djh3

My experience with the rust, all be it limited here in Fla is if you can see it popping out its probably 2 to 3 times worse under where you cant. Figure the water/salt/mud cakes on inside of fenders and lays there. When I lived in Oklahoma the mid 80's Chevy trucks where bad about the rears loading up and rusting thru.

I think those motors are fairly reliable. Not as good as the ole 300 straight six, but what is. I have been looking at the 2011 or newer F 250 and the steering wheels on those I think are the same weather cruise or not. But they may not be wired inside, I think the panels where the buttons go click in. My buttons on my 96 Dodge are intermittent. Sometimes it takes a couple times to get it to work. You should be able to get the switch out and ohm them out. If they check good then you can move on to something else. If you turn it on do you get the light in dash that says cruise or something to let you know its activated?

Yes for the most part. I forget the exact years, I ended up googling and visiting some HD sites to get info and some part numbers. The part# I have somewhere are pre 2012 or -13. So say from like 2000 thru 2009 or 10 they were cat free. Then for only a couple years they put cat in muffler, then went back to non cat. Then there is the pesky Calif models had them for more years than anyone else and CVO bikes had them earlier also. OK here is some info I looked up. 05 had no cats, 06 had cat mufflers, 07-09 had no cats, 2010 has the cats in the head pipe (so you cant just change the mufflers to get rid of it.)

There are far to many non-cat HD mufflers out there for not much money to mess around fudging with knocking a cat out. If your friends with the local Harly dealer see if the got a set of FL (touring model) mufflers of an 08-09. There was only a year or so they put the cat in the muffler as the EPA caught on that Harley owners change out the mufflers faster than the first oil change. So now they put it in the head pipes. The clamps come from V-twin manufacturing. I just used worm clamps.

I can tell ya from doing my own tires on both the 2nd gen and the Vic Cross Country. You (well I) aint even going to think about changing it anywhere but home. Trying to lay it over and get tire off and then stand bike back up aint going to happen.

Saw 2 or 3 things go wrong there. Off angle corner, up hill and low low speed which makes big touring bikes hard to handle. I heard a couple times about hole in pavement.

I did mine at like 30k and adjustment were not in the "required" area. But I took everything to the high end so I had lots of room for wear. Another one I measured for for a fellow had 36k and they were with in limits. So I would not panic. You probably have at least 10k before you need to worry about it. By then you can do it yourself maybe.

Sounds like could be those pesky rubber plugs on the heads behind the false covers. Somewhere the parts number is listed and I think a complete set for the motor is under $10. Might be worth while.

Yup Steve. That kind of electrical wizardry is way above my knowledge. If you shoot me a pic in my e-mail maybe together we can source you out the connectors and you can build the harness completely.

I bet I know someone that could make those here.

Harley's oiling problem seems to be with the M8 that have been "staged up" They call it sumping. From what I gather they are oil starved on top end, then metal grinds asnd gets in the sump and dont oil the bottom end and then KABOOM. I have read several stories of HD replacing entire engines, some twice on the same bike. I guess the fix now is a different oil pump.

I'm no gentleman. I was an NCO. Does a discontinued orphaned bike like a Victory count as a classic??

OK found the pic of my plasti dip cap.

Yea unfortunately Yamaha saw fit to make the lens and all that integral. So no easy way to swap out without cut gluing new assy in or something like that. I saw a few pics and threads and decided to go HID. Good luck.

I use a 2x6 on its side so the 6" is up and down for strength. I also have a 2x4 piece about maybe 6" long. Also you need a couple piece of 2x4 or 2x6 to lay the wheel on so the rotor dont hit the ground. Lay the wheel across the 2x to support but not on rotor. Stand the short 2x4 up close to bead as you can get without hitting wheel. With it stood up then place the 2x6 on top of the short 2x4 and use it like a pry bar under your truck bumper or what have you against the short 2x4. Flip tire and repeat. Then get after it with the tire spoons. A teaspoon of dish soap to about a cup of wather to lube things up on the beads help. I change my own for years now. I wont say its easy, but I can buy the wife and I a nice steak dinner for what it would have cost me.

LOL Funny. I was looking for some other pics for a fellow today and ran across my pictures of my painted black gas cap. And remembered that thing use to reflect sun rite in the ole peepers. I painted it with some black plasti dip paint. It actually matched to black surround thing pretty close.

I have a tool. I figured I was going to own the thing for a long time, so I bought one. Any how I had a bunch of shims from my FJ 1200 that are the same. Also same size shims are used from some Hondas and Suzuki's. They should be pretty easy to pick up locally. I got the tool and then measured everything and found I could really swap from one valve to another and get thing right. I only needed a couple shims from my reserve.

Hmm Kinda short notice for some. I will check with boss and see if I can get a kitchen pass.

I'll save Puc the trouble.

Tap roots or not. You get soaking rains for a day, day and half and then some high winds and I think most trees are going over. New tonight said Wilmington is pretty much shut off and is an island. LOL Mentioned Hwy 17 so I had to look up and sure enough its the same one that runs all the way down thru my neck of the woods.

I have been up to Road America several times. I can agree you all grow them things in the super size. But it seems most of them cold winter states are like that, Mich, Ohio too. How come? We have lots and lots of skeeters down here, but nuttin close to the size of you alls.

Just installed one of those a month or so ago. Pretty good unit. I ended up buying FOBO "T" valves to go on tires so I could add air without taking caps off. Also if I check tire with gauge, then put cap on it could be off a lb or so. Anyways with the T valves I found the front reads 1 lb higher than my gauge. Not bad. You will find you will have to roll the bike say in the AM a bit before it will read something besides what your finish pressure temp was when you parked. I am still messing with pressures but I usually see about a 3lb gain in front and 7-8 lb gain in rear depending on road temp. Also a Victory XCT, but still a big bike.

Its all about the "grid" and how and who is on it. We are about 1/2 mile or so from a local hospital. If you kind of counted city blocks would be like over 2 and down 5. After Charlie I think it was power was down. I think 2-2.5 days and we had power back. Folks closer say 2 blocks over towards hospital were out a week or more. No sense how grid is set up. They evidently have changed it because after Irma hospital and other streets over a couple had power more than a week before us. Crazy how they set that stuff up. Glad you got your power back. WE had some places get power back and a day or so later loose it for a day, then came back. In my book those guys are a bit off messing with that much electricity in first place. Then add in adverse conditions......

Sometimes these things help us decide things. Sometimes certain bikes a re a shoe in. A couple years back maybe 5 the Victory Cross Country won "best touring" bike. But it was up against a HD that paint was the "upgrade" from previous year, the RSV was the same bike they had sold for years and I forget what the deal was with the Indian. SO it kind of won by default. LOL But it is neat to read these articles to see what some of these writers think are important.

Heres a tip you all may not know about being you get only one of theses every 7 years or so. Take a paper cup or solo cup and freeze it about half full of water. Once it is frozen and in the freezer place a quarter on top of the ice. Then if power goes out and you check food in freezer, if the quarter is sunk things have thawed out in freezer and you probably need to toss.