Flyinfool

While testing for an AC component at the battery will identify a rectifier diode that has failed short, it will not identify a diode that has failed open. So it is a good quick easy check that can identify a bad RR, you may still have to jump thru all the hoops to test out the rectifier.

A shorter length filter would be less bad. I agree with the others that with it hanging down like that you are asking for a punctured filter and a very slippery back tire and the engine oil pressure dropping to zero. I also have never seen a setup like that on a Venture of any vintage. As to weather you can go back to stock, it is hard to tell from the pics. it comes down to if someone drilled any holes in the engine or made any other modifications to mount this "thing".

You never know...................

Charge the battery and have it retested to see if it is still good. Lead acid batteries do not like sitting in a discharged condition, that can kill even a brand new battery. Get your voltmeter and check the voltage across the battery with the engine running at over 2000 RPM, if the voltage is real close to 14V that the charging system is fine. If it is low or hi then further investigation is warranted.

Picture quality is really the biggest thing. Just to have an unidentifiable pic of a shape moving around is of no use. I would want one that can read a license plate on the getaway car in front of the house. I see so many home (and business) security vids shown on the news but the quality is so bad that the perp could be my brother looking right at the camera and I would never recognize him. To get into a quality picture is not inexpensive, and you really need massive storage to hold a decent amount of high quality video. Another thing to consider, around here the crooks are getting smarter, If they see cameras, they will make an effort to find and steal the recorder too.

@Marcarl I am not quite ready to try to wrap my head around 3 wheels yet for a bunch of reasons. I think that 200 lbs lighter is what is needed for me at this point, maybe in another 8-10 years it will be time for 3 wheels, just not yet. I will not be making a decision till it gets closer to spring and I see how my booboo has healed up. I am starting to look at options now so that IF I do get to the point of pulling the trigger I have a good idea of where I am pointed and can act fast. Who knows, the healing process may even push me down the road of looking at 3 wheels or even changing to a small convertible. Only time will tell.

Puc Don't sell your self short, you know more about engines than the vast majority of people. You are almost there again, there is no free lunch (unless it is a meat&greet for hotdogs:)) if you add anything there is a cost, It is just that the seat of your pants is not giving you the whole story. You do loose a tiny fraction of a HP due to the friction of the weight moving thru air and oil, it would be tough to measure it let alone feel it. WHat you do get is that the flywheel weight will shift the torque curve a fair amount, does not change the peak torque but it moves the RPM where it happens and that is what you are feeling in the seat of your pants. (unless you just at to many tacos, then you might be feelig other stuff in the seat of your pants) You are also correct that adding 100 lbs will reduce the top speed because you are doing more work, but that goes right back to that stupid formula where HP is moving a specific weight a specific distance in a specific time, you just increased the weight so the speed must come down which will increase the time, but the actual HP never changed. There was a time a few years back where it was all the rage to make pistons out of steel, because with steel the walls could be a lot thinner and you could actually end up with a stronger and lighter piston. But the cost of making forged steel pistons was crazy expensive and if you ever had a case where the skirt managed to touch a cast iron wall, an aluminum piston will scuff but a steel piston takes out the cylinder wall. So that never got popular. I wonder if with newer technology if this could be revisited. With newer technology rotating parts come from mass production balanced a LOT better than back in the day, same hold true for blueprinting, modern manufacturing can hold the tolerances on production parts that you used to get from blueprinting an engine. I think you and I really need to spend some time around a campfire with a mountain of dogs and fixins for s'mores.......

When I get a rash of bulbs burning out I always do a quick check of the charging voltage to be sure I do not have a RR that is running high and cooking things. I cant help with the LEDs since I still have all HID for lighting up the road.

Riding position is a big deal to me, I will not plunk down any cash without a good ride on something. I am old and do not fold up well, But since I am moving from a 1st gen to something, the upright position is what I am looking for, I do NOT like the cruiser riding position. But now you guys had to go and bring up other viable alternatives to the FJR. Now my research is back to square one.................. Good thing I am a long way from even being able to walk yet alone ride something. Lots of time for research..........................

