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Venturous Randy

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Everything posted by Venturous Randy

  1. Venturous Randy
    Isn't it amazing how quick things can happen? And, it don't have to be at 8,000rpm's on your couch rocket. Can you still get on your bike and enjoy a nice weekend? Hope you get to feeling better Lew. RandyA
  2. Venturous Randy
    I was born and raised in east Tennessee and other than four years in the military and working for a company that had a plant in Fort Wayne that I spent a bit of time in, have pretty much stayed here. Laura's parents retired in Birmingham and she wanted to move there, but not me, too hot there. This used to be a good place to find a job in manufacturing, as many companies came here from up north and it is a "right to work" state, so union influnance was not strong. But, many of these same countries have gone farther south to Mexico or China. We have fairly moderate weather in the mountains, as it is usually cooler in the summer than up north and most winters, there is riding in about every month. Along with the beautiful scenery, we also have a lot of friendly folks. RandyA
  3. Venturous Randy
    Five years ago this last Sept, Laura was filling in as a substitute teacher and while talking to a parent, a five year old child grabbed her wrists and dropped down, pulling her forward, tangling her feet. In an attempt not to fall on the child, she pushed the child to the side and her 1st point of contact was the forehead/cheek on the right side of her face on concrete. She sustained an eye socket blowout. It literally disentigrated the eye socket under the eye. She immediately had surgery putting a plate under her eye. Since then, she has had four more surgeries, all under workman's comp. And, she will have to wear corrective lenses due to double vision for the rest of her life. A couple of years later, due to degenerative disc disease and fibromyalgia, she got Social Security Disability. Now, the workmans comp insurance has made an offer to settle and we took that offer to be reviewed by a lawyer. Even though the offer was pitifully low for what she has been thru, we were told by the lawyer that due to Laura being on SSI, even though it had nothing to do with her disability, any money she receives will be required to be paid back to SSI. We can either take the settlement and then her monthly checks will be prorated and reduced over a set period of time, or we can take the money and she will not receive a check until that amount of money has been accounted for. As it was explained, if you receive a workmans comp claim at 25 years old, through an injury that is absolutely no fault of your on, and due to an illness 30 years later you become unable to work, you will still be liable for what ever money you received 30 years before coming out of any SSI payments, even though they are not related. Just thought you all may want to know this. RandyA
  4. Venturous Randy
    Go to this page and see what I did. Mine broke several years ago and I had it welded and 3/8 rods put in as gussets. It is now better than stock. I pulled the plastic off and the rear frame section and flipped it upside down. If you have any questions, give me a call. RandyA [ame=http://www.venturerider.org/forum/showthread.php?t=1521]83 Broken frame - VentureRider.Org[/ame]
  5. Venturous Randy
    If this winter is any indication of what we saw in the summer and fall, it is going to be cold and wet(snow). This was not a hot summer for us in north east Tennessee and our drought problams are gone. RandyA
  6. Venturous Randy
    Does your signals cancel and then come back on later, like when you are stopped idling? That is what mine does. RandyA
  7. Venturous Randy
    These bikes are sensitive to spark plugs and the caps have a resistor in them that can corrode. I use the cheap Autolite plugs from Advance Auto and they work fine. You can get the caps from about any bike shop, just unscrew one of yours and match it up. When you replace them, cut about 1/4 inch or a little more off your wires first. RandyA
  8. Venturous Randy
    If you are pretty light and inseam challenged, you may want to adjust the shock air pressure on the low end. I would start out at about 5psi in the front and 20psi in the back. That is on the low side, but if the bike is not bottoming out, you may even be able to go a little lower. The down side on the low pressure is it makes it harder to get on the center stand. As noted above, find you an empty parking lot and do a bunch of turns, stops and starts and practice some quick stops to get a feel for what the brakes are capable of. These bikes have the integrated braking system, so when you push on the foot lever, it also brakes the front from the left caliper. Soon, you will also want to do some red line WOT (wide open throttle) runs. Keep in mind that these bikes were made for rpm's so it ain't gonna hurt it to crank it on some. As you get into it, don't be afraid to ask questions. There probably is not a question that you can come up with that someone has not experienced before. Also, with it being an 85, what is your serial number? The early ones up to about the 1413 or 1417 range had a soft thrust washer in transmission that caused a problem with 2nd gear. After that, Yamaha fixed the problem. Keep us posted and we need pictures. RandyA
  9. Venturous Randy
    My sister's grand son, about six, has been diagnosed with H1N1 and so far he is doing ok. I had a flu shot about two weeks ago while at a visit to the VA. In years past, there were advertisements at Pharmacies and Dr officies for flu shots for $10. Everything I see now advertised is $25, and this is NOT for H1N1. I believe all the scare has got enough interest to jack up prices. RandyA
