CaseyJ955

Not a one, but MT is always one of my favorite states to end up in for no reason at all. I was in states beginning with S, W, C and N

That too, I had replaced all my calipers. Get it on the center stand and make sure they wheels spin without binding up. If you can get this big obese turd up on the center, it's a chore. While on the center is a good time to inspect steering head bearings and rear swing arm bearings.

Nope, it's not enough to knock that much off. On my bikes and in my car ethanol is enough to see the difference in MPG and feel a hit to power. Your bike should be somewhere around 40-ish and ethanol alone wont come close to knocking it down that much. Indirectly it can start gunking up the carbs if left to sit with ethanol for a length of time and that could knock performance and MPG down significantly. I use seafoam to counter the ethanol when I do have to use it.

Mine is an 89 and I noticed some clutch knock at idle/neutral, it is on the right side though but that guttural tap can carry. I had a few moments of panic as it really sounded like a rod bearing starting to get sloppy. When I put some pressure on the clutch lever it went away. I stopped being concerned, it works great and no slippage, it gets this bike to triple digit speeds pretty quickly without any hint of problems. I just took a trip over 4 states, no issues, no worries. I dont even notice it anymore.

2nd, 3rd and under light conditions 4th dont mind 2500 rpm but in the hills and against headwinds 4th and 5th like 3000+ or it lugs and fusses a little. Unless I'm basically coasting I dont even kick into 5th gear until i'm at 60-65mpg.

There are a lot of re-builders out there that really dont understand CV carbs, probably any carbs. The only guy I know and implicitly trust on these CV carbs, with a proven track record and a trail of satisfied customers, is Danny. I know he's quite familiar with the Yamaha V4 and quite a nice guy. http://www.vmaxforum.net/brc.jpg If it's overflowing like that than he probably used some of the cheap-o Chinese rebuild kits that are known for this sort of thing, or as Cimmer said, wrong year parts.

That is low, I was fighting MPG in the high 20s for quite a while. Is all your maintenance current, fresh plugs, valves adjusted, tire inflation etc? Running ethanol free fuel? Assuming all is right with the engine and it's hitting on all 4 cylinders I would suspect carb floats out of adjustment or worn emulsion tubes. There are other things it can be but those are two well known MPG issues. I fixed mine with Skydocs shim mod and it got me up to the 40-ish range that I need. I'm pretty sure the PO of your bike set the floats already, I know he was in the carbs several times. Heres a thread I started a while back, started out as forks and got turned into a lot of MPG discussion, good info here too. http://www.venturerider.org/forum/showthread.php?128796-Blown-new-fork-seal-fresh-rebuild-metal-shavings/page3 and the Skydoc shims I used that finally got me to the 40mpg arena. I suspect different needles and new emulsion tubes might be the ticket next time I pull the carbs but really not trying to spend tons of money now. I tried it and it worked. Runs strong and I just took a trip over 4 states and got around 40, even riding into headwinds. http://www.venturerider.org/forum/showthread.php?51100-Needle-Shim-Mod

Dayum! Glad your alive and in one piece, thats quite a ballup. I too would be interested in knowing why that happened. This seems to have had the potential to be so much worse, glad your still with us and hope you get to feeling better soon enough. On a brighter note, now you have an open space in the garage for this new tour bike Yamaha will unveil shortly.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/4-Pcs-Carburetor-Slide-Diaphragm-Yamaha-V-MAX-1200-VMX12-VMAX-V-MAX-1985-2007-/281761118293?hash=item419a457855:g:3c4AAOSwrklVXmxv Check with the seller for your application but this is the seller I used and all good.

I think the confusion was the difference between moving the wheel along by the cogs using a common or actually using a Phillips from underneath. I just grab a common and make minute adjustments until I'm at around 1050-ish

I find it a little tricky to get my fingers in there so sometimes I'll just use a common screwdriver against one of the cogs on the wheel and turn it that way.