As for the piston, your argument was the laws of physics did not allow a piston and rod the size of the big V-twin to change direction moving back and forth. the engine configuration or cooling method has zero bearing on the forces of moving the piston and then stopping it to reverse direction. I was simply giving examples of other applications where even bigger and heavier pistons can move even faster and still have no problem changing directions. While the forces are insignificant the starting and stopping of the piston is not something that happens suddenly. the speed of the piston starting at TDC will continuously accelerate for 90° of crank rotation, at that point the speed of the piston is maxed out and it will then begin to gradually decelerate back to 0 over the next 90° of crank rotation. You are trying to bring in other variables that I did not discuss. EVERYTHING in engineering is a compilation of compromises to achieve an end result. Some of this is where perception and physics diverge. Her is a quote from the ebay link you gave Adding rotating mass to the engine will not change the peak horse power at all. It will significantly change the time it takes to accelerate to max RPM. The time delay is what is perceived as a reduction of horse power when it in fact is just making the horse power come in more slowly and thus be more manageable by someone that has not yet learned to bring the power on slowly. The same is true at the other end, the extra inertia of the spinning weight will help you launch out of the gate. In the case of the big V-twin, the extra mass spinning with the crankshaft will help to smooth out the power pulses for a smoother power delivery to the rear wheel.

My biggest worry is that a 2nd gen might just be able to pass this new V-twin, or worse yet a genuine Harley might even give it a run for its money. That would be down rite embarrassing. I am betting that a 1st gen has nothing to worry about from the new V-twin kid on the block.

Yup That is rite, I have had another thought, those that know me know it is always dangerous when I have these thoughts. There is no telling what might happen. So as I am gimping around on crutches with this blown out achillies tendon I have doing some thinking. Since I blew the tendon getting my Venture out to ride in to work, just like I have done a thousand times before I have been thinking I might just need to look for a smaller lighter bike. In my looking around at what all is available, I have kind of taken a shine to the FJR1300. It is a sport touring bike, so it still has hard side bags and trunk, granted a bit smaller, but I rarely ever fill up the ones on the Venture. It still has a 4 cyl 1300cc engine but with a 9500 RPM red line. The speedo numbers go up to 190, and it is about 200 lbs lighter. In my little pea brain these are all good things. I can get an off the shelf trailer hitch for it so I can pull a trailer with all my stuff to MD. I have learned that I want an 06 or newer due to a Cam Chain Tensioner issue in the earlier years that can grenade the engine. The new system will bolt into the older engines but it requires an engine tear down. What are the bad things that I am missing?

OK Mr cowpuc, Just for giggles I'll play devils advocate for a bit here. That new Yamaharley engine is 1854cc, that is 113 cubic inches. 2 cylinders so each cylinder is 927cc or 56.5ci. Now look at a Chevy 8127cc, 496ci, V8, so each cylinder is 1016cc or 62ci Just by dropping in a stroker crank it is 8374cc, or 511ci.each cylinder is 1046cc, or 64ci. Now this Chevy V8 can spin even bigger pistons at 6000+RPM and make 78 HP per cylinder, and there is still room to improve on these numbers if you start getting into high buck race parts. You can even buy a stroker kit for your daily driver that will bump the Chevy up to 540ci, which is 67.5ci @ 86HP per cylinder AND it will spin up to 7000 RPM, now you are getting close to the RPM that our Venture V4s can spin but are doing it with a piston and rod that is a LOT bigger than the new Yamaharley. This tells me that Yamaha did not use all the room that the laws of physics gave them to work with and they left a lot of potential performance on the engineering room floor to feed the mice. That puny Yamaharley V-twin cold have been mad to turn a LOT more RPM to get a LOT more power on tap. Yes they could have made a V-twin that could have turned the touring world upside down The physics make it possible their decisions did not make it happen. Don't you just hate math and numbers..................

For many of us it is not a matter of loosing the desire to ride, it is loosing the ability to ride safely and eventually the physical ability to ride altogether.

:hijacked: Using the Alt key along with various number combinations on the numeric keypad will find all kinds of neat symbols. Like Alt 234 = Ω the ohm sysbol Alt 1 = ☺ an open smiley face Alt 2 + ☻ a filled smiley face Alt246 = ÷ a divide symbol Alt 248 = ° A degree symbol There are hundreds of special characters that can be accessed this way. OK back to your normally schedualed thread. :hijacked:

With out doing some testing to see what all was going on in your specific case It would be purely guessing at what happened. There are a lot of possibilities that are not to far fetched. I do not know what our electrical systems are rated for. Just that I wish it were more. If a system is rated for 26A that means it can do 26A forever with no harm to the components, there is always the ability to output more than what it is rated for but that higher output is stressing the components and likely shortening there useful life span. It may only mean that you get 4 years out of the battery instead of 5, or a light bulb may burn out after only 8 years instead of 10. Even though it did not completely kill the battery right away it might have still done damage, same for all other other parts of the bikes electrical system. It is also possible that the 17V was intermittent and was sometimes running off the battery and sometimes cooking things. Lots of realistic scenarios and even some unrealistic ones.

