LilBeaver

To answer your question, moisture collecting inside the key/lock cylinder, freezing then thawing out lead to corrosion, etc. which is a possible cause. If the forks were locked, try wiggling the bars while you try to turn the key - sometimes the lock mechanism binds a little bit. I have had good luck with http://www.drillspot.com/products/427915/Victor_00500-V_Lock_De-Icer_Lubricant that stuff. It is a de-icer and lubricant. I had to leave my truck parked outside when I lived in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and my locks would be real hard to turn (especially the lock on my tailgate) if I didn't go around and put the key in all of them routinely. I got the stuff at wal-mart or autozone (I don't remember which) but it was only 1 or 2 bucks for the bottle. Good luck!

I've also heard good things about http://www.gpscity.com (Can get ram-mounts there).

I'm in for 1. Let me know when and where to send the $$ By the way, have you checked it for accuracy against another tachometer. ie. on an automobile with a tach? (just out of curiosity) Thanks a lot for doing this

2 or 3 months ago, this dealer did have a 2000 MM that was the original color without the trunk and with the backrest (as pictured) (and with similar mileage as to what is listed). It didn't sell on Cycle trader and was posted on e-bay twice. It had disappeared from both and it was not sold on e-bay. I wonder if they did just paint it to try to sell it this way instead of the white... Seems like a lot of work for that, but, maybe they thought they could get more $$ for it...

That is good news

Glad the surgery went well. I hope these other 'issues' that came up are able to be dealt with in a reasonably quick fashion and that his road to recovery is as smooth as possible. My thoughts and prayers are still with him, his family and friends.

Today here it did get into the 70s or so... Although the 40-60mph winds made getting home a little difficult... but Sunday is supposed to be terrific.

That's some good stuff right there

That's some good news man!

:yikes::yikes: YEEEEEOOOOWWW!!!! For the record, my last comment about seeing pictures was meant as a joke Glad you are on the road to recovery though! Hope it is going as well as possible, considering the circumstances.

Yikes. Sounds like a good time... Sorry to hear about your troubles friend. Hope things can get put back together relatively quickly!

Interesting. I wonder what the lean limits are - and if you reach them if the wheels pop down or if you grind the side panels. Pretty neat though, thanks for sharing

According to: http://www.motoverse.com/tools/vinDecoder.asp It IS an XVZ13TF (ie. Venture) - Just like the tank badges say... I couldn't imagine only riding 5k miles in 10 years...

You CAN just replace one if you choose to. The stebel can be found for 35-50ish depending on your source. Many of us have replaced the stock horn by the right passenger floorboard. There is lots of info on them here, you've just got to do some minor searching

uh. I still like to hear the big horns too ... +1 to the air horn(s) on the bike being a great addition. I too am looking for a way to get a second set on mine. It would be nice to get a set that is lower pitched than the stebel - that is to have a wider range, bigger noise, etc. REALLY get people's attention.

Terrific! Thanks Unfortunately that $270 is out of my price range ...

I'm looking but I don't see anything from you... Maybe I'm too late...

Gary: If this thing works like it claims to (and you verify that in your testing and you are happy with it) you can count me in for one Depending on weight and actual size, padded envelopes may be much cheaper than the $5 fixed rate boxes. (Just a thought) -Rick EDIT: I can do pay pal to you as well, no problem with that here.

Unfortunately, the best I have found is to sort by state. Maybe someone else will chime in with better knowledge on the subject. I wouldn't mind having a complete print out, if that is what we need to do. But I don't know of a way to get all of them to be displayed on a single page either (ie one would have to click next, then print, next then print, etc...)

Good luck friend!! Hope it all goes as planned

A cheap collapsible zipper lunch box/cooler type deal holds plenty of tools. (Thanks for the idea flb ) I agree with the craftsman bit. BUT, I have yet to find a reasonable all metric set. So, I have pieced together a handful of sockets, a few wrenches (key sized for the necessary items on the bike), two different sized adjustable wrenches (for anything I may have overlooked), a set of ball end hex key (allen) wrenches, hex head sockets for the few hex screws/bolts that are kept at a higher torque that having a ratchet on is a little bit easier than the hex key, a few different sized pliers from a few sets that I've picked up from sears when that stuff goes on sale once every other week (only a slight exaggeration) and a flashlight or two. As a result, I have a set of tools that stay in the bike - complete enough that I can do my routine maintenance with the tools in the saddle bag (after all, if I do not like working on the bike with the tools in the garage - I sure as heck do not want to be fumbling around on the side of a dark road with tools that honk me off under ideal conditions). And some partial sets that sit in my tool box in the garage (along with the rest of the complete sets in the box). After all, I do not know of a situation where too many tools is a bad thing... I guess what I'm trying to say is you may have to piece together your appropriate set instead of being able to find one that has most of what you want. I ended up making a list of the tools I used for routine maitenence, then sizes/tools needed for any other operation on the bike that I could think of. From those I was able to compile a (what I feel is) rather complete set of tools for the bike with only a few additional purchases which included one of those 8 or 12 pc combination wrench sets (that coem on the handy plastic hanger deals and go on sale for 40-50% off once every few weeks), a few 'extra' sockets that came with a ratchet, a neat little case and some more sockets :- P -- again, one of those things that go on sale for somewhere between 30 and 50% off. I guess my short summary wasn't much shorter than my initial statement. Oh well. Oh yea, don't forget extra fuses, zip ties, electrical tape, duct tape, some 10 or 12 gauge wire, a multi-meter, and most importantly the VR.org assistance list for the region you will be traveling through.

