vzuden

My my son 's first bike was a '78 Honda CB750 for which he paid $1.00. It turned out to be a great father- son project. He learned about every aspect of the bike from new rings, valve job to electrical and brakes. He rode it for several years and ended up selling it for more than I had invested in it (labor is free). But working together on it together over a winter was priceless.

I have two Harbor Freight chocks - no problems with Ventures

Mhenderlong, I understand where you are coming from. I am nearly the same age as you but my parents have been gone for several years (father when I was 15). In some respects I am envious of you in that you have gotten to spent so many years with your parents. Our bikes are just "things" that cannot take the place of those close to us.

Not my cup of tea but one of the guys in my office rides one. He has mentioned selling if you haven't got one picked out yet. He wants to upgrade to the bigger engine. He likes and the only two negatives he has mentioned is that a rider is exposed to more wind than a tourer and he's not real fall so he had trouble flat footing it at stops. I believe he installed a lowering kit of some kind

Shoei Neotec modular - love it

Before pushing the pistons in you should clean the outside exposed part of the piston

+1 I am near Peoria. Would be more than willing to meet up

If you wait till you see a problem it will be too late. Fuel passing through will not be visible as it overflows into the engine internally. It is not something that happens often and is quite rare. A small fleck of scale causes one of the four carbs' needle/float to be held open. If your fuel pump has the internal check valve the gravity flow of fuel from the tank through an open petcock will stop at that pump check valve. If your pump doesn't have the check valve and the petcock is open the fuel will flow through the pump and eventually into the cylinder. If that happens, when you hit the starter button the engine cranks, the piston comes up, can't compress the liquid fuel, and now you have junk engine. It happens so quick that there is nothing you can do. All of this happens with no external evidence of a problem. i had this happen but I was so fortunate the cylinder with the fuel happened to have piston already high enough in its stroke the fuel took up all of the space between the top of the piston and cylinder head so it couldn't move. The engine only appeared to be locked up when I pushed the starter button. A fuel pump with a check valve or turning off the fuel every time you shut off the bike is a WHOLE LOT cheaper than an engine

869lbs venture and 844lbs RSTD. Wet - with fluids and fuel. More fuel in venture

Yes and will run down the sides of the carbs too. Been there!

I will try to attend

I have had both also. As for the handling - Your RSTD may have had the rear suspension altered to raise it slightly improving the handling. Tires can make a significant difference also

I use an iPhone with a Ram mount on the handle bar. GPS navigation, stream music with Pandora (soon switching to Amazon Pr.ime, I think), take and receive phone calls, texts, all blue tooth through UClear communications in my helmet which also provides seem less intercom. I wired in a charger inside the fairing by tee'ing into the power supply to the cigarette lighter socket with one of Steve's wire harnesses. It had a USB output so I used a standard cable, sealed with heat shrink, and routed out to the handlebar near the RAM mount. The charger was less than $10.00 on ebay In the event of rain, I put the phone in my pocket. It continues to Bluetooth to my helmet and in the rain I rarely need to see the screen. When the rain stops I clip it back to the ram mount and plug it in to the charger

You just use one of those selfie sticks with mirror on the end.

Trace the cables as it should be obvious, the CB is under the rear trunk

Yes. I added the Yamaha set to my 07 RSTD. Easy to install. The sets for the Venture and RSTD are different. The mounting bar looks similar but they won't interchange. The RSTD set comes with the lamp housings and the Venture requires separate purchase of the lamps. Another minor difference is the RSTD has a small toggle switch on one of the lamp housings and the same switch for the Venture set is separate in order to mount it in the fairing. Just sharing all of this in case you run into a good price on a venture setup.

We use UClear brand communicators. Wireless and no mic, boom or wired. The mics are part of the speakers. No buttons to push for live intercom, we each stream music from our own phone, answer our own phone calls, navigation from my phone comes through the speakers, can talk to other riders. I wear a modular and wife uses full face. Even with music pretty loud I can still hear traffic if need be. Cannot connect through to the bike CB but I rarely use it.

As you are wiring them up it is advised to add a relay. There is a tech write up describing the install

What are the rough dimensions of one of these? Not sure the max size I can print but if it fits I could try it. I would make them out of ABS but I am not familiar with chroming plastic. Most of the work would be in making a 3D rendering. Probably would need an existing sample

Could consistency be affected by the amount you add to the tire? Maybe Eck had a lesser amount so it spread thinner and somewhat dried up? I have not used this product but based upon what I am reading here am strongly considering it

That is correct and I had it happen. Rode the bike to the office, stayed late, was the last one to leave, hit the starter button and it wouldn't turn over. Loud clunk only as the starter engaged the flywheel and couldn't turn the engine over. It was Friday night so after I got a ride home and went back to if Sat am. The first thing I did was pull the plugs. Left rear was dripping with fuel so I had pretty good idea really quick what was going on. After I pulled the other three I turned it over and blew all of the fuel out. I opened all four carb drains one at a time and flushed fuel through them with the pump. The crankcase didn't appear to have any fuel in the oil so I waited till I got home to drain it. Plugs in and it fired right up and thankfully no bent rods. I don't leave the bike sit at all with the petcock on. Made it a habit to turn off before I get off and don't even think about not doing so

As I recall when I had my RSTD the back of the riders seat slid rearward into bracket and the front dropped down for the installation of the two bolts. I have a Mustang RSTD seat set at home that would refresh my memory but won't be home for a couple of weeks. @eusa1 may be able to confirm this attaching method

I can't answer your wheel bearing question but if you haven't done it yet and while you have back wheel off, I would repack the swing arm bearings. There is a write up in the tech section on how to do it.

I picked up a cheap Phillips at harbor freight to reach across from the right side. I don't remember the length - maybe 24"?? Makes it a lot easier

I bought this from my local Yamaha dealer for about the same as this on line price. I think I used two packs for the four baffles in the Baron 4-2-4's. You don't want to pack them too tight. Too tight and it becomes more of a solid mass and loses the muffling quality http://www.mooseracing.com/products/?productGroupId=1684