DaveDanger

It even works if you need to flush out old fluid. Do all the steps as detailed above, but don't put the end of the tubing into the reservoir to begin with. Insert it into a waste container and pump the lever until the reservoir is ALMOST empty. DON'T allow the reservoir to empty completely or you'll be introducing new air into the system. Fill the reservoir with fresh fluid as it gets low, and continue the same procedure until you see fresh fluid coming out the end of your vinyl tubing. At that point, pull the end of the tubing from the waste container and insert the tubing into the reservoir and continue pumping until you have no bubbles, same as above. Usually by the time you have fresh fluid coming out of the tubing, there's no air left in the system.

Naked Rider, How tall is the exposed part of the windshield you have currently mounted on your bike? I removed my original for the summer, and don't have it at my fingertips to measure, but it seems like it's somewhere in the vicinity of 15 or 16" tall. (My new shorty is 8" tall and I think I cut almost exactly half of the height off of it). I'm fairly tall at 6'2" and have never had any difficulty with the air buffeting from the OEM windshield, and my wife has never complained about the buffeting either, until she rode with me a few times with NO windshield at all mounted. She said then that it was too much wind in her face, and she'd not ride again with me till a windshield was back on the bike. I've seen absolutely no difference in handling with the OEM or the shorty windshield. As far as MPG, I can't help but think it won't be affected much either way. Whether it's the tall windshield or your head and torso up there, the wind is dragging a bit on something. The tall windshield may actually provide a slightly smoother surface for the wind to slip off of... an exercise in physics that most of us have no practical ability to test and prove one way or the other. David

Georgia has been in a drought for seems like the past several years, and suddenly when I want to take photos, Mother Nature has decided to rectify the water shortage with liquid sunshine nearly every day for the last 3 months. I just got reminded however that I'd promised to post pics of my new shorty windscreen and I just popped outside the hangar and snapped a few while the rain had let up. Not great pics, and I'll post more as I get a good day, but something to peruse regardless http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i140/Dave_Danger/Bike/DSC04453.jpg http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i140/Dave_Danger/Bike/DSC04452.jpg

Don, I recently posted a "Part Wanted" item in the classifieds, and a forum member came thru for me and we worked out a deal. I would now like to be able to go back in to my original post and edit it at the bottom to maybe show that my request has been filled and that folks no longer need to contact me with offers. The offers don't bother me, I'd simply like to save folks some time chasing me down for something that's no longer needed. Is there some provision made for me to be able to do that? I saw no "EDIT" button in the classified section that would allow me to do it on my own. Thanks!

I decided a few months ago that I wanted to get the tall OEM windscreen out of my way temporarily and allow the wind to cool me a bit during the summer months. After riding for a few weeks with no windscreen at all, I decided I wanted at least something mounted on the fairing to fill the slot. A secondary thought was to maybe mount a shorty windscreen for appearances sake. Not really having any desire to purchase a brand new full-size windscreen (to cut down), I placed a "part wanted" ad here on the site for one that I could cut down to the size I wanted. A Venture brother in California saw my request and shipped me an old one for the cost of shipping. I received his old one and measured off an 8" rise from bottom to top on the older screen. I overlapped my OEM screen over the replacement and used the upper edge of mine to grease-pencil the upper curve to provide me a cut-line. I cut the excess screen off using a high-speed abrasive cutting disc and a die-grinder, leaving about 1/8" extra outside my grease-pencil line. I then polished that down exactly with another abrasive sanding disc, in the same die-grinder. I then rounded all edges with an air-sander and mounted the freshly re-sized windscreen to my fairing. It looks great and does exactly what I want. Allows enough air to keep me aerated, yet fills the slot and keeps the appearance sharp. Just finished and mounted it yesterday, so I haven't had it out for a major highway ride yet. So not sure if it's low enough to avoid throwing a buffet into the middle of my face, but it can be shortened again if necessary. I'd rather have it too short than too tall. I'll post pics ASAP

