Chaharly

I loved my second gen! RIP to that one!

This is just a chitchat thread right?? Me and the lady went and tested a 2018 6-speed Goldwing. The 88 Venture has over 100k miles now, and I plan to put another 5 or 6 year in her as my main touring bike, but when it comes time to upgrade, we've decided on the Wing. In case you were wondering how it compared to the Venture. Wind protection was similar on the two, we road on a day with 40 mph wind gusts and felt that the protection was really similar. The Goldwing may have been a touch louder, because of the split windshield design. But I really enjoyed the electric windshield. Suspension. The Venture has also been the smoothest bike for riding hands down, at least in my opinion. The new Goldwing handled the same bumps phenomenally and I was very impressed with the suspension. Kind of neat watching that new suspension bouncing up and down. The Goldwing suspension did suffer on a VERY rough off ramp where the joints in the road are separated out pretty good. The Venture suffers too, but not quite as bad. Overall, I was very impressed with the Goldwing's suspension. Power. The Goldwing had great low-end torque that would snap your head back. That being said, 6th gear at 75mph on the Goldwing at wide open throttle vs the venture is comparable, or the venture is even a little snappier. That being said the 6th gear on the wing is a true highway overdrive, the venture is spooled up pretty high, so you're further into the power band. Wide open throttle from a stop has the Goldwing shooting up the speed much faster than the Venture, but once the Venture starts to stretch her legs the gap closes a little bit. I would say all in all the Goldwing is a little faster than the Venture (but the venture has no governor which the Wing does) Handling. The Goldwing is less top heavy than the venture, but sitting still, I felt the front wheel weight to be the same. I honestly didn't feel much difference between the two bikes, but I'm really used to the venture by this point. I cant say whether one or the other is better on turns, as we don't really have too many twisties too close to Omaha. Electronics. Goldwing wins hands down, the speakers on the bike are better, and you've got the TFT screen, etc. I'm not impressed with rider modes, but the Wing has them. I've got Bluetooth on the Venture. The big difference is that the Wing won't let you plug your helmet in, you have to have Bluetooth headsets, which to me isn't an improvement. I'd rather not screw with batteries, but we'll get used to it. Comfort. Can't really compare the two because we only got to ride for a little over half an hour. Initially felt as comfortable as the venture. The 6th gen gold wings are MUCH more comfortable than the 5th gen for me. I felt super cramped on the last gen wings and could get pretty miserable riding them long distances. The motor must be narrower and i could put my feet on the pegs much more comfortably than the 5th gen. Storage. Much less than the Venture, but not a huge issue for me. The newest iteration has a bigger trunk than the 2018s. Overall, I was very impressed with the wing. The throttle felt good, and the clutch felt really nice. To me, the driving experience of the power train is very similar to the 5th gen, just a little more refined and it has an actual overdrive gear. I still can't get over the fact that the riding experience of these newer bikes doesn't eclipse the first gen Venture like you'd think they would. If these bikes weren't getting older and older and older, I'd probably continue riding first gen Ventures, but I think in the next 5 or 6 years, we'll be ready for a change.

I've had the stator covers off a couple times in the last year, and the stator supports the shift shaft. Looking from your pictures, It looks to me like a clear break in your stator cover. These bikes weren't made for heel toe shifters, and I think it puts a great deal of stress on that aluminum to use them. If you can find the parts cheap enough on ebay I'd go ahead and replace your heel toe shifter and floorboard for a set of pegs. Stator can be a bit of a tricky job, make sure to clean all the surfaces really well and put a healthy amount of sealant on the back side of the wire grommets that run through the case. You'll need a middle gear cover gasket and a stator cover gasket to replace. Check out your stator while you have it off. You can find really cheap aftermarket stators on amazon. I paid like 50 bucks for an Amazon one and it lasted me 4 or 5 years, roughly 50 thousand miles. Welcome to the forum by the way! We're a little less active than we used to be, but the wealth of knowledge and parts and service info you can find here are well worth every penny! Hope you stick around!!

Shaft is probably fine, looks like you need a new stator cover.

Congrats! It sounds like you have the things figured out! I dont blame you for not being excited to play in the snow after all that time.

Very Sharp! I know you'll love the new M8 motor on that thing!

Congratulations on the brand new bike! Sheesh only 200 miles on that thing! lol I recently hit the same milestone coming back to Nebraska during our trip to Olympic National Park! She's got just shy of 102k miles!

You have a little room to play with the fluid height at the top of the fork. I ran about 4 3/4" inch of fluid from the top seems to ride really nice with that setup

That torn boot might be part of your problem, maybe the proportioning valve is not allowing fluid through, but to be honest I've never tore one apart. So far I've been really lucky with bleeding my brake system. Sorry I can't be any more help to you

Did I see you posting on one of the facebook groups about this? I'm glad you got it fixed. Depending on what you want to do with your bike (keep it and tour for a long time), there are companies that can replace the capacitors and diodes in our old TCI's. Alot of people run Ignitech units, but I've seen stories about them failing. Might as well keep running the old stuff thats been proven to work for 30 years!

