V-Max Pumpkin (that is a whole other story of my misadventures with that job) 4. Upgraded Fuse box to modern automotive fuse 5. Ground wire upgrade 6. Added Ventureline backrest 7. LED headlight, all bulbs upgraded to LED, and all reflectors converted to LED lighting too 8. New TCI installed (due to mine was only firing on 2 cylinders due to a bad original TCI unit) Now to my question....Is there anything else you guys would recommend I could or should do to further improve my 86 Venture Royal?.....any other V-max upgrades or parts that bolt on? Kind of sad to see the bike project coming to an end....I guess I'm looking for an excuse to keep my wrench turning going and more reasons to spend my money.

Live and Learn.

Thanks Guys for all the insight! #flyinfool I did your turn test comparing my original pumpkin and a FJR diff that I have which is supposed to have the same gearing as the V-max and they had the exact same number of turns. #vonwolf the spreadsheets you provided sealed the deal for me.....Basically I just replaced a perfectly working V-Max final drive with another V-Max final drive on my Venture. To make matters worse, I first purchased the FJR diff to do my replacement but I didn't read the fine print in the other members posts stating that I also needed the axel sleeve/bushing to make the FJR swap work (which of course Yamaha no longer sells separate and did not come with my ebay purchase of the diff).....So I put that diff on the parts shelf and chalked it up to "lesson learned" and decided to make a second purchase of a V-Max diff that was more "plug and Play" so another purchase from Ebay and shipping to Canada for another heavy Yamaha Pumpkin. And now I find out that I already had a V-Max diff on the bike after spending the cash for 2 replacement pumpkins!!!!!:mo money::mo money:I guess I'm pretty, just not that smart!!!! Oh well, I now have a fancy Red painted Final drive on my bike and the drive shaft got greased properly....I guess that is one positive to the situation! Now I just need to find a project to use my 2 spare pumpkins on.

I just recently "upgraded" the final drive on one of my 1986 Venture Royale's from a low milage 1986 V-Max. The install was super easy and it fit like a glove with no shim required (took me around 45 minutes to do the whole swap and Lube of the drive shaft). Well I finally took her for a test drive today, and to be honest I don't really feel any difference in performance! I have read from other members that the RPM's should increase by approx 500rpm due to the different gearing, and there should be some nice increase in snap off the line.....but I'm not seeing either of those compared to my original final drive. I'm running at approx 3800-3900RPM at 65mph which is pretty much the same values with my old Final drive unit. Were my expectations too high? Do I have my numbers wrong? Or is it possible my bike may have already had a V-Max unit (I highly doubt that)? Did the V-max donor bike have a Venture drive installed as a "upgrade"? Am I going crazy? Aside from cracking the drive open and counting teeth is there any way to confirm there is a gearing difference between my old and new final drive? They look identical aside from the shock mount stud on the v-max (which I of course removed for the Venture install). I painted the new V-max pumpkin hot red thinking it was going to add some fire to the back wheel.......but now I'm thinking it should have been plain old silver since it feels like the same old stock bike.

Hi Guys, I found a couple scans of the "Official Yamaha Gen 1 Venture Line Accessory Brochure". Wow I didn't know they had so many goodies for our bikes back in the day. If only Marty McFly could take me for a spin in his Delorian back to 1986 I could really deck out my bike with Venture Line stuff! Check out the Brochure at the links below (click on the picture to zoom in to read the fine print): http://www.bergall.org/temp/venture/venture-line-90-1.jpg http://www.bergall.org/temp/venture/venture-line-90-2.jpg

Hi #cimmer , do you happen to have a picture of your "Official Yamaha Venture Line Fairing Chrome Edge"? I've personally never seen a pair up close and would love to see what they look like to maybe investigate if I can fab up a couple pair for my two 1986 Royale's to cover up some battle scars. Sounds like they are the "Holy Grail" pieces on eBay....I haven't been able to even find a picture of them on the web. Thanks in advance!

Hi Puc, thanks for sharing the article!.....my favourite part was "riders from as far away as CANANDA"....They might want to fire up the old spell checker there at the news paper office, that is if they are referring to us folks up here in the great white north. Nothing beats reading a small town news paper, one of my favourite things to do while I'm traveling. That or the National Enquirer gossip rag, but I haven't found Yamaha Venture news in the Enquirer...yet.

Would be nice to be able to drop by the dealer and pick up all those "must have" accessories that he wrote about, especially the "$19.99 chrome fairing protectors"! Ah the good old days when our bikes were fresh and new and parked on the showroom floor. Thanks Kevin for the blast from the past!

There are a couple nice burgundy seats on Ebay (depending on your budget)......I personally like the original stock look rather then recovering. http://www.ebay.com/itm/OEM-Yamaha-XVZ1300-Venture-Royale-seat-1989-1991-1VE-2477A-00-00-XVZ-13-/171727042370?hash=item27fbbab742&vxp=mtr http://www.ebay.com/itm/yamaha-xvz1300-venture-royale-1300-complete-brown-seat-base-foam-88-89-86-87-/370833834567?hash=item56576b4247&vxp=mtr

She is very Pretty!!!! Glad to see she went to a very nice home.

Where are the pictures?????? We all love pictures of new scoots!

Of course we do! I wasn't born yesterday....I was born the day before that! :biker:

Wow....big news! Do you think they will be having discounts blow out deals on the now obsolete Victory bikes?

Well finally got my CarbTune in the mail from England and got to sync both of my 1986 Venture Royale's today with the great assistance of my Dad. My Brown Bike is now purring like a kitten and the nasty sounds are all gone after the Sync. The bike's settings were way off!!!! Cylinder #2 was off the charts! Thanks to all for the helpful advice! Here is a pic of what the Carbtune registered BEFORE the sync.....#2 was maxed to the top of the gauge.

Thanks Doug, I really appreciate the offer of the grips off your parts bike!!! I'll most likely buy some new ones ( I would assume that after 30 years the originals have probably seen better days), but I would really like to see a close up picture of what the originals looked like, that way I can try to match them up to a new pair if they are a better design for my hand comfort then what I currently have. Once again, much appreciate your offer and the Picture if you don't mind taking one!

I'm not enjoying the cheap aftermarket foam grips that are currently on my 1986 Venture Royale. They are too "Fat" in my opinion and my hands get uncomfortable holding a large diameter grip. What were the original Yamaha grips like for our bikes? Were they just a plain rubber type like on most Yamaha's of that vintage, or were the originals special in some way? Also, when I order new ones they should be for a 7/8" bar size for a first gen 1986 Venture Royale, correct?

This is me around 1975 on my uncle Merl's Honda. As I said before, my "illness" for Motorcycles started young and my family were "enablers" to my addition. I do look rather bad a$$, for a toddler anyway! I've noticed many people have said "this is my only pic of the bike" or "I don't have a photo of me with the bike"...boy times have changed with the invention of digital cameras, smart phones, and the Selfie Generation. My 14 year old probably has 300 pics of herself on her phone at any given time. I needed to sit her down and explain how film camera's worked, that a roll of film only had around 24 exposures so you didn't take 10 pictures and pick the best one, that you needed to take the film to the store to be developed, and it was EXPENSIVE! I think she thought I was making the whole story up!!!! Their lives are going to be so much more documented then ours...not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing.