VanRiver

Hi Eck....I'm very jealous sitting up here in Snowy Canada and being several months away from riding. I agree with Kic. Those Pics won't standup in court with a date stamp of 05/03/2015.

Thanks Puc, I have been following your great adventure on Tweeks with your lovely wife Tippy in the other forum.....You sir are my hero! If there is one thing that I never want to be called on this forum is a "Rule breaker".....therefore here are some pics of my VR's. I'm restoring these as a father son project. My Dad is 74 years young (I'm in my 40's) and I wanted to get back on the road with him just like when I was a kid....he instilled the values of motorcycles in me at a very early age....so the Black bike is mine (lots of restoration work to go but the bike has a really cool history and story to her which I will post some day) but the nice Brown bike is for him. That is my mom and dad taking it for a ride on the centre stand. Nothing like father son bonding time in my shop and hopefully on the highways come spring too! Sounds like you instilled the same values with your son starting with the CT-70. I included a pic of the same CT-70 I used in my avatar but after my restoration was done..I built it for my daughter when she was 10 to hopefully set the right tone with the next generation. The CT-70 is another bullet proof machine just like our Ventures! Thanks Cowpuc for sharing your Mileage insight!

I'm fortunate to have two 1986 Venture Royale's in my stable with relatively low milage on the clock.....but I know these engines are pretty much bulletproof if cared for properly. I have heard stories of venture motors with 250,000+ miles still running strong. I would like to hear from the community on how many miles your bikes have traveled in their lives to confirm if the stories are true. By the way, my two Ventures have 96,000 Km's and 47,000 Km's on them (they are Canadian bikes)....so I'm hoping they are still babies when it comes to engine life.

In for 2 decals! Money sent. Thanks Freebird for getting another batch made!

Thanks Gary, this is exactly what I needed. A picture is worth a 1,000 words! Much appreciate the clarification.

Thanks bongobobny for the reply and the details of the specific resistor I need to use! But I'm rather a novice at this, can you clarify the term "probe lead" to me? Is that the specific solder pad for the headlight or brake light sensor on the the CMU board or is this installed in the wiring before it goes through the CMU? THX!

Hi Guys, I'm in the process of upgrading to LED bulbs on one of 86 Venture Royals. I have already converted the headlight and it sure makes a difference. I have read several articles and forum posts of guys who have already done this and there have been several references made to "Jumper the CMU for headlight, running, and brake lights" so the dash warning indicator isn't constantly lit due to the CMU thinking there is a bulb burnt out caused by the greatly reduce electrical draw from the more efficient LED bulbs. Although there is very detailed info about converting to LED's, I have not been able to find details of what the steps are to perform this "Jumper on the CMU". Any experts out there who have already performed this "jumper" process on the CMU that could point me in the right direction of which solder points I need to jumper for Headlight and Brake lights? Thanks in advance!

I concur with Flyday58, mine was acting similar to what you described and I discovered it was a bad TCI box, and my bike was only running on 2 cylinders most of the time with the other 2 kicking in now and then. I originally thought it was a carb issue until I pulled all four plugs, grounded them to the block and watched for spark while cranking the motor. I was chasing my tail for a long time trying to use Seafoam to fix what turned out to be an electrical problem.

Well my working replacement TCI arrived in the mail today, plugged her in and my Venture started right up and she is firing on all 4 cylinders again!! Yippie!!! Thanks to everyone for your advice and comments. But I would like to give a BIG shout out and THANK YOU to two members: 1. MasterGuns (Herb) for selling me his spare TCI box and at a very fair price. Really appreciate your kindness to help a Newbie Member like myself! 2. Neil86 (Neil) for taking the time to walk me through all the step-by-step troubleshooting and testing of my electrical system. I learned so much from you! So many more task to complete on the bike before spring, but this is one big step toward hitting the open road on my 86!