It’s factory, it’s mounted in the vanity mirror. The wire runs under the trunk, goes to a 2 wire plug and then there is a single bullet connector by the big plug for the tail light and turn signals. It then runs through the main harness to the HAZARD fuse which is not in the main fuse box, but in the little box with the spade fuses for the radio etc. everything is working now, thanks!

Hey guys, this one is kind of silly, but i'm a creature feature guy and like these little things to work. Years ago I replaced the bulb in my vanity mirror to an LED and it worked great for a long time. Its now not working, and after replacing the bolt with a known good one, I know that i'm not getting power. I put a voltmeter on the wires and i'm not getting voltage at the connections in the trunk, so I followed it down to the wiring underneath. I then tested the voltage at the plug and I'm not getting anything. On the 86-93 service manual here on the site, i'm not even seeing it mentioned. Can anyone point me in the right direction? All fuses are good. Thanks!

I went ahead and replaced the cable. The job was more straightforward than I thought it would be. Take off the windshield trim, windshield, the hood for the speedo, which is four screws, the top two need to be removed and the bottom two just need to be loosened. I was reading on here to take out 4x 10mm nuts that hold the speedo to the frame. This is not necessary, there are two 10mm BOLTS that hold the entire frame assembly onto the bike, jut remove those two, unplug the monitor plugs and move it so you have enough room to get a pliers on the cable. All seems to be good now.

What do you mean by insert Marcarl? The threaded portion that screws to the hub?

Yeah I know my RPMs at the cruising range, but I'd like my cruise to work as well. Thanks though!

Got an interesting one for you guys today. Noticed the speedometer needle bouncing up and down on bumpy roads and it’s gotten progressively worse. Checked out the cable where it mounts up at the front wheel, gave it a little wiggle and the cable separated from the threaded nut! It sheared right off! I’ve got a replacement ordered from eBay, but I don’t really want to leave the bike sit for a week. What kind of creative way can I use to get it to stay together?

Well we put on about 412 miles today, her and I and a cooler that weighed just under 30lbs with ice and drinks in it. The bike handled great! It has a net style set of straps on it that kind of allowed the cooler to bounce some but I pretty much forgot it was there. It was a little bit bouncier in the rear with it on but nothing to be concerned with at all. I don’t think we even got close to bottoming out on these rough Nebraska roads!

Hey guys. Ever since I got me a nice woman who wants to go on the big camping trips with me I’ve been thinking about storing everything. It’s never been an issue when it’s just me, but now she takes up a whole seat! We pretty much do minimalist camping, but I always bring an assortment of tools with me. We took a short, three day trip to the black hills and mounted the tent on the trunk rack but I HATE having that much weight up there. I’ve never been interested in pulling a trailer, as I want to focus on enjoying the curves and not being concerned with extra wheels, titling, and not really being able to enjoy the bike for what it is… a bike. So I’ve been kicking around the idea of having a rack fabbed for me that was about the width of the bike and maybe 18” deep. I knew I’d have to do some wiring as it’ll easily cover the turn signals. In my research, I found the Rivco quick-attach to be the most appealing but they’re so damn small. Step by step I started putting things together on the bike, starting with the Markland trailer hitch. I’ve had one for awhile but I hate how it mounts behind the exhaust bolts on the MK-II’s but I decided to bite the bullet and install it. It’s really not too bad if you take the passenger floorboard off, but still a PITA. My right muffler is also super close to the saddlebag, almost like the bike has been dropped on the mount or something. Anyway, I got that installed and found a discontinued 30”x18” Rivco rack on eBay with integrated lights and license plate holder for $170 bucks and bit the bullet. i still needed to order the billet aluminum bracket so i ordered that and decided to buy a wiring isolator from an 1800 Goldwing that came pre wired to just plug into the bike for about half price NOS. Well i got everything mounted and wired up today and id say im pretty happy with the result! I took the ball hitch off the Markland hitch and drilled another hole closer to the bike to reduce leverage. Need to either paint everything black or flake the old crappy paint job that the guy I got this from off and get chrome bolts and washers. We’re gonna put a cooler and go for a 360 mile ride with about 35-40lbs in it and see how it rides! Any way I just wanted to show off and upload some pics! IMG_6055.mov

They gave up on cruisers all together. Last I looked you can only get the bolt and the V-Star 250

I think a virago if tastefully done would make a bad ass bobber, I don’t know much about performance though. Let us know how the center stand job goes, that would be handy as hell on an RSV!

Hey that’s the big thing! Good on you for getting down and doing it! I had a part time guy as a painter when I was Director of Maintenance and he would like to get down and replace faucets etc. I told him to leave that to us, he doesn’t have to get down like that. Those old guys never listen! He still climbs trees and stuff to help out his neighbors and make a little side cash, tough ol boy!

I second Bluesky on that!

I do think that dash is pretty cocky on the Eluder though!

Price was right! Good buy!