There's an even easier way to bleed brakes that doesn't require anything complicated, Speedbleeders® are nice, I have them on my GS850, but they're not necessary to bleed easily. Go to Home Depot or Lowes and buy a 10' roll of 3/16" inside diameter clear vinyl tubing (plumbing section), very cheap, about $3.00. The length isn't critical, as long as it will reach from the farthest caliper to the reservoir, 6' will usually work fine. Cut it if you desire, or leave it full length, doesn't matter. Slip a boxed end wrench over the bleeder nipple at the caliper you need to bleed, then slide one end of the vinyl tubing over the same nipple. (Using a bench grinder, I have thinned down a spare boxed end wrench that fits the brake bleeder nipple, to provide maximum area for the vinyl tube to fit). Remove the cap from the appropriate reservoir, and place the other end of the vinyl tube in the reservoir. (Always use the proper practices with brake fluid, regardless of the method you use... if you spill it on your paint or polished aluminum, wipe it away quickly and wash thoroughly with strong soapy water. Brake fluid will strip paint and corrode polished aluminum). Crack the bleeder nipple open and leave it open... begin slowly pumping the brake lever. The fluid will be forced to circulate in a loop. Through the sysem normally, out the bleeder nipple and back up to the reservoir. If there is any air in the system, you will see it coming out in the vinyl tube. ALL your fluid returns back into the reservoir, and the air is purged out as it circulates. When no more air is seen, there is no more air in the system. Close the bleeder nipple, remove the vinyl tube, close the reservoir after making sure it's filled properly. (After I've bled a system this way, I take a pair of golf tees and plug the vinyl tubing ends to trap the brake fluid inside. That way, every time I connect and use the tube, I don't have to pump it full of fluid first. Coil it up and hang it from a nail on the wall). One person can easily bleed any brake/clutch system this way. With a long enough vinyl tubing, it works on cars, trucks, motorcycles, airplanes. (Different fluid and tubes for airplanes) Always start at the farthest caliper from the reservoir, and work your way to the closest. I use this method almost daily. It works. It works with or without Speedbleeders®.

Try swapping the bulbs right on the bike before buying new ones. Swap the two rear bulbs first, test them, then swap the two front ones, test again. If either swap moves the problem to the other side of the bike, you've isolated the problem to a specific bulb. If this doesn't change anything, then begin checking your receptacles and wiring. As mentioned earlier, all the rear light wiring is in a small box behind the license plate and is very easy to get to. The individual wires to each lamp are quick-disconnect style.... unhook them one at a time and test between unhooks (reconnect afterwards), see if that helps you eliminate the problem down to a specific circuit. Same can be done in the front as well. David

My son purchased a can of seafoam at the local car parts place here a week or so ago... $6 bucks and change. We have a 350 V8 that had swallowed various gaskets allowing water to mix with the oil. After performing all the arcane healing rituals (involving large quantities of Snap-On® tools) required to solve the problem, we serviced the engine with a cheap 20-50 oil and half a can of seafoam to run for a few hours then another oil & filter change to help purge the moisture from the crankcase and other places. When I opened the can of seafoam and sniffed it, I decided it was about 70% alcohol. I deal with a variety of alcohols in my aircraft maintenance work, and this stuff smelled very strongly the same. I do like Marvel Mystery Oil myself. We'll add the second half of the Seafoam can after we change the oil again... just for Gee Whiz effects.

I think this picture was originally found in the webster's dictionary next to the word... "Hideous". I actually did something similar to this once, with an ancient ATV 3-wheeler. Made a great farm vehicle. I'd never have had the nerve to take it on the road, nor to have asked someone for money for it.

Coleman fuel ≈ White Gasoline ≈ Naphtha (all more or less interchangeable) NOT interchangeable with... Diesel ≈ kerosene ≈ Jet-A ≈ heating oil (All more or less interchangeable)

Frogmaster.. Lemme offer a tiny suggestion. You mentioned adding 20" I think, to enable you to install a cooler rack on the tongue. It's a great idea and I love mine and use it daily. My suggestion is to make sure you add enough to allow the trailer box top to flip forward beyond 90° like you said you wanted to do. My cooler rack is placed close enough to my trailer box, that when I try to open the top beyond about 70°, it hits the cooler. Make sure and give yourself enough room to open as far as you desire. When that top lifts up to 90° and beyond, it moves forward from the hinge point, by the height of the top. Great looking trailer

tx2sturgis, you're correct, and I was sort of ignoring the possibility that the vehicle and trailer were both 5-wire systems, since he was having the aforementioned problems. Some newer cars and a lot of imports do in fact use 5-wire systems, which allows for direct wiring without the use of a converter if you have a 5-wire trailer. And I've also seen the harnesses labeled as 3-wire and 4-wire, when they're actually 4-wire and 5-wire:) Like you said, they're counting everything except the ground wire. It can get confusing