  10. Venturous Randy
    As I was coming out of Gatlinburg on 321 toward Cosby at about 4:30ish, I passed a Brown MKII 1st gen. He waved, but I am not sure he recognized my bike as being a Venture with the bikini side panels. I started to run him down, but just went on. RandyA
  11. Venturous Randy
    Are you sure that you put the clutch rod in correctly. If you put it in backwards it will not work. RandyA
  12. Venturous Randy
    I woke up this morning to sunshine just coming up, but within an hour it was gray and gloomy again. I ended up taking a morning nap and again the sun popped out, so I took a ride. I took off toward Knoxville, which is about 100 miles away, on old Highway 11. This is kind of like Route 66 in this is the road you would have traveled if you were going from New York to Birmingham and beyond. It parallels several diferent interstates. Some of it has been moved and four laned, but there are still stretches of two lanes with old stores and motels along the way. After going thru Knoxville, I looped into Townsend and then to Gatlinburg on the narrow two lane thru the mountains. With the rain we have had lately, there was a lot of whitewater flowing. I went thru Gatlinburg and then hit the Foothills Parkway near Cosby over to I-40 and then home. It was a beautiful 260 mile ride and definately lifted my spirits. My 1st fillup at @$2.16 at a Shell station was almost 47 mpg. Here are a few pictures to show what a beautiful day it was. The third picture of the house is zoomed in and the forth picture is the same shot not zoomed. That is what call being off the beaten path. RandyA
  13. Venturous Randy
    I want to add that I did this and my 83 went from 38/42 to 42/48. I have had on more than one occasion 48mpg on a ride that was a leasurely ride with little above 65 mph riding and few WOT runs. The only thing I want to add is that my spacer was .125 thick and I first tried two #4 washers and it did not run good, but three washers that stacked up to about .093 seems to work fine. It has also reduced the gassy smell while idleing. RandyA
  14. Venturous Randy
    I have had several different kinds of pads in over 104,000 miles. I will say the EBC HH did have noticably better braking and did have more wear on the rotors. I have used the organic and felt they were not real good and wore out quicker. This last time I tried the set of three off ebay for I think $38 with shipping. They appear to be metallic and so far are working good. They don't have the grip the EBC HH had, but I am probably more comfortable while moving around slowly and using the brakes. Sometimes the HH got a little catchy when going slow and manuvering around. So far I feel good about the cheap ebay brake pads I got and one set of HH's were more than the three sets combined. RandyA
  15. Venturous Randy
    Are you trying to make a 90 appear to match the title off an 84? RandyA
  16. Venturous Randy
    Yep, looks more like an old Goldwing to me. RandyA
  17. Venturous Randy
    I have the same feelings. There have been a few occasions where it was obvious I scared the crap out of somebody with my air horns, but it really is a trade off with so many not paying attention, with loud music or something stuck in their ear. You don't want them to wreak as it could still involve you, but they need to KNOW you are there. Then there are those times I get a lot of pleasure scaring the crap out of someone. RandyA
  18. Venturous Randy
    On our trip to SC, I came out of the motel and the top section of my antenna was gone. There is about an eighth inch sticking out that the set screw is holding in. Anyone got a good suggestion on finding something to go back in it? RandyA
  19. Venturous Randy
    Are these rubber valve stems? My stems are metal with a rubber washer on both sides of the wheel with a metal washer and a nut. I have had a slow leak before when the nut needed to be tightened some, but I can not imagine a quick air loss with this set up. RandyA
  20. Venturous Randy
    Here is what I did out of aluminum. I then painted it with wrinkle paint. I also set the radio at 30º to help the CD play better and to change CD's while riding. RandyA
  21. Venturous Randy
    Hey, looking really good Did I see some blue sky in those pictures? RandyA
  22. Venturous Randy
    I went out a little before lunch to sunshine. I ended up taking my lunch to go home and get my bike. Had a nice ride back to work and hopefully a nice ride home. It seems like it has been a while since I have seen sunshine. RandyA
  23. Venturous Randy
    These engines do not have hydraulic lifters so this is not an issue. We also don't have rocker arms. The cam sits on top of the valve and has a disc the cam rides on. It would be interesting to see if you have a shim that has too much clearance. RandyA
  24. Venturous Randy
    Well, today at 5:18 EDT, it will officially be fall. It was about 70º this morning when I left for work, but it was raining as it has been for most of the last two weeks. I would love for it to be dry when I get off work so I could be riding when that moment arrives. In the last few years, this time of year makes me realize how I am getting in the Autumn days of my life. I will be 59 Friday and really can't believe it. Well, I can when I try to do some of the things I want to, but mentally, I still feel a lot younger. RandyA
  25. Venturous Randy
    Feels good doesn't it Lew. And the bike looks great too. Now you are going to have to get used to argueing with those people that say "There ain't no way that bike is almost 27 years old!!" Ya done good, buddy. RandyA
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