So glad you got to take the ride. I had the first grand spring ride not long ago and just got back from WY, CO and NE. I really enjoy the first ride stories, I can almost feel the rush of sunshine and open roads. Theres just nothing like that first sunny clear day in the spring. I'm self employed also and I'm damn glad I am, I can make time to do the rides and rallys. Ride what you like and enjoy it. Rides like this make everything alright with the universe.

It stayed consistently goofy but the engine never missed a beat for the whole trip of around 800 mi. I'll set the dwell back to auto in case a short dwell is messing with it's ability to read the signal. If I still have a problem then I guess I'll have to get in and see if it's the signal to the tach or the tach itself. On a side note, the 85 heading south down WY is amazing all the way down, I came back up through NE, took the 71 all the way into Hot Springs and dayum that was a fantastic ride. Cant say the SW corner of NE was very impressive but from around Kimball north it was pretty awesome. Nobody on the road, it was pretty vacant and the scenery went from some rock formations/trees, wide open farm land and rolling hills to the Oglalla Natl Grasslands. The vastness of it is awesome, weather perfect. People in NE seem to be about as nice as they come.

G'mornin' friends! I covered around 500mi yesterday. I have noticed the tach dropping occasionally, also if I pull the clutch in and give it a rev the needle races down rather than up. It seems to be acurate when enjoying a steady cruise other than the occasional slight dip. Its running well and this is not accompanied by any missfire or lack of power/smoothness or I would have suspected the Ignitek. I would be more nervous if there were a missfire with it. im still 4-5 hours from home. It does have ignitek and COPs. Also noticed it starts hard with a knock and backfire through carbs if I even think about touching the throttle while cranking. I thought I cured that by setting dwell on short, but nope. Aside from these it runs strong and smooth. Figured I would get some house hunting done but other than admiring some small towns I got very little of that done. Once the bike is completely sorted Ill do a weeklong search. Im about to get under way, I found some awesome rural open roads, its fantastic. All of yestarday and much of today.

I'm a total paint noob but I got some direction and guidance on the Vmax side and painted/clearcoated my Vmax and it looks damn near pro. It took some time and I bought from an auto body. Picked color and went to it, spending decent amounts of time on prep. It's very doable. This is the part where you pick out a saphire blue or a she-looked-18-to-me red. I would always be happy to share what I learned painting my other bike. If/when I paint mine I probably wont worry about going two tone or striping. I may go pearl white or a slightly darker blue than my Vmax came out.

http://www.venturerider.org/forum/showthread.php?258-Syncronizing-the-Carbs A great writeup, it's on a 2nd gen but same procedure. The right (iirc) has two screws and left has one, right between the carbs and nice and obvious. Get a big common screwdriver and watch the bars as you turn the screws. I'm OCD so I go back and fourth making micro adjustments until it's as close to perfect as I can get it. The second time you have to do this it will be a lot quicker. Do this at operating temp and definitely let us know how far out it was and how much improvement you see when it's dialed in.

You would have to weld some tangs on. You would probably have to use the entire fork, while it does have shocks and discs it bears no resemblance. I guess you will have to keep Flintstoning that mofo to a stop for now. Be careful bruddah.

Look man, if you had the nylon handlebar streamers installed you would have had enough wind resistance to think about maybe stopping somewhat a little bit! Glad you didnt get run down. I have an old parts bike here, a mtn bike that has some disc brakes on front, nothing high end but if you think any of that might help you get some brakes going shoot me a PM with your # and we'll get you hooked up.

Nice project! very cool. Brakes are for sissies anyway, no need to worry about the trivial details.

That works out great for me. First week of each month I usually work, 2nd week is the MD in OH but the last two weeks are wide open. I see the dates, I should have just returned from OH by then, it looks like a go.

I've had mine since last year and aside from the 300 mile ride home I have hardly ridden it. On the way home from purchase I already had a full list of the TLC it would need and over the winter I completed nearly all the work. I got my first real ride last week and I'm in love too. I'm taking her to WY, CO and NE in a few days. Thanks for letting us see her and congrats!

