Dmnordin

the surgery on my left wrist/hand last week went well - better than the one on my right hand as far as pain and recovering goes. The doc found similar stretched ligaments as he did in my right hand & shortened them (which requires 3 months for the ligaments to heal). next week the temporary bandaging comes off & I'll get a cast for a month - I need to decide on what color of cast to get - it's a tough decision. My wife thinks I should get a hot pink cast (I don't think so!). Doug

I saw the Doc this morning - next week it will be 3 months since my hand/wrist surgery. The ligaments are supposed to be healed up at that point & I'll start strengthening that side. I've scheduled surgery for my other (Left) wrist (carpel tunnel release & scoped hand ligament area) for Dec. 20th. I'll be taking the week off of work. I haven't been able to do anything on my bike rebuild with healing and all. Neighbors helped me fix my Subaru from the deer collision. Doug Nordin

The biggest problem I see with it is that "Kawasaki" word - everyone I've known who owned a Kawasaki usually had it in the shop for repairs, forcing them to drive their cage most of the time. Doug

...your bike certainly would stand out & be very "unique" if you did cover the whole thing...:stickpoke:lol What about some screen for a screen door from someplace like Home Depot? Doug

Another thing to look at is PIP (Personal Injury Protection). I have Progressive, and my policy had $1000 PIP coverage when I had my little motorcycle accident in June. It's exhausted now - had wrist surgery 5 weeks ago - over $6000 for that alone. My work insurance is covering it for now, and their arbitration team will go after the girl's insurance (Farmers) to get reimbursed after we settle (it was her fault). I'm fortunate to have insurance through my job that will cover the difference in the mean time. I'll be putting 25,000 PIP on my policy when I get back on the road. My wife has arthritis and can't ride for more than a half hour at a time - aside from that, she won't ride with me at all now because we don't have any medical insurance on her. Make sure you have as much PIP as you can get! Doug

My wrist surgery (carpel tunnel release & ligament damage repair/debrieding was 2 weeks ago & went well - he found more ligament damage than what he expected and had to shorten some ligaments, so he casted my arm yesterday after stitches were removed so my wrist will be immobilized for another 4 weeks so the ligaments heal up shorter/tighter. I got pneumonia which was very painful - better now after antibiotics. I'm not supposed to lift, push, or pull anything heavier than a pencil with my right fingers, hand/wrist so it heals up properly. I'm looking forward to having a good wrist/hand after all of this is over. I guess I'll be working on my Venture rebuild in a couple of months when I can start wrenching again. Doug

Three sisters, ages 92, 94 and 96, live in a house together. One night the 96-year-old draws a bath. She puts her foot in and pauses. She yells to the other sisters, 'Was I getting in or out of the bath?' The 94-year-old yells back, 'I don't know. I'll come up and see.' She starts up the stairs and pauses 'Was I going up the stairs or down? The 92-year-old is sitting at the kitchen table having tea listening to her sisters, she shakes her head and says, 'I sure hope I never get that forgetful, knock on wood.' She then yells, 'I'll come up and help both of you as soon as I see who's at the door.' Three retirees, each with a hearing loss, were playing golf one fine March day. One remarked to the other, 'Windy, isn't it?' 'No,' the second man replied, 'it's Thursday.' And the third man chimed in, 'So am I. Let's have a beer.' Two elderly ladies had been friends for many decades. Over the years, they had shared all kinds of activities and adventures. Lately, their activities had been limited to meeting a few times a week to play cards. One day, they were playing cards when one looked at the other and said, 'Now don't get mad at me ... I know we've been friends for a long time, but I just can't think of your name! I've thought and thought, but I can't remember it. Please tell me what your name is.. Her friend glared at her for at least three minutes she just stared and glared at her. Finally she said, 'How soon do you need to know?' As a senior citizen was driving down the freeway, his car phone rang. Answering, he heard his wife's voice urgently warning him, 'Herman,I just heard on the news that there's a car going the wrong way on Interstate 77.. Please be careful!' 'Hell,' said Herman, 'It's not just one car. It's hundreds of them!' Two elderly women were out driving in a large car - both could barely see over the dashboard. As they were cruising along, they came to an intersection. The stoplight was red, but they just went on through. The woman in the passenger seat thought to herself 'I must be losing it. I could have sworn we just went through a red light.' After a few more minutes, they came to another intersection and the light was red. Again, they went right through. The woman in the passenger seat was almost sure that the light had been red but was really concerned that she was losing it. She was getting nervous At the next intersection, sure enough, the light was red and they went on through. So, she turned to the other woman and said, Mildred, did you know that we just ran through three red lights in a row? You could have killed us both!' Mildred turned to her and said, 'Oh, darn, am I driving ?' Doug:missingtooth:

I told one of the engineers here at work this morning that we ought to go get the deer for him - he's an avid hunter. I told him that he would probably only have to hang it for half a week instead of a full week since it's started to bloat (slightly) already, just from yesterday being in the sun. He wasn't too keen on going to pick it up for some reason - I don't get it - he would've had to drag it up a 20 foot incline up to the road is all - much better than a real deer hunt - lol. Last evening when I stopped to find the deer, I noticed that prior to her running in front of me, she had to run up a 20 foot, fairly steep incline on that side of the road in order to get up to the road - I think this is why she had some good speed in her run when she literally "popped out" in front of me - there's no way I could have seen her coming (aside from the dark morning). This area of the road was immediately after a big turn in the road around a sizable hill. The stretch of road after I hit her is nicknamed dead deer road and is a notorious spot for deer to be found. It seems like they like spots like that - where you come around a corner that goes around a big hill and the terrain turns into a nice long depression or short "valley", and WHAM, there resides the herd! Thanks for the body working tips, LB - I've never done much in that department, so this will be an interesting learning curve. Especially with my right wrist out of commission and someone else helping me out. Thanks for the other update, too - inquiring minds.... Doug

Thanks Lil Beaver. The car's a '92, so I only have basic coverage on it. Even if I did have full coverage, They would probably want to total the car for how much it's worth. I just found my headlight assy, turn signal, hood hinges & lock online for $285. I was surprised to find them. Now all I'll need is for someone to help me out in the brute force department. By the way, What's the latest on that gal from work you were riding with - I haven't read anything new on that, Lil Beaver? Doug

Thanks a lot everyone! Yesterday totally sucked. Today is looking brighter. I think that if I can get some help from someone, we can straighten out the headlight/radiator area. I have an extra hood, radiator, and a bunch of other parts. I'm sure my engine will be OK, as it's on the opposite side of the engine compartment that was bent up. I need to find a headlight assy & turn signal - they're hard to find on these cars. Faith time. The tow will come in at about $100. In the end, it may turn out to be pretty cheap to get things fixed up. I might need to try to get a hydrolic jack to help straighten out the bent up parts - maybe I can find one to borrow from someone. On the way home yesterday I stopped & found the dead deer (took some pics with my cell phone) - she is BIG, and it's a good thing I was able to get in some braking - otherwise she would have hit the right side & deflected into my windshield and maybe into my face & chest. Little tender mercies - even though this stuff sucks, I'm sure I was protected and I'm grateful for that. It's a very good thing I wasn't riding. I've decided that I'll probably take the alternate route (super slab rather than scenic route up the canyon & around the two reservoirs - prime deer country - actually, not so scenic at 4 & 5 in the morning unless the moon is out & big) in the very early AM in the future - there really isn't that much traffic super slabbing it that early anyways. Idiot cagers can be a little bit more predictable than deer are. On the way home yesterday, when I hit my city, there was a texter in front of me - bad day for him to be texting & driving in front of me - He got a ticket as a result of my call to the police & my following him through town so they could get him. I went into the station & wrote/signed a statement. I will usually call anyways when I come across one of these idiots - it wasn't just my "bad day" coming out. Anyways, thanks again everyone - I appreciate your thoughts & concern. Doug

The full-grown doe ran in front of my new, used '92 Subaru Justy this morning at 5AM on my way to work. Now I'm car-less & bike-less! I am SO tired of all of these problems that keep coming up!! This Thursday I'm having wrist surgery resulting from my bike accident of 3 months ago, so I won't be able to do anything to try to fix the Justy. I'm just plain hosed now - no car, no bike, no money, and no way to get to work without paying a LOT more for gas and making it so my wife can't get to work & be mom-taxi driver. Doug

Thanks for letting me know about that - it's not a problem since I'm dealing with the '86 1300 engine & I had kept the 1300 clutch cover on it. Thanks, Doug

I went to the orthopedic guy a couple of days ago - I complained about the PT aggravating my wrist / increased pain - hasn't been too much fun. Yesterday morning I had a nerve conduction study done on my arms/wrists, and I see the doc again on Tuesday - he talked about scoping my wrist over doing an MRI - he can see better what's going on, take care of it then, and avoid the cost of the MRI on top of scoping. So, it sounds like this riding season is probably over for me before it ever got started - I'm OK with that if I can come away from it with my wrists not bugging me any more. Doug

I had Earl send me another plate spring & gasket - they arrived yesterday, so this is on my list of projects to do for tomorrow - thanks for your input! Doug