Thanks everyone for your fantastic insight and advice! You have all helped convinced me to do this project myself. Once I get some spare time I will also visit some of my local motorcycle shops to see if they are willing to swap shims, much better advice then first going to eBay like I planned. Hopefully I will only need a few different shims if my motors are still relatively in spec. Sorry, no surface grinder in my home workshop to grind my own shims ('Fool I'm jealous of your skills and power tools!). So, these motors tighten up over time.....Is it true that a properly shimmed motor should have a audible "tappet click" and sound a little like an "angry sewing machine"? One of my bikes sounds like that (the one with lower milage) the other bike with almost double the milage on it is very smooth and quiet......maybe too quiet!

I purchased two 1986 Venture Royale's this year as a father-son restoration project, one has 86,000KM and the other 47,000km and no history or service records to indicate the last time the valves were checked or adjusted. So to be safe I thought it would be wise to adjust the valves on both bikes right away, especially the one with 86K on her. I have attempted to read every forum post about Valve adjustment (and there are a lot). I've read posts saying that it is relatively straight forward if you take your time and have the right tools....I have also read frantic requests for help and horror stories of shim miscalculations, chipped valve buckets, stuck shims, and of course sad stories of people spinning the engines with no shims installed causing damage! I already have bought the special yamaha valve tool and have 4 new valve cover gaskets ready to go.....but have not bought shims at this point. Anyway long story short, I have 2 questions that I would like to get the veterans advise on: 1. Should I even try this on my own as a newbie? I love to learn, turn wrenches, and I'm cheap! Therefore I was very eager to do it myself before I read all the forum posts. Not to mentions there is a local Venture expert who charges $250 labour, plus gasket cost, and shims costs per bike to do the job. Is it worth $500-$700 to avoid all the possible damage, personal stress, and problems I might experience? 2. If I do it myself, Shims? My plan was to do all the measurements and calculations first (with the help of Dingy's awesome spreadsheet and my Yamaha Manual) then order the shims sizes I need off of eBay to complete the job (so far I have not found a local source for shims). Would this work? Or do you recommend that I have a kit containing a wide selection of many sizes just incase for some trial and error testing with different sizes which I couldn't do with my original plan of only buying what I needed? Your expert feedback is much appreciated!

Thanks MasterGuns...I'll send you a PM shortly.

Hello Experts...My bike is a 1986 Venture Royale....what other year TCI's are compatible with my bike? Is it the same TCI for all MKI bikes from 1984-1989? Need to know for my search on eBay. I hate buying 25+ year old electrical parts on eBay...Like gambling in Vegas.

I pulled the TCI, It looks good with no visible moisture or corrosion issues...but there is a visible crack in the board near the pins for the plugs and a small chip missing near the corner screw. Now when I plug the TCI in again relocated on top of the Air box I get no spark at all on any cylinder. :crying: Looks like I need a new TCI, and the member Dingy is sold out of his Ignitech kits.

Thanks Thomas! best price I've seen and Canadian too. I'll be hitting the "buy" button today for 10 lenses.

I agree, our American brothers and sisters have it so good when it comes to online shopping and cost effective delivery options! But, the wife and I have a winter vacation home in Arizona, so I sometimes have things delivered down there to keep costs down. As long as it fits in my suitcase, we are good to go.

Houston we have a problem....Yup, I just did a test....one by one pulled the spark plug wire on all cylinders and grounded a plug to engine block to test.....I get one single spark as soon as I hit the starter button on #1 and #3 then NOTHING. Spark looks proper and consistent on #2 and #4. Does this mean I have a bad TCI??...or is it worth me troubleshooting anything else? The TCI is a mysterious Black box to me......Should I just go with a "Ignitech TCI" setup I have been reading so much about on the forum from member "Dingy"? Thanks for the help!

