Freebird

Nope, it won't be cheap but that's what the 12.00 per year is for. It's all good.

That would have been IronMike. I read his post and I know that he has those parts. http://www.venturerider.org/forum/member.php?do=getinfo&u=15727

The whine is not caused by the clutch...I thought that was what we were talking about. The clutch basket is a different thing.

You won't lose that completely if I go that way. If you go to the Touring Hogs site at http://www.touringhogs.com you can click on "What's New" and see the new posts.

I think the difference is actually 10. I guess the second gen is 10 times better.

I am going to commit to it NOT being down for 4 days. I would be shooting for a couple of hours to get it up and operational with all users still intact along with all the old threads. Now I will be tweeting it and adding customizations for weeks or months but that won't require downtime.

Will do...I'm just winging here like I have for the past 15 years or so. But I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express a few years ago. In all honesty, I have no formal training in any of this stuff. I just sort of figure it out as it comes. Thanks for the offer. I may end up calling on you.

You can check it out. http://www.touringhogs.com

Maintaining the old posts and data is a must. I'm not talking about starting over blank. The exception is the classifieds. We may lose them as that too is an entirely different program that I have integrated here and I will probably have to go with something else. I had to edit files that software last night also.

LOL...yea...about 3 1/2 hours worth. Now I have to get ready for my REAL job. It's all good though. This site is worth whatever effort it takes.

A little further explanation and a warning of things to come. This site is running on VBulletin 3.8.7. I have resisted upgrading it to a newer version because it will mean some pretty big changes to the site as we know it now. I have done a lot of customizations here and some of them will not be compatible with a newer version. Some are minor and some are fairly major. One thing is that the home page will change completely. Those of you who enter the site from the home page to see the list of newest posts will miss that feature if I upgrade. The home page is actually another thing entirely that is integrated with the forum. The original software and the company that produced it are long gone. It will not work with a newer version of VBulletin. The home page will be the biggest change. There are other smaller and less important features though. The country flags at the upper right of post is the type thing I'm talking about. Many of the missing features I can restore over time but it has taken years to get things the way that they are and will take at least weeks or months to get many of them going again. So why am I talking about this? What happened with the site starting to crash last night, and I assure you that this was almost "the big one". I was up until 2:30 in the morning working with our host on one end while I was editing code on my end to get it going again. The problem is that the software that runs on the server is also outdated now. It's a catch 22. I can't update things on the server like PHP and Mysql because this version of VBulletin is not compatible with the newer versions of those things. The versions of those that I am running though are no longer supported by anybody. What happened last night was that the PHP running on the server was updated very slightly to what is still an unsupported and very outdated version. Even that small update though was incompatible with this version of VBulletin. So the site started falling apart. The PHP could not be rolled back to the version that was working because it's no longer even available to install so once it was updated, we couldn't go back. I was able to get the site restored from a backup but not the PHP version. So I spent a fair amount of time editing some PHP code in the VBulletin software to make it work with the new version of PHP. I honestly was starting to think that we were toast. I know none of this makes sense to many of you. Some of you with server experience will understand what I am saying. The bottom line though is that I am likely going to be forced to update our VBulletin software in the near future to keep up with the supporting server software. It will mean some adjusting to some different ways that the site looks and works but I don't think there is going to be a choice. Still doing some investigating but just giving you a heads up. Thank you for your patience last night during the mini crash. I'm going to do all I can to ensure that it doesn't become a regular issue.

I HOPE it is OK now. I had to get it restored from a backup from the 19th around midnight. So any posts made over about the past 24 hours were lost. I do think that I found the problem though so HOPEFULLY it won't happen again. Also, I apologize to the new members that signed up yesterday. Due to the restore, you will have to register again. Truly sorry for the inconvenience. It's been a long few hours. I'm going to bed now.