I know that an engine with EFI and nice fresh rings is a bit easier on oil than a carburetor equipped engine with a few decades of service under it's belt. I could buy a year on some Mobile 1 under ideal conditions. For a Venture Ill change it in the spring and maybe again around late August. I use Rotella 15-40 dino, anything more expensive seems unnecessary for these bikes. Normally I'll only use synthetic or a blend in engines that called for it from the factory. I put Mobile 1 in my lexus and if it gets changed once a year then its a good year. Not sure I would leave any oil in the Venture for a year of active riding. I should add that I have not seen the TV spots. Blissfully enough I never see or hear advertising:guitarist 2:

. That is hard to disagree with, I was thinking/hoping it would be more along the lines of a higher performance Goldwing, along the lines of a K1600GTL. Bikes like the FJR are awesome but fall more on the sport side of touring, I found it less comfortable than even if the Gen 1. There has to be a market for performance full touring bikes, something like a Goldwing that offers space and amenities but the ability to pull like a MF at highway speeds with two adults and trunks loaded with gear, that isnt a Goldwing. We all know that even the best twins do not shine in this important area of performance. I want a full relaxed touring barge but I want performance too. Honda saw it and sold the snott out of Goldwings and BMW saw it with the K1600 to a lesser degree in the USA. When I heard of this new Venture I right away thought of something like a seriously updated gen1 with that big 4. Something to go head to head with the aging Goldwing. I believe something like that would capture a decent slice of the pie. The market is literally saturated with twin cruisers and tour/cruisers, the competition has to be enormous. So the Goldwing is a touch too stodgy for me, with all due respect to its tremendous success, its close but not quite, and with the GL1800 growing long in the tooth and lots of folks put off by the cost of ownewship of BMW there should be a vacuum for a highly capable full on Japanese touring machine. I have not done any studies and not intimately familiar with market trends, its just hard to imagine a bike cooked from the same recipe book as the goldwing but i fused with more performance and passion would fail to capture its share of buyers vs yet another chrome clad big twin. Wings are great but...yawn haha. Give me that tourability with some passion and Im in. I think it would be well received by the buying public. I also cant figure out why its so hard to buy a car with 2 doors and a manual transmission, so I know I'm probably wrong and you are right. With the gen 1 way older than my adult children I know it will get replaced at some point. It sucks that Euro bikes like the K1600 and Trophy are the closest matches. . My gen 1vmax can get 40+ if Im gentle and even today it will easily smoke any v twin cruiser im aware of, including a Vrod. The gen1 Venture near as I can tell gets about the same. I think with more conservative cams, heads and the magic of modern EFI/engine management even the big V4 could be on the good side of 40-45. Even if dropped to a 1550 with smaller slugs its sure to be a formidable performer. I have to say, Ive heard the Gen2 Vmax with the 1700 V4 gets pretty dismal mpg and range with its ~200 hp. It would sure have to be retuned for touring. Maybe even with variable length runners like BMW.

This is dawning on me but its sort of hard to take. Being a Gen1 Vmax owner myself I have been fascinated, the first time I bacame aware of the Gen2 Vmax I knew that one day it would see a touring brethren with this big snorty V4. Nobody I know would say, "aww darn, a 1700cc EFI v4 with enough torque and power to move two touring bikes, I was actually hoping for more options in a twin cyl tourer.":hihi: A twin can make good power and if we put a little more daylight between the jugs a loftier redline is possible. If they are thinking more Ducatti and less Harley it just might be worth looking at. I know what was in the video but It still makes no sense. This better be one stonkin' twin.

What a mower! That looks like it could last a bunch of seasons. I mow and trim our 3 acres in tbe hills here, mowers are short lived because of all the rocks but knocking down high spots with a line trimmer works ok, helluva way to spend mpst of a day though. We had a couple goats for awhile and they really didnt put much of a dent in it. They were cool though.