Squidley

Steve, I'm a bit confused about 6 pin vs 13 pin, this is just for the brake lights correct, or am I missing something here? It should just be a 6 pin for the tail and turn signals, I'm not sure what the compressors would have to do with it

It's funny you mention that Lutz, I had never thought twice about intake manifolds until this bike. All the bikes I have ever carb synced had wide open tubes on the intake manifolds. These did not, and 2 other bikes at MD didn't either. They had VERY tiny holes in what can be best described as caps over the tubes. I have don't literally hundreds of carb syncs and I never recall seeing tiny pin holes like these ones. They were clear, as I took a torch cleaning tip in all of them and they were clear.

It's nerve wracking the 1st time you do it, but you'll get hooked just like I did. If there is 20+ people and your all going to go for a ride after, break it up into 2 groups. Ask one of the members who might have some Road Captain experience if he would be willing to lead a 2nd group. Keep it about 10 to 12 in a group, I have lead 30 bikes and that is VERY challenging to do, especially if your in any kind of city. Have your ride mapped out, and explain it to all that are going for the ride. Give some basic information on hand signals and keep less experienced riders in the front to middle of the pack. Slow your ride pace down, there WILL be an accordion effect taking off from lights and stopping. Last of all, enjoy yourself, there is nothing like looking in your rear view mirrors and seeing a dozen or more brothers and sisters riding with you

That looks familiar

Ok...here we go I had written out a nice detailed post and then the site timed me out, so I lost it all. Before I took a hammer to my computer , I turned it all off and walked away for the night This is what we did, Compression test, all 4 cylinders are great 200 lbs so that takes out the valves and rings from the issue. Performed the test for the Throttle position sensor, if I read it right, which I believe I did, we are within the parameters that the manual specifies. So that's another thing to not interfere. While we did the compression test, we installed new plugs. Mind you none of what we did had a difference. We took off the mufflers to insure they weren't blocked, no change and still no vacuum. I know others had mentioned about insuring the carbtune was working properly. We tried it with 2 different ones that had been used earlier in the day to sync other bikes. I believe that this is a carb issue, perhaps the butterflies are total out of whack and I couldn't get them right without taking the carbs back off. I'm also leaning towards the idle circuit in the carbs could be clogged up, the bike runs fair under acceleration and at cruising RPM's in the 2500 to 4K range. I'm gonna have Mark bring it to my place and he can crash over here for the night. We'll strip the carbs off and completely go through them. Let them soak over night to really clean them and rebuild them. Then I can look at the butterflies and bench set them before we install them again so it will be closer to set with the carbtune. So that's it in a nutshell right now, more to come, and Mark did make it home

Mirrors are a tough one, and I don't have any spares. The CDI the same way, but get with Dingy here on the site as he sells an updated TCI unit that will work for your '83. A new windshield is available for about $90.

Lots of good folks here Kyle, glad we could help get you rolling a little better.

Fred, If you have the factory cassette deck and it still works, get a cassette adapter and use it in the deck. You can go and get any MP3 player and plug it into the adapter and run it through the bikes speakers. I have been doing it for years on my 1st gens...

Bill, The Vmax gears will absolutely help with more umph, it will raise your rpms in 5th gear about 500 rpms at same cruising speed. Another thing you might consider is going with a Dyna 3000 ignition kit on your bike. You can change the timing curve of the engine and raise the rev limited as well. These 2 things will give you more useable power. Your fuel consumption is unfortunately not going to change a whole lot. Make absolutely sure that your carb floats are set properly and that the carbs are synced right. This will help with your fuel consumption.

YES I'll fill in some of the blanks, at idle rpms, there is no vacuum on the carbtune. When I tried to set the sync at a high rpm (about 3000) I would not get much vacuum, but got some. We did pull the rear plugs and both sides sparked with the plugs that were in them when they were outside of the cylinders. We actually did make some headway, when Mark rode in he had to run with the choke on or the bike just wouldn't run. It also would die when you gave it throttle. When he left tonight it would run without the choke on and he could give it throttle and it not die, so we made some headway. I fought with it for 30 minutes at high rpm with the carbtune and got somewhat close to a sync, but with very low vacuum. We are going back tomorrow and play a bit more. I am going to do a compression test on the cylinders. I will also run through y'alls suggestions and try to get this figured out. I usually don't get stumped on these bikes, but this one has me scratching my head Thanks for all your help

We are working on one of the members RSTD's here at Houstons MD. We have an '05 TD that has zero vacuum when we tried to carbsync it. The right side of the bike warms up pipes get hot. The left side is VERY slow to warm up. We took the carbs off, set floats, checked jets and the whole 9 yards. I know about checking for a massive vacuum leak, we have checked all I know to check. I understand that vacuum is created on the intake stroke of the piston and all that. I am totally at a loss for why we dont have vacuum. my brain is somewhat fried rigt now from 11 hours of MD, if any of y'all have some words of wisdoms or had this happen to you, what did you do to correct this issue. Thanks in advance for any help you can give.

If you haven't had the carb sync checked that would be one of the 1st things I would do. I would also check all your vacuum lines and vacuum caps for being in good shape. Popping could be it sucking air somewhere. You mentioned replacing the coils, did they come with new caps on them? if not I would invest in plug caps for it as there is a resistor inside them that can get corroded and cause weird things to happen. If your battery is the original in the bike I would also have it load tested. This bike is VERY finicky on electrical power and will cause a lot of grief if the battery or charging system isn't up to snuff.

Happy Birthday Annie....from TEXAS!!!

Happy Birthday Bob!!!

Good on him, keep up the fight and when you see him next tell him were still rootin for him!

He is really starting to look distinguished! Good on y'all for being able to spend some time with "The Boss"

PM me when you get a chance, I might be able to help on some of it.

Good to see you back Mark

I do have a couple spare rims with hubs in them, shoot me a PM and we'll chat or give me a call.

Pete, I don't have that, the ones on my bikes aren't in the greatest shape. Something I am going to do is see if they can be bought new. They are $55 each side and they don't say they are discontinued. I need to check into that and see if there is any NOS still floating around out there.

Thank you for all your efforts Mike, I know what a job it can be to try and make things come together.

A binding cable is a good assumption and very well may be the culprit. I have also had a bad carb sync keep RPMs up high and be intermittent. I would find someone in your area that has a carbtune or some sort of carb sync tool (if you don't have one) and make sure the carbs are set right....

I have to question why you are wasting your time if you already have another job? Once you are employed again, you don't get unemployment as far as I know. Sometimes it's easier to move on and accept that this is how the cards fell and get your life back on track, good luck with the new job.

It's good info for folks looking to get back into riding or doing it for the 1st time. I always look at the date codes on any new to me bike I get. Many of these Ventures have just been sitting and some of them not in a garage. Enjoy your new toy and I think you'll keep it for a while.

Gene, The last rally that was towards the West was Cody in 2010 or 2011, I forget which year. The beauty of the site is that you can host a Meet & Eat locally and have members in your area show up. It's not that hard to do and once y'all start getting together, you'll want to do it more....