Kbay, that crossover tube is not solid, but it is fairly thickwalled. I welded it with no difficulty. For that matter, the commercially fabricated hitches from online use that same tube as best I can tell. It seems to be plenty strong under my use so far, and I've punished it a bit. The 3/16's plate that I folded and placed underneath my receiver tube and wrapped around the front of that crossover tube was for that purpose... to add to the strength of the crossover tube. Most of the parts distributors I've checked with, sell that crossover tube for $50.00 give or take a few pennies. I found it at a bike parts place that was advertising on Facebook recently for about $35.00. The one on the bike is what I used for my first one, but while it's off and being worked on, the bike is unridable... so I want a fresh blank for hitch 1.02 I'm trying to find that parts dealer name right this second, and can't come up with it. It's bookmarked in my office computer at the house, and I'm at the airport on my laptop this minute. I'll get it to you. 6/18/09 Just found that link, it www.cheapcycleparts.com They seem to beat oem prices pretty handily on most stuff I've checked.

I recently bought an '06 Midnight Venture with almost that same price tag, with 13,000 miles already on it. I still felt like a got a deal

Kbay, I also have a suggestion when you do yours if you follow my plan... When I drilled the 7/8" hole thru my receiver tube to slide it onto the crossover tube... I drilled it thru the center of the receiver, as far as height is concerned. I didn't realize that would force me to angle my receiver tube downwards a few degrees to clear the bottom of the rear fender. It functions fine, the 1 7/8" ball allows for plenty of angle without binding, but the lack of a perfectly flat receiver coming off the back of the bike simply causes me to cringe inwardly because my eye wants to see level, balance, and flowing lines. It doesn't look symmetrical and it just aggravates the fool out'a me. My cure, and I'm already working on my second hitch to replace this first effort, is to drill that 7/8" hole, right near the top of the receiver tube, instead of thru the center. That should allow the receiver tube to drop down a bit where it welds to the crossover tube, and level it out where it comes from beneath the fender. If necessary, I'll even drill the hole partway out the top of the receiver tube to make it come out level. The problem I had when designing the first one, is that I had no one around to straddle my bike for me, in a straight-up position while allowing me to lay down back at the rear end and hold a small level along the bottom of the receiver tube while rough-fitting the parts together. This would have shown me that the tube needed to be mounted lower on the crossover to come out level and flat. I will rectify that in "Hitch 1.02" I've worked on airplanes too long for me to sleep well at night when something just doesn't look right. There's just enough perfectionist resident to cause me difficulties with some things that I ought to just be satisfied with