I want to get a first aid kit together sometime soon to keep packed somewhere in my 1st Gen. Who keeps one on their bike? what do you have in it? have you ever used it? I see a lot of alternatives on the web - a lot of kits already put together - don't know if that's more cost effective or not. I have no idea of what I would need in a kit - kind of mind boggling to see what's out there and what they include. Thanks, Doug

Does it have power from a lower RPM up to the higher RPM's? I guess I'm wondering if it still has a good low end, or is it pretty much a race bike with power at WOT? Doug

If I did this, I would also have to change out the clutch push rod since the head is different. Do you know if the lengths of the pushrod sections are the same between the MKI & MKII? I'm thinking it would be easier to just change out the short section of pushrod & not change out the long sections. I'm sure the ballbearing is the same size. I have everything I need except for an extra diaphragm spring and another cover gasket. Anyone have a spare MKII Clutch Diaphragm spring laying around you don't need? Thanks, Doug

Hey Gary, Thanks for your comments & suggestions. I had read Rick saying that the pull cable mounting will need modified - I've been meaning to get to addressing this and haven't gotten to it - thanks for the link for Rick - I'll contact him. Another reason I went with my lower mileage '83 clutch pack is that it had the least amount of wear. I did replace the half discs with full discs for a better engagement - I understand this will also shorten the amount of clutch engagement pull when it hits. I did replace the springs w/ the barnett springs, and I wondered about the rating when I did that, as they sure looked & felt the same. I liked your idea about using 2 springs w/ the MKII clutch pack. I'll see how this '83 clutch pack & go from there. One issue I have with the MKII clutch pack is that there is extremely uneven wear on the friction discs that were in my '86 engine (the friction discs are also pretty much worn out). Last year I installed Rick's (Buckeye Performance) progressive spring kit & ran 3 PSI with it, and I bought a beefed up fork brace from this site (one of the left overs from a group buy). I was very happy with the improvement, but wanted more, so I'm excited about Rick's solid engine mounts. My last bike was an '83 Honda 1000 Custom - I miss the quick power from that engine, and some of the zippy handling characteristics of that bike, and I'm hoping that I'll get some of that from this Venture between the solid engine mounts & Vboost. As far as the suspension goes - I like my rear shock set @ 4 with 70 psi with just me riding (210 pounds, 5'8") Last year when I tore into the carbs & did some repairs, I was able to get the bowl covers off while they were on the rack - it was tricky. I don't know if I'll be able to change out the jets like that, though. I did get new bowl cover gaskets from Skydoc - he's been a great help through this whole project. I'm using my 32mm 1200 carbs, and I have the stock 1300 heads (engine, for that matter) - so I'll suffer from not having the 34mm 1300 carbs, but they didn't come with my used engine. First, I'm going to the 135 main jets, and I already have the needles shimmed to go richer from last year (I'm at a high altitude) - I'm sure that the new diaphragms will make a big difference. I thought I would start out at 2.5 turns on the idle screws (new assy's from Skydoc will be going in) and adjust out from there as needed. I wanted to wait on the air jets behind the diaphragms - I don't want to change everything at once, so I know what each change will be doing. On my mufflers, I'm planning on gutting the stock baffles except for the last 2. I bought some 18" long, 2" (ID) tube baffles on Ebay (kindof like the inside of a glass pack muffler) to quiet it down a little. It looks like if I put the mounting bolt to the rear of the pipes, the little cutouts through out the inside diameter face backwards to the pipes - aren't they supposed to face forward to catch some of the pulse & re-direct it into the baffle packing? Doug

