frankd

A light year for us, only about 5,000 miles. Due to getting our old house ready to sell, selling it, moving and getting some work to the new house started, we hardly rode the bike the first half of the year. Now that we're living further south, we've been able to ride much later than normal though. Like Cubs fans say, "wait 'till next year".

When I bought my 89, the rear suspension kept on loosing pressure. I found a connection in the line to the rear shock had come loose and was leaking. Snugging it back up cured the problem. There is only a small volume of air in each circuit, so a small leak has a big effect on air pressure. As I remember, the fitting was on the right side of the bike about 1/2 way between the shock and the solenoid cluster. If you want to tell if it's the lines or shock bladder you could disconnect the rear shock line from the solenoid, and adapt a schraeder valve to the line to the shock. Put about 60 psi. in the rear shock through the added valve. If it stays pumped up you problem is in the solenoid or Class module. However every time you check the pressure with a gauge, it'll loose pressure, so maybe you want to measure the distance from your mudflap to the ground and see if it's holding pressure that way.

Don, I agree with Jeff.....Do NOT change to an all motorcycle format. Those other subjects keep VentureRiders much more interesting. Frank D.

Joe, How's the RFI from the newest one? Frank

At an indicated 75MPH my 89 shows about 4100 RPM also. You're comparing your tach to your speedometer, and if the clutch isn't slipping maybe your speedometer changed. You can't really be sure which changed unless you check the speedometer versus a GPS. My speedometer reads about 3 MPH high from 20-90 MPH. My 83 is about the same.

Something that I'd do before I changed the solenoid would be to take a 12 Volt test light (available at auto part stores), connect the lead to ground and hold the probe on the wire that's going into the starter. Make sure that the bike is in neutral, and have somebody turn the key on and push the starter button. If the light comes ON, you have melted your starter, if not, then maybe the solenoid has been cooked.

Hey Puc,w Yes, the bike sounds great, and making full throttle passes on a V-Max is fun, but.....where was your helmet? Frank D.

Does the key turn? If not try spraying some silicon lube in the keyhole.

Puc, The alternator oil upgrade was done the first time in the summer of 83, and then again late summer of 84. I purchased an 83 new and my dealer worked on the alternator twice. The frame was re-enforced in the area of the center stand mounting bolts for the 84 model year. My 83 broke the frame, and the replacement frame I used was an 84, and they'd beefed this area up considerably. Frame problems are 83 only. I believe they upgraded the clutch when they increased the motor to 1300cc. in 86.

Check your carb. synchronization. If your carbs are way out of balance, the stronger cylinders will cause the engine to speed up, and then the weaker ones will cause it to slow down.......over and over again. This can cause the engine to sound pretty unhealthy. I agree these bikes come to life above 4,000 RPM, but I normally let mine get down to 1500 RPM in any gear as long as I don't need to accelerate hard. Neither bike seems to complain when things are right. I'm not trying to start a fight or anything, but....I don't cruise in 3rd gear.

It would hold steady if the Carbtune wasn't leaking. Check the seals around the movable piece and see if you can renew or repair them. They have to be leak free to indicate vacuum accurately. Frank

Compare the Carb-TUne to the gauge on the Mighty-Vac. Normally 1st Gen Ventures idle at about 9.75" of vacuum. Pump the Mighty-Vac up to about 9.75" and see if the Carb-Tune reads normally. That'll tell you where you really stand.

The tool kit screwdrivers aren't that great. Harbor Freight has a #2 Phillips that holds up great and fits JIS screws, and it only costs $1.69 now. http://www.harborfreight.com/2-x-4-inch-phillips-screwdriver-94707.html Anybody thqt does any work on metric bikes needs JIS phillips screwdrivers to avoid stripping phillips heads out.

I haven't looked at the 2nd Gen. manual, but I have done this on a 1st. Gen, and the manual has all the info. you need. I tried, but the 2nd Gen. manual won't come up this morning, but.....you can find the procedure and the shim table here. http://labs.trunkful.com/vrmanuals/8385servicemanual.pdf The info you want is on manual page 3-45 or PDF page 223. Frank

The solenoid is to the left of the battery. A good way to check the solenoid is to ground the small wire coming out of the solenoid. If the bike cranks, the starter and solenoid are good and you have something wrong in the bike wiring or starter interlocks. Try this......turn the key and cruise control ON and notice if the green cruise light comes on. If it does, this will verify that you don't have problems with your kill switch. Le.t us know what you find and we'll go from here. Frank D

JB, Did your bike get better mileage with the original TCI? 34.8 @ 65-70mph seems a bit low. My 89 would get about 41-43MPG under the same conditions, but I have set the floats and leaned out the mid-range on my carbs. Before I fixed the carbs it'd probably have gotten 38-40MPG. Maybe you need a little more vacuum advance? Your engine temperature sounds about normal. Frank

The oil you lost was minimal, but it will be replenished when you start the bike up. With the bike on the center stand, start it up and let it idle for a couple of minutes. Then shut it off and let sit for a couple of minutes and check the oil. It probably will only be slightly lower.