Old Salt, it sounds to me like you're working with two different wiring systems. I noted you bought the trailer from Harbor Freight and assembled it yourself, then connected it to your truck and the lights worked fine. What that tells me is that the trailer is wired as a 4-wire system, which is standard for an automobile. The bikes are wired as 5-wire systems, which requires some changes to be made. Bear with me if I'm repeating the obvious here, but sometimes the assumption that someone else is on the same page... is a cause of headaches. A 4-wire system means basically that the brake lights and the turn signals are powered with 2 of the total 4 wires, because the turn signals and the brake lights are the same bulbs. They duplicate functions. A 5-wire system means that the turn signals and brake lights are separate completely, like on the bike itself. You have a brake light bulb that is by itself, so it requires 1 wire, and each turn signal is a bulb itself which requires 1 wire each. You now have 3 wires doing what 2 wires did on the 4-wire system. With me so far? Alright, knowing this, you have 2 options... either obtain a converter from any of the sources referenced above, which will take your 5-wire bike wiring, and make it power your 4-wire trailer properly (which is the best way to go if you plan on ever using this trailer with an automobile), or re-work the lighting on your trailer and make it a 5-wire setup. It's not necessary to remove any of your existing lights, but you do need to add a turn signal to each side, either red or amber lensed. Most common is amber for turn signals. You now obtain a 5-wire harness for the trailer and connect the wiring on the trailer exactly as it is on the bike. 1 wire to ground, 1 wire to running lights, 1 common wire to both brake lights, 1 wire individually to each turn signal. This should clear up the problems you have. As noted above, I have only incandescent bulbs on my trailer except for some LED "neons" underneath the trailer for "ground effect" lighting, and I have yet to see any need for a powered converter. Understand again, a converter and a "powered" converter are two different things... but they do the same thing. A standard converter simply switches a 4-wire system to a 5-wire system, and it powers the additional trailer lighting directly from the existing bike wiring to its own light bulbs, which does add some additional curent load to the bike wiring. A Powered converter switches 4-wire to 5-wire, but does it with the addition of a unit that provides all the power to run the extra lighting on the trailer, directly from the battery of the bike. The existing wiring for the bike's light bulbs simply provides a signal to the powered unit (thru a series of relays or micro-relays) to turn on the desired light on the trailer, the unit draws power for the bike's battery to actually power the trailer lights. A powered converter is almost always fused internally on each circuit to further protect the bike wiring. If you're using a 5-wire harness on the bike and a 5-wire harness on the trailer, you do not need a converter at all for it to work properly, but you may desire a "powered" converter simply to allow the battery to power your lighting. Gimme us holler and let us know if we can help with anything further.

I won't be so dogmatic as to say it'll always split evenly dray, and the load can somewhat bias towards one end a little bit, but dadgummit if the hitch is in front of the load, and the wheel is behind it... you're gonna have an awful lot of load on the hitch As to calling me when you have a heavy load to tote, you go ahead and do that... it's one of the things I'm good at I'm a skosh large my own self, and picking up a load just ain't much worse'n dragg'n my butt outa bed every morn'n When I went to meet the fella I bought my trailer from, he had gotten a neighbor to help him ramp it up into the back of his pickup to bring it halfway to me for delivery. He then left the ramps at home, and thought we had a problem till I untied it and simply picked up the entire trailer by its back end and set it on the ground. He grumbled and swore he could'a done the same 20 years ago

Kbay, I'm not necessarily tight (although I am to some extent) I simply can't make myself shell out money for something I'm capable of doing myself. As to Chrome, that has crossed my mind, but I'm leaning more towards taking it to a local shop and having it powder-coated. I'll check out cost on both options

CAUTION: HIGH RESOLUTION PICS. (I'VE DISCOVERED THE BEST WAY TO VIEW THESE PICS IS TO RIGHT-CLICK THE PICS, ONE AT A TIME, AND "OPEN LINK IN NEW TAB". VIEW THE PIC, CLOSE THE WINDOW, AND REPEAT FOR EACH PIC) Obviously before connecting up the trailer I mentioned above, I had to have a hitch since this bike came to me without one. I looked over the units available online and decided that their ideas were basically sound but I wanted to build mine as a receiver hitch to begin with, and wanted to save some cash as well. I removed the crossover bar behind the rear tire and measured it for width inside the attach flanges: 9” http://s71.photobucket.com/albums/i140/Dave_Danger/Bike/Hitch%20Assembly/?action=view&current=DSC04028.jpg I then purchased a 1 1/4" receiver hitch tube from a local automotive hitch dealer and cut it to the length that would place the receiver as close to the rear fender as possible. I then drilled a 7/8" hole thru the receiver tube from side-to-side, with the edge of the hole flush with the fwd (tire end) of the tube, then cut that hole open like a slot. I then began with a 9" x 9" piece of 3/16" thick steel plate, and cut all corners on a 45 degree angle, and folded the front edge (tire edge) 90 degrees straight up, and drilled a 3/4" hole in both aft corners for safety chains. http://s71.photobucket.com/albums/i140/Dave_Danger/Bike/Hitch%20Assembly/?action=view&current=DSC04030.jpg http://s71.photobucket.com/albums/i140/Dave_Danger/Bike/Hitch%20Assembly/?action=view&current=DSC04039.jpg http://s71.photobucket.com/albums/i140/Dave_Danger/Bike/Hitch%20Assembly/?action=view&current=DSC04041.jpg I then clamped all the pieces together tightly and welded all joins in a series of 3/4" stitch beads. http://s71.photobucket.com/albums/i140/Dave_Danger/Bike/Hitch%20Assembly/?action=view&current=DSC04046.jpg Reinstalled the whole assembly to the bike and slipped in a 1 7/8" ball mount that I had left over from a previous vehicle... oila! Really slick, nearly hidden receiver hitch. http://s71.photobucket.com/albums/i140/Dave_Danger/Bike/Hitch%20Assembly/?action=view&current=DSC04053.jpg http://s71.photobucket.com/albums/i140/Dave_Danger/Bike/Hitch%20Assembly/?action=view&current=DSC04049.jpg I have about $50.00 worth of materials and outside machine shop work in it. Not counting my design, fitting and welding time.