Thanks, Dinghy! I have an extra MKI front sub-frame with the tabs. Doug

I've been going to physical therapy mainly for my elbow thing, which feels pretty OK most of the time, but the stretches were killing my wrist. The exercises bothers my wrist as well. I have another appointment with the orthopedic Dr. next week. Still not doing any supplemental massage work which sucks when it comes to paying all of the bills. The bike rebuild is coming along slowly but surely. I'm working on it 12+ hours on Saturdays . I've started to work 4 10's at work so I can spend 2 days/week on it. last Saturday I got the 1300cc engine into the frame. I replaced the stock rubber engine mounts with solid engine mounts - this bike is going to be tight between the engine mounts, progressive springs (had them before) with beefed up fork brace. It had taken 3 days of working on the engine to replace the seals/gaskets & clean it up. It had had a couple of pretty bad oil leaks so it was very oil+grime dirty all over the engine. I also put the (stronger) clutch out of my '83 1200 engine into this engine and made a couple of modifications to the clutch with some parts from the second '83 1200 engine's clutch to improve it's performance. When I took off the stator cover when I was cleaning up the engine, there was a corner of a blue paper shop rag stuck in between the bottom of the cover & the engine case http://www.templeriders.com/members/forums/images/smilies/eek.gif which was the source of one oil leak. Before all of this activity on the rebuilding project, I took the 3 bikes down to the frames, rebuilt my bent front end & put my progressive springs into the new/used/straightened front end, and repacked all bearings. I cleaned up & painted part of the frame - road rash & wear from gravel & such. I also switched my '83 wiring harness into the second '83 frame; this is the frame I'm using. This past Thursday I cleaned up, repaired, & hooked up the engine wiring to the chassis wiring harness. I made a couple of modifications, such as soldering the high output stator wires to the wiring harness after cutting out the connectors. I also went through my '83 starter on Thursday. I modified it by adding an internal hard wire ground to the brush plate so it has a solid, good ground - I saw this in a post by someone - Thank you!. I also made a 6 gauge wire connection from the case to the engine to improve the grounding there. I cleaned up & painted the starter housing. These improvements are time consuming, but now is the time to do them while the bike is dis-assembled like it is, and when I'm done, It'll be one fine running machine! I replaced the thermostat housing, thermostat, o-rings, and cleaned up & painted the associated bottom housing, hard lines, & drain area. There was a surface layer of corrosion buildup there - it looked pretty bad, although it was functional. These original parts came from my '83 which had the lowest miles out of the 3 parts bikes. Now it looks new. Yesterday, I did the 4 gauge starter & main grounding wiring mod. I had to buy a small butane torch at Harbor Freight so I could solder the copper ends to the wire. It took me 5 stops and several call to find Butane re-fills to use! I also finished up some wiring and got the exhaust headers & collector installed. I installed the radiator/hoses as well. It's starting to take shape as a motorcycle finally! I have water temp, oil pressure, & ammeter gauges to install, and there's a bunch of other things to install. I'm hoping to get a lot accomplished Tomorrow - there's a ton of things to do & I'll probably make a small dent in the list; I'm going to start with installing the swing arm and rear end. I still need to rebuild the carbs (new diaphragms, floats, and 135 jets - I'm planning on keeping them on the rack), cut down my air box (Vboost installed), modify/open up my exhaust, build my little LED gear indicator circuit and install it, install the instrument cluster, install my HID lighting & fabricate mounting arms for the two new housings, do some wiring in the fairing after it's installed, ... My sons have been a huge help with some things. They are sick of helping poor old dad after rebuilding & going through my '92 Subaru Justy this past winter (I now have a new, used 4wd, 32mpg, awesome sub-compact commuter car for about $3500), and now this bike rebuild. It's been a bummer to not to ride this season, but I won't have to do much of anything to the bike other than ride it for quite quite a while when I'm done.http://www.templeriders.com/members/forums/images/smilies/sunshine.gif Gee, maybe I ought to hang out a shingle, lol...not really- my wife would love for me to start on her honey-do list again. She makes comments like,"oh well, I guess this won't get done for a few years...":whistling: Doug

... again. Doug I wonder if a complete '83-'85 headlight assy would bolt into the '86-'9? (MKii's). I know the trim went to one piece - I don't know what else is different in there, though. I have extra headlight assy parts.

... Doug (I understand about that, Barend.)

Thanks for the advice. I left positive feedback, under comments said, "OVERPRICED!! $13 at Pep Boys!". You're right - he did fulfill his end of the auction/sale as advertised, and that is what the feedback is addressing. I don't think my overpriced comments will have any negative impact for him; how often do buyers read very far into the comments when checking a seller's feedback if he has an almost 100% positive feedback rating. Time to move on & forget about this. Doug

I suppose I could lie, tell him it doesn't work, and try to get a refund instead of a replacement. I won't do that, but it's a fun thought for a moment. Gee, does it sound like I just can't let go of this? Doug

I agree - he owes me nothing & I made the mistake. I emailed him asking for some money refunded on the extremely slim chance that he would feel bad enough about selling it for 3X it's value that he would be nice to me, despite my mistake (can we say MANIPULATION?). I haven't heard back from him yet, and I don't expect to. even though it's my mistake; I would like to sabotage his high priced auction so maybe someone else doesn't do the same thing I did - I'm debating on what do to about feedback. Even though it was my mistake, It still sucks for him to sell them for such a high price. The price I would pay for my neutral or negative feedback would be receiving neutral or negative feedback from him - not too big of a deal since I don't really sell much very often on Ebay anymore - such a pain in the butt to sell there. Doug