Flyinfool

Oh man, this Saturday I am helping my 103 year old grandmother move. Or I could head for free meat and let her move herself.....................

Why is it that @cowpuc forgot all about the high temperature snow he has me developing. Why would I want to invent snow that don't melt till it is above 60°F.

Does heat in Canada mean that it got above freezing? I have been thinking about getting a dash cam or 2 for the bike and the truck. Not sure just what I want for features yet. It would be nice if there was a water proof one for the bike.

Why would you post to this thread in the middle of summer. This is a winter thread. Why would you tell me that you miss winter and want more

Mine is a bit obvious. I like to play with anything that will fly. I started with model airplanes 50 years ago and never stopped. I even managed to get my private pilots license to be able to fly full size airplanes even with passengers.

Over the 4th of July weekend I learned how to tear out and then build a new set of stars to allow me to get in and out of the house alive.

So who is going to be the first to put a Rostra on a Venture???? I have been thinking getting a Rostra for the cage.

Don't you have to have a mind to be a legend in it? I thought you lost your mind when the cork fell out..................... I know I am a mindless old fool. Not many can argue with that. Maybe from playing with so many flakes. Now where did I put that new nozzle wrench...........

IF you can find them, use left hand drill bits to drill out the stud, I have found that often the drill bit will catch and spin the stud out before you ever get to the easy out. I bought a set of easy outs and then bought all of the correct drills in left hand to keep with the set of easy outs.

Don't be startin rumors here. I already have a hard time getting my head through the doors......................

I have not seen you up here by me yet, or you have not headed out flying with me. So when will you be here? Right now i am just sitting in the back hall stairing at my new stares that I HAD to build over the holiday........ (puns intended) Ever get to watch an internal combustion engine run at 125K rpm? See you have led a boring sheltered life and not seen much.....................

I agree with Djh3. Checking them is not a difficult job but it is very time consuming as they are not real easy to get to. I checked mine at 50K and there were several exhaust valve right at the point of ready to blow the engine. They we under .001 clearance. If you hit zero you will burn the valve out of the engine. As mentioned there are others like @cowpuc that have gone 300K miles and never checked them and had no problems. Do you feel lucky??? As far as actually have valve problems other that scheduled maintenance, it is very very rare and usually tied to abuse.

Just put a bit of engine oil on the working parts. The taper fit on the end of the crank and inside of flywheel should remain dry. About 2 seconds after the engine starts it will be doused in engine oil anyhow.

I am sitting around watching batteries charging, that ranks right up there with watching paint dry. Talk to ya later in boring ol chat...............

I had a case where a 16 yo girl hit the side of my big red truck on here first day with here new license. No one was hurt and there was no damage to my truck and she had a wrinkled fender and a cut tire. Of course the first thing she did was call daddy. Daddy said for her to call 911 and he would be right there............. That part had me worried, I did not want to deal with a freaked out dad thinking that I tried to hurt his baby girl. The police made it there before daddy and she already admitted to the LEO that she made a lane change and did not notice this big red truck next to her. Her front tire hit my drivers door so I was actually ahead of her. Once Daddy was sure that no one was hurt him and I spent the rest of the time that the LEO was there discussing deer hunting. Daddy also thought that this should be a learning experience and since I had no damage for her to pay for he insisted that she come to my house and wash and wax my whole truck for my inconvenience. She got a workout that day for sure. There is a lot of surface area on my truck. So while an accident is likely, it is not always going to happen. I had a million miles in before my first accident. Sometimes it is better to be lucky than good.

As far as getting better braking from what you already have. 1. Make sure the the seals on your front forks are not leaking. There is nothing that will overcome fork oil getting on the pads. 2. Put in EBC HH pads all around. The HH have a lot more grip than the stock pads. 3. As mentioned above, since you already did half of a delink, get that left front brake hooked up to the front master, you do not need a proportioning valve. 4. Get rid of the proportioning valve from the rear. You do not need it reducing pressure to the rear to keep balance with the front that is not there. 5. Do a good flushing of the brake and clutch fluid. The fluid should be changed every 2 years anyhow. This will all take minimal funds to accomplish and get you better braking until you are ready to do all of the work needed to do the R1s. If your fork seals are leaking, then this is the perfect time to change out to the MKII lower forks while it is all apart anyhow.

You can safely grind about .010 inch (0.12 mm) off of a shim and not have to heat treat. That means a 200 shim can be taken to a 188.

And the Bike Hopper is blaming my Rum Balls...............

You could always put a tracking app on her phone so that you always know where, when and how fast. Yup there was no such thing as a cell phone when my 3 girls learned to drive. The worst is when they are even 1 minute late from when they were supposed to be somewhere, that is where you get to start spinning in circles.

DOT 4 has a higher boiling point when fresh out of the bottle. Dot 4 also absorbs water faster than DOT 3 and the water will cause either to have a lower boiling point. It does not take long for the DOT 4 boiling point to drop below the boiling point of DOT 3. So IF you are super religious about changing your brake and clutch fluid very regularly then DOT 4 may be a better choice. IF you wait a few years between changes then DOT 3 is probably a better choice. The listed boiling points for DOT 3 and 4 are MINIMUMs, there are DOT 3 fluids with higher boiling points than some DOT 4 fluids.

A sticky or dragging clutch when hot is often moisture in the clutch fluid. The engine heat causes the moisture to form air bubbles that will make the clutch not fully disengage. Another good reason to flush and change the clutch fluid and both the front and rear brake fluids. When you check your brake pads, you have to check both the inner and outer pads, they often wear unevenly one can look great and the other can be gone. As far as to whether you use DOT 3 or DOT4, use whichever works best for you. They each have pros and cons.

For starters. These bikes run like poo with the air cleaner off. But you have an electrical problem. The Tach is driven from the signal to the #2 coil, your tach keeps dropping to zero at the same time it runs worse. You are losing spark to one or more cylinders. I would start by cleaning the pins in all of the connectors to the coils and to the TCI (Ignition box). AND put the air box and air filter back on. While it is running look down into the carbs, all 4 slides should be dancing the same. if not then you also have some carb issues. But start with fixing the known problems first, the lack of spark and the missing air filter.

You can use any kind of engine oil and be safe as long as it specifically states for use with a wet clutch. Many automotive oils with friction reducers will cause the clutch to slip. May people have a favorite oil that is not motorcycle specific and have found that it works. Experiment at your own risk, to me the motorcycle specific oils are not that much more expensive to justify the risk of experimenting to save $5 or even $10 on an oil change. Synthetic oil is better than dino oil, but if you have any weak seals, synthetic is much better at escaping through any weak seals and making a mess.

Sounds like the ignition switch might be going out. This is a well known weak point. There is a member that makes a kit to add a relay that will take the electrical load off of the weak switch.

Looks pretty good this time, I think you are getting the hang of it.