Hello experts, sorry this is probably a very novice question to ask, but I know you will be kind to me if it is. My 1986 Venture appears to be running ok (in the garage) I have not been able to take this bike out on the road since I purchased it in a non-running condition (stupid winter weather), and have been able to get it idling and revving fairly nicely in the shop. Anyway, the 2 front engine cylinders (cyl #2 and #4) seem to heat up really quick while the rear cylinders (cyl #1 and #3) stay relatively cool to the touch for a long time while the bike runs. Also when I pull the spark plug wires off of Cyl #2 or #4 while it is idling, the bike immediately stalls. But if I pull the plug wire off a rear cylinder (cyl #1 or #3) the bike continues to idle with no evident hesitation. I have only tested it this way at idle, I have not revved it with a rear spark plug wire removed Does this mean that I'm not getting fire in the rear cylinders?? But it sounds like it is running fine and strong, not like an engine missing a cylinder...that is why I'm confused and reaching out. Also, on initial start up it appears that I'm getting exhaust fumes coming out of the Airfilter box....it's difficult to tell and the light needs to be just right to see it. Is this related in anyway? Any thoughts or insight from you experts would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks Doug, with the high cost of shipping to Canada I'm always worried about buying the wrong part and then having the pleasure of paying for shipping AGAIN to return the item. Do you happen to have a link for the ones on Amazon that you purchased?

Thanks Prairiehammer! All my searches on the internet never pointed me to the key word of "Baron Mini Twin". Much appreciated!

Hello guys, I'm attempting to restore a 1986 Venture Royal that has the "Optional Yamaha Light bar" (as stated in the yamaha propaganda sales brochure). It is the one with the 10 red plastic lense covers. My lenses are so old, faded, brittle and downright fragile that simply removing them to replace the bulbs is like doing brain surgery and always results in breakage no matter how carefully I'am. Plus they look like they have been through a war. I would assume I'm not the only person who has experienced this and I was wondering if anyone has found a replacement or maybe come up with a alternative way to fix or replace these with something else....maybe found a similar sized red LED lighted reflector? I really like the look of this light bar bumper so I would love to find an alternative to make it pretty and useful again, rather then put on the boring stock non-lighted one which I have sitting on my work bench. Plus you can never have too many lights on the back! Thanks in advance, any feedback or ideas are much appreciated.

I'm on the map! Thought I was the first Canadian member to add their location....but a member from Vancouver beat me to it. Way to go EH!

PM sent with the info of my two 1986 Venture's. Thanks!

Finishing my 1958 Cadillac bar in the "Man Cave". And doing a "Father Son Project" with my Dad, restoring two 1986 Venture Royale's so he and I can rekindle our younger day cruising the open roads together come spring.

Found this 12 video series from Yamaha Canada related to the repair and maintenance of our Gen 1 Venture's. I'm a new member and this is my first post, so I'm hoping I'm not repeating something already posted. These are the official Yamaha Service Department training videos, and as the "instructor" in video 12 says "are the basis for the multiple choice exam" that mechanics would need to write to receive their official Yamaha Venture maintenance certificate (they needed to get a 90% to pass the test!). The video quality is kind of crappy, but hey, it was put on Youtube from old dusty VHS tapes from the early 1980's, what do you expect! Here are the topics the videos cover (So cool seeing our machines when they were fresh and new from the factory!): -Engine and Chassis Maintenance - -Engine Removal -Engine Overhaul -Engine Assembly -Carburetion -Electrical -Fork Rebuilding Here are the links to the youtube videos: Video 1: Video 2: Video 3: Video 4: Video 5: Video 6: Video 7: Video 8: Video 9: Video 10: Video 11: http://youtu.be/LdF7bMiP01Q Video 12: http://youtu.be/JPqpEn1-sdA Or you can find them by doing a search at Youtube.com for "Yamaha Venture 1984-1992 Motorcycle Maintenance" Hope you enjoy them as much as I did! I own two 1986 Venture Royale's that will benefit from these videos. Thanks Yamaha Canada!