bongobobny

BTW Lug Nut, make sure the oil you use is good for a wet clutch!! Either Motorcycle oil, or Diesel engine oil. A lot, if not most automobile oils have friction inhibitors in them which make the clutch slip!!

Yah!! C. None of the above! As Steve stated, 1st gen and 2nd Gen refer to the Venture only, but it is more akin to the 2nd Gen being a "Star" motorcycle. The 1st generation Venture, both MK1 and MK2 are Yamaha Venture and Venture Royal. The 2nd generation of Venture are part of the Star Line made by Yamaha, Royal Star Ventures...

More info on why the tire still turns with clutch disengaged. We have what is known as a "wet" clutch. Unlike on a car where when you disengage the clutch there is just air between the clutch and pressure plate, there is always oil between the discs and the clutch. One of the properties of oil is called "stiction" which is related to viscocity, and it oils ability to stick to itself as well as to whatever surface it is attached to. Sooo, there is always a connection of sorts between the clutch parts, and without any resistance to rotation it will still spin together somewhat, and will transfer a small amount of torque to the rear wheel. If you had an extra hand you could apply the brake while holding the clutch in and the wheel would stop without the motor bogging down in the least, providing there is really nothing wrong with the slave cylinder...

That's the usual culprit!! Unless you or someone else replaced, or at least repacked the bearings, by now considering the age, your bearing grease is probably more like glue...

Nice choice Brenda, but some people would argue that the last nice T'Bird was the '57 when it was a 2 seater. the '58's were classy though. My preference for T'Bird was the '61...

If you want to go LED instead of HID there are plug and play bulb assemblies. It's only for the HID that you have to play the relay game. HID (High Intensity Discharge) is overall probably brighter than LED (Light Emitting Diode) lights but LED's are "whiter" looking and show up really good in the daytime. HID's use a little more power than LED's do...

As far as the rear tire spinning a little bit when on the centerstand in gear, that is somewhat normal, without any restriction the clutch will not 100% disengage. Any restriction at all will stop the wheel from spinning...

Hmmm, just checked our Tech library with no success. Doing a google search came up with this as well as others... http://www.ebay.com/bhp/yamaha-royal-star-manual

Yup!! Southbound is correct!! Not sure what Jeff was thinking, even on the 1st gen the driveshaft comes out of the U joint,which is connected to the output of the engine. The swingarm has to come off and then unbolt the output gear/u joint. Careful of the shims when removing the u joint assembly, they set up the backlash...

OK there is a fix for that and it's documented somewhere on this site!! The fix is to take a resistor with a value of somewhere between 2,000 (2K) to 5,000 (5K) ohms and connect the resistor in series from the probe line to switched 12 volts, like the accessory fuse line. Do NOT connect the probe line directly to 12 volts, you will burn out the sensor circuitry!! The probe, which was used to detect low battery acid, was hooked to one of the cells about in the middle of the battery. The circuit is looking for a logic "on" command which is around 5 volts to 8 volts. 12 volts is too much voltage, in electronic terms that is known as "rail" voltage which the IC does not like and causes it to short out! The resistor acts as a voltage divider to lower the voltage to the proper level for the logic chip. Sooo, march yourself to your local radio shack and buy a resistor somewhere in that range, the wattage rating can be as low as 1/8 watt, the circuit does not draw much current...

:Bunny2:When did this happen MJ???

Uh HUH!! Mystery solved!

Ummmm, I think the concern there may be driving with the cruise set at those speeds and not necessarily driving at those speeds...

There ya go! It wouldn't be the same distance as the rise because the hoses and cables are not clamped onto the bars but dangle in free space so it would be more like figuring out a complex triangle with the hoses and cables being the hypotenuse of the triangle...

Hmmm, good point Gary! I know it is not from the different TCI's as I have had both MK1 and MK2 units in the bike with no noticeable difference in performance. I also know the HP specs for the 1200 vs the 1300, the 1200 had a couple HP more than the 1300 but very little difference so you would think the bigger displacement engine would have more bottom end torque! I mean there was not any night and day difference in the feel of the MK1 vs the MK2 with the exception of how 2nd gear, it felt more of a "pop a wheelie" sensation with the MK1. Of course maybe at the time my bike was running better than my buddy's MK2 or something... Now 1st gen vs 2nd gen, night and day difference! downshift into 2nd gear and twist the throttle on a 2nd gen, lotta noise but much less actual acceleration!! Ended up running a red light finding out about that when I first got the '09!

Yah!! That's my guess too! May be a combination of things! Bad tire, unequal fork springs, neck bearings, wrong torque on neck bearings, etc. etc. etc. Now the question being, did you ever have the bike up to those speeds previously successfully, and now the problem has started, or is this the first time you have had the bike up to those speeds? Another high speed handling accessory to have on the bike is a super brace heavy duty fork brace installed to stiffen up the forks. The stock fork brace is flimsy and prone to allowing a little bit of flex between the forks. The Super Brace is thicker and tends to keep the two forks more stable and acting as a single unit...

OK in summary, your shift forks got buggered up first, THEN your kickstand switch went bad making the bike stall every time you shifted out of neutral, and now you are back to problem 1, won't go into gear but at least the motor still runs. Is this right??

Hmmmm, I wish I had a magic formula to give you, but I'm thinking it would be 1/3 to 1/2 of the rise from stock...

The most common cause of this kind of failure is the kickstand switch!! The switch develops a small amount of internal resistance making the system think the kickstand is still down!! A good switch will read less than 1 ohm, for all intents and purposes Zero ohms. If they read 2 or 3 ohms instead of zero replace the switch, with the kickstand up those few ohms makes the system think the kickstand is still down. A quick, albeit somewhat dangerous, test is to unplug the kickstand switch, and on the wiring harness (not the switch side) jumper all 3 connections. VERY IMPORTANT!!! Your bike can now start IN GEAR WITH THE CLUTCH ENGAGED!!! Make absolutely sure you are in neutral before starting!! Then see if it keeps running when you shift to 1st. If it does then your sidestand switch is bad, replace it!!

Then it's most likely the wire for the battery probe. Probably someone removed the battery, and instead of pulling the probe from the battery, they unhooked the probe from the connector. Does your battery warning icon and the red warning light come on??

Uhhhh, Wild Bill, you talking about my wife or my trike???

Looks FANTASTIC!!! Nice thing about a quieter bike is you can hear your wife screaming at you should you accidentally leave her behind somewhere...

No Wayne, not your fault, it's the neighbor across from the mailboxes fault!! They got back from Florida and Wally sold his '67 Mustang and bought an early 2000's Mustang convertible. Nice car but I'm NOT into Kelly green cars!! Anyway it was after picking up the mail and he pulled into his driveway and we talked for a while, that on the way shopping she said what she did. Don't know where we would ever store the car, but if we did get a 2 seater, I would like a Pontiac Solstice. The Saturn is a nicer looking 2 seater, but the Pontiac is a better car... Of course, if we DID get rid of the trike (No, I'm NOT ready to do that yet!!) I could get rid of our trailer that we use to tow the trike, and I wouldn't need a big car to tow the trailer. Finish Goldie and then trike it...

Then I stand corrected!! Ya just can't trust what some people tell you, can you?!!? So now I'm wondering why 2nd gear seems to grab stronger on a MK1 vs a MK2? At least it felt that way on the MK2 I drove once to compare differences between the two...

Not too shabby Boss, not shabby at all!!