luvmy40

The tees arrived today. They look great and are very comfortable. Thanks!

Got the forks drained, opened up and the progressives in. Waiting for the progressive 10w fork oil to arrive. Caliper seal kits en route from Vickersguy. THANKS! I'll remove and disassemble the calipers tomorrow or this weekend. Just waiting for my tax return to hit the bank to finalize the delinking kit purchase with skydoc-17. BTW, what's the consensus on the spacers for the progressive springs? Full length? Half?...?

Is it possible the seller is an FFL and he's just crossing his I's and dotting his T's?

Well, I own at least three of them. I'll probably get one from the loan a tool at AZ and then find all of mine!

Stripped down in anticipation of skydoc_17's delinking kit! I should have the delinking kit here in couple of weeks and I have the Progressive fork springs to install. I can't seem to find my 29mm socket, so I had to stop work until I find it or buy another, then find it!

A long, long time ago I can still remember Living in Colorado Springs. At that time. Colorado, or at least the Colorado Springs and greater Denver areas did not use salt on the roads. They spread sand or cinders. They also required you to have tire chains in the vehicle at all times in the winter months and then would post mandates of chains on the tires during bad weather. I don't remember having any real issues with driving on icy roads then and there. The older trucks in Colorado back then were certainly in better shape than their Ohio counter parts. BTW, There is a thriving industry in Ohio importing older pick ups from southern states. FireBall Motors is one of the bigger operations in my area. They specialize in clean, '80s and '90s vintage 4x4s under $10K https://www.fireballtrucks.com/

Just order a second TEE for the wife(also a Vet.) If you can combine them into one package and save yourself the extra shipping please do so and apply the $4.50 to the charity.

Ordered! Thanks!

Unfortunately, I have no pictures. That Ranger brought a 2000, 600cc Suzuki Katana, a 1983 Suzuki GS850 and My 1983 Yamaha Venture home to me. The Katana was the only one that I could close the tail gate on.

The funniest thing I ever saw was an '83 Venture in the bed of my '96 Ranger. Which is the reason why the No. 1 criteria for my "new" truck was an 8' bed.

It's an '07, not a '97. Everything was tightened with the lower control arm jacked into loaded position. The front lift is not really visible. I just re aimed the headlights and will leave it alone until I rebuild the rear suspension. Probably next winter.

This is an '07 2WD with just over 91K mi. fairly new to me and the only time it will ever be loaded near capacity will be if have to haul The Beast for some reason. It handled just fine with the old struts, even after the spring broke and she handles fine now with no vibration at highway speeds. I'm just getting flashed by oncoming traffic as my headlights are aimed right in their eyes due to the upward angle of attack.

I busted a spring on the driver's side front strut of my F150 last week. Gotta luv Ohio pot holes! Now the front end of this truck has always been quite a bit lower than rear and I thought it looked kind of silly. I did a little couch surfing and discovered there is a thriving industry in supplying "Leveling Kits" for the F series trucks. I wasn't about to tear the front end apart just to add the leveling blocks, but since the struts had to be replaced anyway, I decided to add the 1-1/2" leveling kit in the process. I went with AutoZone's LS, OEM spec loaded struts and ordered the leveling pucks from Amazon. Me and a buddy from work did the install yesterday afternoon. I'm glad I had help! That was quite the little job. Here's the ironic part; After the new parts and modification, the rear end is exactly 1-1/2" lower than the front. Rear end lift kit? I sure do not want to tear that front end apart again!

There is no doubt things have changed since I left. I started there 21 years ago with little experience in their specialty, which is precision temperature, humidity, CO2 and lighting controlled environments. It quickly became a passion for me. I was crushed when I was told a system that I helped develop was being phased out for a different manufacturers product. Now I get a chance to be a part of the new system. It really means a lot to me that they thought I could be of help. I know there will be a vast learning curve after my long hiatus, but I am optimistic as the passion is still there and I am far from an "old dog" yet.

So, I'll be starting a new job in 2 weeks. About 17 years ago I quit a job I loved. I had many hats with this company. I was a field coordinator. I was a service technician. I was an installation manager. I was a design engineer. I was a salesman. I was an R&D consultant. I also spent nearly 300 days of the year on the road. My kids were very young then and I was missing out on all the things that make being a parent wonderful, so I quit the best job I ever had. I never regretted that decision. Yesterday the president of that company called me and asked me to consider coming back and taking up the reigns in my old position again. I thought about it for about 2 seconds before responding with a "Hell Yes!" AutoZone has been good to me. I have truly enjoyed working there. It was never supposed to be a career, just a pastime and a way to get out of my shop for a few days a week. When the bottom dropped out of the Holster business, AZ was good enough to let me go full time, but it is definitely not a career position for me. So I gave them my two weeks notice today and will embark on a "new" career path in two weeks. Hopefully I will still be able to make the MD get together at Don's place this season!