You are correct, if you use a regulator to reduce the flow of water to the flowers, the pressure in the hose will also be a lot lower than the pressure on the other side of regulator. Now if the regulator is broken and allowing more pressure thru you will have more flow and also have a greater risk of the hose bursting from that increased pressure. To use real numbers A fully charged battery is 12.6V, The output voltage on the charger is ~14.0V, that is a difference of 1.4V. You want the battery charging at 10A. Plug that into the formula and you have 1.4V ÷ R = 10A add some algebra (bet you never thought you would need that again after high school) and you get 1.4V ÷ 10A = .14 ohms So now in that same scenario the regulator fails and the charge voltage goes to 17V? We already calculated the resistance of the battery in this situation as .14Ω The battery is at 12.6V so the difference between charger and battery is 4.4V So plug that into our formula. You get 4.4V ÷ .14Ω = 31.42875A By having the regulator now outputting 17V that same battery is now being pumped 31.43 amps. It will be cooking.................

It is called Ohms Law. E ÷ R = I E is voltage R is resistance I is current Ohms Law is usually very close to the very first thing you learn about if you were to take a course in electronics because it governs almost everything in DC electronics and has a strong influence in AC electronics. In this case since you are charging a battery which also has a voltage you need to use the difference in voltage between the battery and the charger as E in the equation. The resistance of the battery increases as the battery charges and the voltage difference gets smaller. That is why the amps go down as the battery charges until at full charge the amps are near zero and the battery voltage is at its max Have you ever measured the actual voltage of your charger. It is not 12V it is much higher. Have you ever measured the actual charge current of your charger it will be less than the chargers rating. Chargers never tell you what voltage they put out they simply are stating that this charger will charge a 12V battery at up to X amps. On your selectable current charger. Hook up a volt meter and an amp meter and connect it to a battery, as you change to the different switch positions you will see that as the volts go up the amps also go up. If you do have a charger that is able to maintain say 10 amps thru the whole charge cycle, you will notice that the voltage is contaly climbing as the battery charges to be able to satisfy the requirements of Ohms Law.

There is a direct mathematical relationship between amps and volts. Your 12V lead acid battery will never see a 17 volt .25 amp charge, it is mathematically impossible. As the volts go up the amps will also go up. If you do something to limit the amps that something will limit the amps by reducing the voltage. There may have been other variables that got your battery to survive the couple of days with a runaway regulator. Most don't survive.

I have to agree with Snyper Calling it "The Beast" is a compliment. Dealers do not like vehicles that last 30 plus years. Especially if it is a brand they do not sell and their brand does not last 30+ years.

I looked up the Florida Statute 627.732 that the letter references, that quote is cherry picked out of a section that covers provided medical devices. So if you were injured and needed a vehicle it can not be a motorcycle That same section also goes on tho exclude from the definition of a motor vehicle a lot of other types of motor vehicles. Florida Statute; 0627.732 (3) “Motor vehicle” means any self-propelled vehicle with four or more wheels which is of a type both designed and required to be licensed for use on the highways of this state and any trailer or semitrailer designed for use with such vehicle and includes a) A “private passenger motor vehicle,” which is any motor vehicle which is a sedan, station wagon, or jeep-type vehicle and, if not used primarily for occupational, professional, or business purposes, a motor vehicle of the pickup, panel, van, camper, or motor home type. (b) A “commercial motor vehicle,” which is any motor vehicle which is not a private passenger motor vehicle. The term “motor vehicle” does not include a mobile home or any motor vehicle which is used in mass transit, other than public school transportation, and designed to transport more than five passengers exclusive of the operator of the motor vehicle and which is owned by a municipality, a transit authority, or a political subdivision of the state. I would send Geico a copy of the statute listed above by Joe and tell them that they will honor the claim. I bet that letter gets them off the hook on a bunch of claims but if you push the point it will get covered. Then it is probably time to go ins shopping.

A "normal" oil change will not drain all of the old oil out. There is a bit left in the bottom of the transmission. That is where your difference is. If you really want to drain it all out you have to pull the bottom bolt of the middle gear cover to drain the transmission, but it is not enough oil to justify the effort.

WOW Yup I smell something rotten.

That is definitely a bad regulator. As long as you will be in there, do a test of the stator. Disconnect the stator from the regulator. With the meter set to Ohms, measure from each of the stator wires to a good ground, they should all read infinity. Mark the 3 stator wires A, B, C. With the bike running at idle and again at around 3000 RPM, Set the meter to the 200VAC scale, check voltage from A-B, B-C and A-C. At idle you should see around 15VAC, at 3000 RPM you should see 60 to 100VAC. What is important is that all 3 reading are very close to the same number.