Whereas your gas mileage isn't great, it's not too bad. Check for spark in all 4 cylinders. Take a good spark plug and test each cylinder. Make sure you ground your test plug. When you test for spark, it'll become obvious which cylinders are running at idle. If you have spark to all 4 corners, maybe one your intake port rubber plugs has a hole in it That would kill low speed operation of a cylnder. If you don't find anything wrong, you'll have to pull the carbs and see what's plugged.

I wonder if we'd be better off if we put our heads together and figured a way to TPS signal? A potentiometer hooked to a throttle cable or the a sensor from a drive by wire bike. THen we could eliminate the MAP sensor that doesn't work quite right. Maybe then I could put the Ignitech back in line--I reconnected the TCI module when I was unhappy with the advance curve for the Ignitech. Something else I was going to do but haven't yet is to map out the vacuum advance curve for the OEM TCI.

Now I'm glad I started the thread asking if any others had experience with this lift. I was going to purchase one while it was on sale, but now I'm going to keep looking. Harbor Freight does have some items that are great for home use, but they also have some junk. When I moved to Tennessee, I was happy to find out that there was a Harbor Freight store only 8 miles away, but I still don't buy very much there. Good luck with your refund. Frank

You may be charging a capacitor and nothing is wrong. Connect the lead and leave it for a few seconds. Then disconnect it briefly and reconnect it. You probably won't see a spark the second time. If your battery isn't going dead, don't worry about it.

All of those things rely on the signal from the sensor in the rear wheel hub working. Did you unplug it and forget to plug it back in? Now, I'm not a 2nd Gen. person, so somebody else will have to chime in, but basically there is a sensor (probably a pickup coil or a proximity switch) in the rear wheel that provides a signal that is dependent on wheel rotation. Every pulse and the odometer moves ahead some. How often the pulses occur makes the speedometer work. The turn signal cancel needs so many pulses before it cancels the signals. Bottom line....something is unpluged, the sensor has gone bad, or the wire from it is either grounded, shorted or open.

Jeff, I couldn't put it in the oven until Barb was finished cooking supper.....she had the oven @ 350 degrees. I do have a dark blue Econoline and it was warm and sunny, so I set the TCI on the roof and it was nice and warm. No, I didn't seal up the holes. When I worked for Reynolds Aluminum I learned that no matter how well you thought you had someting sealed up, rolling solution would get in, and you were much better just making a way for it to drain out. I did seal up the edge of the cover that faces forward though. That plus the fact that my brother is a fair weather rider that doesn't ride in the rain should keep it dry enough. No, I thought about mounting it on the air cleaner, but just put it back in the stock location......Mark doesn't ride in the rain. No, the TCI was from an 86 and I just wanted to get 'er running again. That plus the fact that we moved to Tennessee in June and I haven't unpacked all my unsolder/solder equipment yet I just left it alone.

They all pop out the carbs when the air filter is open. When you rev it up in the garage, you don't really get on the main jet very much. When you are underway, the main jet is used any time you open the throttle. Check the carb diaphrams first, but I suspect that your real problem is a clogged main jet. Now that I think about it, there is another possibility.....High loads require a much hotter spark to fire the plugs. Make sure you have GOOD spark to all 4 cylinders.

For about the last year, the 83 that my brother uses has been without spark for the back 2 cylinders. I tested the ignition pickup coil and it was fine, so we needed a TCI. There was also some damaged fairing plastic that needed to be repaired. I looked for a TCI on Ebay, found one for a decent price and purchased it. Because when we lived near Joliet, IL, it was a 150 mile ride to my brothers, I tested the TCI in my 89. No spark to the rear 2 cylinders. I was able to return it and get my money back. I found a 2nd one, purchased it and tested it, and I thought the 89 was running on all 4. About this time we were selling our house and moving to TN. That made it 375 miles to my brother's house. Barb and I made the trip up and installed the replacement TCi. Again no spark on the rear cylinders. 6 hours of travelling, a couple of hours of trying the bad TCI and visiting, and then another 6 hours home. No fun. My brother has a motorcycle trailer, so I figured he could bring the bike and parts down to my house, and I could work on it and get it going. I figured I could ride it half way home and he could meet me and take the bike back home. He figured it'd be better for him to come down for a few days, get the bike running and I could show them some of the nice roads and lakes near here. A much better idea. I searched Ebay again, and TCI's have gotten real expensive for some that looked like trash in the pictures. On another site, I found a couple of Ventures that were being parted out. One said that he'd sell me the TCI for a decent price and that he had the bike running before he sold the engine. When the TCI arrived, I tried it in the 89. It ran great above 3000 RPM, but below that the tach dropped back to zero and 2 cylinders went dead. I ran the bike for about 5 minutes, and the TCI started working better and better. I dried it out and tried it again. Sucess!!!!!! My brother came down and we spent about a day installing the replacement TCI, adjusting the carbs, fixing the damaged plastic and putting it all back together. Yesterday we went for a 200 mile ride, and another 50 miles today and the bike runs great. We loaded it back on the trailer and now my brother's heading back home with a running machine. Hopefully he rides it more now. Frank