Just as a warning here, I am certainly no expert when it comes to carbs or this stuff, I am not a professional mechanic by any means (nor do I pretend to be) and I did not stay at a holiday inn express last night... But I'll offer a few thoughts as maybe something might help... A few things come to mind: First of all: You said that the carbs were cleaned less than 8500 miles ago and the plugs were changed at the same time. was there something wrong with performance or the carbs at that time? How long ago was that and how often was the bike run in between those times? How much time has passed since the bike ran well and the current behavior (was there a time that the bike sat?)? The book has an 8,000 mile change interval on plugs (I believe) so if you are close to 8k since the last plug change, that could be an easy check. Next: If you do have a passage that is completely plugged in the carbs, you could run all the seafoam in the world through it and it wouldn't help; so if you do have a fuel delivery problem (caused by a blocked passage in the carb) cleaning the carbs is probably the next thing. But pulling the cabrs off and checking for proper setting and positioning of floats, jets, etc could also be benificial here. Before you pull those puppies off I do have a few other ideas or things to check out (if you have not done so already; my apologies if you have already done any of the following but here they are anyway) Running with pops while choked and then hardly running while at idle could certainly be a caburator problem and that may be the way to go. However, something else to check is to see if you are getting fuel all cyliders at all and also to ensure that you are getting spark to all of the cyliders. I know that you said that you pulled the plugs and they look fine but here is an idea (if you have not done it yet). - Pull the plugs and clean them with a wire brush, gap them appropriately then put them back in - Crank the motor (with the choke fully in) but do not start the engine (ie turn it over a few times) - Pull the plugs (noting which one came out of which cylinder, of course) and look at them again while also smelling very carefully to see if you smell any of them with an overwhelming fuel smell. Also carefully inspect each one to see if they all look the same. If any of them look different, note which one(s) appear different and compare them to pictures (or a vehicle that you know is running fine) to see if you can determine whether you are actually getting fuel and combustion at that particular cylinder. - While you have the caps off of the plugs, I would go ahead and pull the ends of the caps off and check and clean the little spring inside each cap. Some of us have found that those get heavily corroded and inhibit the ability to deliver the appropriate spark to actually fire properly. (Goose has a real nice write up on this in the tech section, by the way). Oh yea, something else to do to determine which cylider is not firing (if that is the case) is to start it up (cold) and while warming up, monitor the temperature of each exhaust pipe as it comes right out of the motor. If any of them are colder than the others then you have identified a cylinder that is either not firing due to an ignition problem or a fuel delivery problem (well, fuel-air mixture delivery problem that is). Some folks have had some luck with filling the carbs with straight up seafoam and letting it sit over night (by draining the carbs, turning the fuel off, then running the hose that goes through the fuel pump and into the carbs into a bottle of seafoam and letting the fuel pump suck some seafoam into the system). I do maintain that if you have an idle passage that is 100% blocked this will probably not be helpful, but who knows - :shrugs: Some other thoughts are things like make sure that the vacuum caps/hoses and whatnot on the carbs are all run to the right places and that the caps seal properly. Sorry you are having trouble friend, and sorry that this probably isn't much help. Hopefully someone else can chime in with some more useful information/guidance.

I believe that there is actually is an additional set of holes setup so that all you need to do is pull the bolts out, slide it back and re-insert the bolts (you may need nuts for the ends of one of the sets) but on some RSVs (I presume all, but maybe they stopped after a particular year) that's all you've got to do. I believe someone has some pictures in here of how to do it. I know on mine it was pretty easy. Good luck!!

I guess I got the deluxe model or something... Mine already had numbers on them and a brief note explaining why the numbers were there. (Thanks Larry )