I weigh in with the lighter tongue weight crowd. I try to always adjust my trailer weight load to give me between 15 and 20 lbs tongue weight. No more, no less. Too little tongue-weight is asking for trailer wiggle and sway, if not the dreaded hitch disconnect, and too much tongue weight generates front end wiggle. The excess weight behind the rear axle does tend to lift the front end of the bike a tiny bit, and it changes the angle at which the front forks intersect the road surface... this is what's important... that front fork angle is engineered into the bike to give it an exact steering geometry and specific handling. Changing that fork angle decreases or increases that steering geometry, strongly affecting the tendency to wiggle at the fork attach point. Definitely increase the rear suspension air pressure to the max where adjustable, and decrease the tongue weight to 15 - 20 lbs. Get the weight back on the front end, and get that fork angle back to normal.

I've built a few motorcycle trailers and can offer a few basic suggestions. 1. You absolutely want a minimum tongue length (from axle to hitch) of two times the width of the wheels outside width. Slightly longer is even better for sway or wiggle resistance, but twice is the minimum. Too long increases the amount of wide turn you have to make to get around a corner... you tend to hit curbs with the trailer tires. 2. You do want to be able to balance your load fore and aft as best you can, taking into account that you never want to have a negative weight at the hitch. Fabricate your trailer frame or chassis, so that you can adjust your box fore and aft until you have it where you desire. Ideally, set the axle as close to the center of "WEIGHT CARRY" as you can, then back it up just a few inches. ("Weight Carry" includes external weight as well, cooler, spare tire, etc). You always want the capability of adjusting your load inside the box so that you can change the percentage of weight that rests on the tongue. If your axle is a few inches aft of the center of the "WEIGHT CARRY", it will tow easily with just a few pounds weight on the hitch... even empty. I always set my empty weight to where it sets about 10 - 15 pounds positive to the front "on the hitch". Then I can adjust my load internally to maintain that balance. I can change mine drastically at any time... I'm a mechanic and don't feel comfortable leaving the driveway without at least a 50 lb. toolbox in the trailer, and I can slide that toolbox fore and aft for a quick weight adjustment as needed to get the tongue weight to where I feel it's perfect. If you ever get your load weight heavier to the rear of the axle than in front... it is guaranteed to wiggle and sway. This has nothing to do with tongue weight, it has to do with mass and rotation in a horizontal plane. If you've ever seen a pair of handlebars go into what's called a "tank slapper", you realize what that unbalanced mass can do. You don't ever want a trailer to begin that increasing-frequency oscillation behind you at any speed. 3. I can't support this idea with any engineering, but on a ball type hitch, I FEEL that you want your ball height and hitch to sit at or below the axle height of your rear wheel. My very first homebuilt hitch sat a few inches higher than my rear axle (I was giving too much importance to ground clearance) and what I felt was that when I leaned into a turn, the trailer seemed like it wanted to accelerate my lean... in other words it seemed like it wanted to push my lean right on into the ground. It fought my attempt to straighten back up. Having the hitch up that high seemed like it made the trailer turn more sharply than the bike was. Scairt me a few times till I figured that out and redesigned my hitch and got it to the axle height. I never felt that again with the lower hitch height. (The Uni-Go single wheel trailer with a high hitch setup, doesn't generate this effect since the trailer leans with the bike exactly) 4. Wheel/tire diameter really does have a noticeable effect on motorcycle trailiering. The larger the rotational circle, the more stable and smooth it pulls and handles. The smaller the tire, the more it tends to bounce and wiggle. The smaller the tire, the faster it rotates per any given bike speed. The smaller "boat trailer" sized wheels can turn more than twice as fast as the wheels on the bike. This mandates very frequent bearing maintenance. My last trailer I built to use a pair of older spoked front rims off of an indeterminate model motorcycle. A local bike dealer let me pick thru his backroom stash of used parts and I found two identical spoked wheels that used the same size tire as the front of the bike I was riding, when I wore out a tire on the front of the bike, I'd mount it on the trailer, next worn out tire went to the other side. They'd dry-rot from age before wearing completely out on the trailer. It pulled and handled like a dream. I ran those motorcycle tires at about 18 psi, and had NO suspension on the trailer. It didn't hurt the appearance to have the trailer tires exactly match the ones on the bike too Just my own two cents worth