So, I mentioned that the one issue with this cover was the tailgate hitting on the rear spar, right? Well, I called Tonno Pro to ask if they had any install tips to fix this and they asked me to email some pictures and a description of the issue. I did and they replied about 24 hours later that they were sending me new cover. That was yesterday. The cover arrived via FedEx today and fits perfectly. No interference from the tailgate at all, but still a tight seal. Now, that's what I call Customer Service! BTW, The original cover stood up to our recent blizzard spectacularly. Nearly a foot of cold wet white stuff and no damage. Money well spent and I would not hesitate to recommend the Tonno Pro covers to anyone.

There is one valid reason to get rid of the original air box on any factory motorcycle; Cosmetic, a custom look. It seems to me to be obvious. Evidently it's not obvious to everybody as I see so many vintage bikes with aftermarket pods. I also hear many riders of these bikes complaining about the performance of their modified bikes. I'm sure there are ways to make pods work fairly well in one area or another, i.e. smooth at mid throttle or strong at WOT. It's hard for me to see any way to make them work well across the full range of throttle. I did see a beautifully fabricated WWII style bobber made from a Yamaha XJ frame and engine that used a custom intake manifold and a single pod. The owner claimed he gets similar performance to the original system and it looks great.

I've been toying with the idea of going to small on demand water heaters rather one central heater. It'll be a while before I do anything as I just replaced my NG tank heater a couple years ago. 25 odd years ago, while living on the economy in Germany, I noticed most of the apartments and homes there used small tank heaters in multiple locations, say one for the kitchen and one in the bathroom rather than a larger central tank. I think most of them were electric but I could be wrong about that. I have seen on demand shower heaters but have not really looked into them. The heater is part of the shower head and the supply is cold water only. The concept is sound. Set a temperature on the heater and turn the water on. It would come up to temperature quickly and maintain that temp regardless of flow rate. Whether they work in practice or not I could not say.

Gen 1 XVZs run part #11-1112 Progressive fork springs Gen 2 XVZs run part #11-1144 Progressive fork springs I've been told by an older Yamaha Tech and Venture guru to add more oil than spec dictates when converting to progressives and to forget about the air. He gave me a specific measurement in milliliters to add but I don't remember the exact number.

I'm sure everyone is aware by now that I work for AutoZone. If not, there is my statement of disclosure. This turned out to be a bit more long winded than I intended. There is a PSA at the end(I promise) if you want to skip ahead a bit I just changed out the factory radio(AM/FM base model) for a cheap, DUAL brand touch screen, bluetooth, AM/FM digital media head unit in my '07 F-150. It was a fairly simple job and I expect anyone with any DIY experience at all would have no problem with the job. I was able to do the job for about $110.00 with my employee discount and I am sure I could have done it a bit cheaper if I had shopped around on Amazon and waited for shipping. Along with the new "stereo", a dash trim kit, wiring harness adapter and an antenna connector adapter was needed. I had two snafu situation that were both entirely my fault. First, when I started to wire up the harness adapter, I discovered that my supply of 1/8" shrink tube was completely depleted. This should have been an indicator that I should take stock of everything before I moved on. I ain't that smart. After a run to AZ to restock my soldering supplies, I got the wire harness adapter put together and moved on to install the dash trim kit and install the new head unit. That's when I discovered the need for the antenna adapter. Here's where the PSA comes in. I called my store to see if we had the adapter in stock and was informed by an associate that it was listed as NYA(Not Yet Available) for my vehicle. I then went to the AZ retail website and ran a parts search for all the stereo install parts for my truck. No antenna adapters were found. I then did a google search for "2007 ford f150 stereo antenna adapter" and found the second search result was a link to AZ's web site. Following the link took me to a product page for an adapter listed for '03-'14 Chryslers but the fitment bar insisted that it fit my vehicle. My store had this part number in stock, so I went to see if it would actually fit. It did. The package stated that it was for '03-'14 Chrysler, GM and Ford. The point is, don't trust the software or the web site at whatever parts store you frequent if they say the part you are looking for is not available. Do some research and find a part number. More often than not, your local parts store can cross reference another source's numbers and you may even find the part on the shelf when the retailer's system indicates they do not have it when using an application search rather than a part number look-up.

bikerjohn, I doubt Youngstown, Ohio will be on your route, but you are welcome to the sleeper sofa for a night or two if you need it. I have had very good luck with Air B&B as far as finding last minute lodging at very affordable prices. Regards, Rich

You'd be surprised at how many trap or clays shooters have never even patterned their expensive Ceasar Guerini or Benneli. I regularly out shoot some very nice, high end trap guns with a mid level Browning BT-99.

What is this "Retirement" of which you speak?

If there is any way to avoid Chicago and Detroit, take that route.

Just like every other tool, I've got 3 or 4 of them. I might be able to find one when I need it.