Looks great. Now let the fun begin. Eileen asked me this morning if I was done with the bike after getting the new Vance and Hines mufflers installed. I said...."sure..uh..of course I am". Remember..."It's easier to get forgiveness than permission".

OK....here is a short video. Not good but my iPhone is all I had to do it with. Went for about a 40 mile ride this morning. It was 42 degrees when I left the house but I dressed warm and it was truly a nice ride. Anyway, here is the video but I need you to come and do it right.

You got a lot better deal than I did but I'm happy with them.

I will start working on the countdown page this week. If you know the dates of your events that are usually included, please post them here so that I can get them added. I'm talking about this page: http://www.venturerider.org/rally/ Thanks, Don

I agree with you about the electrical tape Eck. The problem here is that Ohio has E-Check and you can't pass if the light is on. Covering it won't get you by because they plug in and read the codes.

Yea, I thought about that. I never get much out of muffler audio videos but I could do it. Raining though and would just be in the garage. Maybe I will anyway.....

I don't know. Sort of makes sense though. http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2014/10/18/airbag-equipped-motorcycle-vest-could-be-life-saver/?intcmp=latestnews

I went with a stage one air filter from Fuel Moto that allowed me to keep my stock cover. I like the stock cover about as well as any that I've seen. I also got it really cheap because I bought the Dyna Power Vision tuner from them and they offer a package deal. Fuel Moto offers about as good of customer service as I've ever experienced. If you buy the Power Vision tuner from them, they offer lifetime free map changes. When I bought the mufflers, I submitted a request using their online system for an updated fuel map and I received it via email about 15 minutes later. Just connect the power vision to my computer, download the new map into the unit and then plug it into the bike. Takes about 10 minutes from receiving the file to reprogramming the ECM.

I ran across an almost new set of Vance and Hines Monster Rounds for about half price so couldn't resist. They came yesterday so of course the first thing I did this morning was to get them installed. Also reprogrammed the ECM/Fuel Map to go along with them. I haven't made many changes to this bike in regards to performance so far and am pretty happy with it. I've gone with the stage one air kit, removed the catalytic convertor from the head pipe, and now the V&H Monster Ovals. Then the ECM tune of course. Now it's raining here so all I know is that they sound fantastic in the garage. Not a lot louder than stock but a much deeper sound. I didn't want loud so they should be exactly what I was looking for. Here are some pictures that I took while installing them and comparing them to the stock mufflers.

About a month ago, the check engine light came on on my 2007 Avalanche. I figured it was the gas cap but finally took the time to check it out last weekend. Stopped by the local auto parts store and borrowed their code reader. The code was not the gas cap but the evaporative fuel canister solenoid. Now there are two of these solenoids on the Avalanche, one near the manifold under the hood and the other under the bed above the spare tire. A quick search at the Avalanche forum indicated that the one under the bed is almost always the culprit. So I ordered one. Was out of town all week and the part was awaiting when I got home yesterday. I figured it couldn't possibly take long to change it out so I got right on it. The job is done and it did indeed correct the check engine light issue but at this point, I just need the name and telephone number of the GM engineer who designed the spare tire secondary latch system. He must DIE! Apparently it has been a long time since the spare tire was lowered and the secondary latch system was stuck. This has to be one of the most stupid and ill conceived designs I have ever seen on a vehicle. It took me over an hour to finally get the spare tire down on this truck. Following the instructions in the manual to deal with it not releasing did nothing at all. From other posts that I read at the Avalanche forum, it seldom works. It just took a lot of penetrating oil, a long metal bar, a big hammer, a pair of Channelok pliers and a lot of choice words to finally get it to release. What should have been a 30 to 45 minute job ended up taking almost 3 hours. So....if anybody has that geniuses telephone number, please post it right here so I can find him. What an idiot.

See if this thread helps. http://www.venturerider.org/forum/showthread.php?t=63049

Yes, but post them in the classifieds. I hate deleting a nice post.

Whatever the case about the bike itself, I think that the letter was very well done.