It may vary a tiny bit, but not much. If the two points of support are at opposite ends, the entire weight will split pretty evenly between the two points. Regardless of whether the weight is closer to one end or the other. Think of yourself lying in a hammock. Doesn't really matter much if you scoot from one end to the other, the two ends are going to have to support all the weight, and since you can't get any of the weight out beyone one support or the other, it tends to even out.

You'd be correct... when the two support points are at complete opposite ends, the total weight of the load will be distributed more or less equally between the two points that support the weight, in this instance, the tire contact patch, and the hitchpoint. Like you posited, a 300# load will split the weight about 50-50 between the two points, or 150# each. I think I'd have tackled building my trailer frame capable of holding two of the boxes, turned in an upright position, with the single wheel in between them, but moved forward to allow the wheel/tire to hold a larger percentage of the weight. That however would add a considerable amount of complexity to the project. I'm prone to go overboard thataway

Brian, is that a standard auto-size license plate on the back of that trailer? It looks like it needs outriggers to keep the plate from rolling the trailer over on it's side... it looks HUGE on the back of the trailer It's a great looking trailer though! The fella I bought my (homebuilt) trailer from, had had a shallow, aluminum treadplate tray fabricated and installed on the tongue in front of the trailer box, to hold a decent sized cooler. He threw in the cooler and a black vinyl zippered cover with the trailer for an extra $20.00. The whole transaction set me back $95.00. I really never thought much about the complete set of light lenses being red, it looked really sharp on yours. I'm going to look into locating red lenses for my turn signals as well. I'm not sure if I'm going to delve into replacing the "ground-effect" LED's under the bottom of my trailer... a kind of pale blue that is tied into the running lights. They'd look surreal in Georgia Bulldawg Red

Alright, I gathered up my bloomers and jumped in. The trailer I purchased was already wired with a 5-wire system (primarily meaning separate bulbs for turn and brake lamps), so I purchased a 5-wire vehicle-side harness from WalMart for $8.95, and began my connections. I had discovered to my boundless delight, that all the wiring that needs to be accessed for trailer lighting is in a box that is uncovered by removing the license plate. I removed the container itself temporarily, and drilled a 1/2" hole directly through the fender where it would be hidden when the container is reinstalled. I then inserted a 1/4" I.D. grommet into that freshly drilled hole, and routed my new wiring harness up inside the fender and through that grommet, so that my 5-wire connector hung at the proper height near my hitch. I pulled the remainder of the wire harnes through the grommet, cut the length to what was necessary for connections and using a voltmeter, determined which wires I needed to tap into to operate my lights correctly. Turned out the imprinted labeling on the new vehicle-side harness was accurately matched to my trailer harness. I did not attempt to install a "powered" unit. I browsed through the wiring diagrams in my Factory Service Manual and found no "computer" or "black-box" switches. So there is little liklihood of overpowering the bike's wiring system. I did install individual inline fuses in all but the ground wire... 4 fuses don't take up a huge amount of space and is small price paid for that peace of mind. I squeezed everything back into the container behind the license plate and tie-wrapped the harness to an original harness inside the fender to keep the excess from getting into the tire. There is no harness visible on the bike except for the flat plug itself laying right at my receiver hitch. Connected the plugs and checked the lighting, and was pleased to see that everything operated like it should. I've put about 1,000 miles on the bike and trailer since the hookup and haven't had the first problem. I'm tickled with it