saddlebum

Are you insinuating I only volunteered so as to get outa peeking in to the honey do jar. That is so unfair. To make such an assumption. and then to publicize your unfounded guessing. Ok so maybe there is just a teeny weenie smidgen of truth to that but I ain't-a-gonna admit it

Sorry you ended up a victim of Murphy's Law. Hopefully the rest of it goes a lot smoother despite the extra work you are now into.

Sure you already tried but is there enough lip to grab with vise grips ? Now if you have a welder protect the surrounding area ( home dept sells plumbers flame protector which is great for this ) https://www.homedepot.ca/product/oatey-bagged-9-x-12-flame-protector/1000420496 Cover the head but make hole where the lifter is. Weld a bolt with the head cut off. Grind a 1/8" shoulder on the cut end and then weld the cut end, to the top and center of the lifter. The bolt should be long enough with ample thread length at least 1-1/2 times longer than the length of the lifter. Use stainless welding rod it tends to not make as brittle a weld as other rods when welding to hardened steel ( if you only have an AC welder instead of a DC welder make sure the rod spec states it can be used with AC otherwise go with 6013 rod. Use a rod less than 1/8 say about 3/32 0r 1/16 ). A mig welder will also work. Bend a flat bar into a deep U shape to bridge the hole and deep enough for the lifter to come up into. Drill a hole in the center for the bolt go through put a nut on it and draw the lifter out. (you can also use a piece of pipe deep enough and large enough for the lifter to fit into. Cut enough out of the side of the pipe so you can see whats happening as you attempt to draw the lifter out. Drop a washer larger diameter than the pipe on top and over the bolt add the nut and start to draw the lifter out. Another trick is to weld a long threaded rod to the lifter drop something heavyish like a deep heavy socket over the rod double nut the end and use as a slide hammer ( in this case I am not a big fan because the shock of the slide hammer blows may be too aggresive and instead of drawing out the lifter it may only succeed in cracking the weld. WARNING; MAKE SURE YOU TAKE ALL PRECAUTIONS WITH REGARDS TO ANYTHING FLAMMABLE AROUND THE WORK AREA AND BE AWARE EVEN OIL GIVEN ENOUGH HEAT CAN IGNITE SO USE EXTREME CAUTION.

Vash ....Vat is dis vash..

Yes Carl thanks for the effort but it appears the deck was stacked against this round. Next year may be a better round.

Well you know supervising the supervisor to make sure he supervises the students properly is a very important undertaking. Now I may have done a better job supervising the supervisor if there had been donuts with the coffee but sometimes you just got to work with what you got. In any case I deemed Carl did well enough that my assistance was no longer required (and a second day without donuts would have been a hard go) So I stayed home the next day to finish working on my own bike. My sons camper and a pine corner book case I was drafted into building for my daughter. PSSST I hid the honey do jar cuss the missus kept tossing pieces of paper in it, not sure what they were for but I got the feeling it was not in my best interest.

Sadly that is the one draw back to this bike. If your legs are too short to firmly plant your feet this does become an issue. On the other hand once you get rolling it is a very stable bike to ride and corners extremely well for a top heavy bike at road speeds. Parking lot maneuvering takes a bit of practice since it requires a little bit different handling technique than say a smaller shorter bike or one with lower center of gravity. but with practice you can adapt and learn to handle it at a crawl.

There are foot prints available for most tents and they do give the floor a lot of protection, specially when camped on fine granular sand. You would be surprise how that sand can rub little pin holes through your floor. If you can't find a foot print made to fit your tent you can make a decent one from some tyvek house wrap. Just make sure you make it a bit smaller then the tent floor. You do not want the foot print sticking out from under your tent so that it can catch rain water, otherwise you will end up with a pool of water between the foot print and the tent floor. As far as Tents go I am a firm believer in buying a Quality tent such as MSR or Eureka for example. I have tried the cheaper tents and I find most of them almost always find a way to let water in. I have Three tents the eureka spitfire 2 for when I want to travel ultra light and just need enough room for me and my gear and this packs up not much bigger than a lunch box thermos bottle and sets up in ten minutes. https://eurekacamping.johnsonoutdoors.com/tents/backpacking/spitfire-2-person-tent For a bit more room but still very compact I have an MSR 2 person tent which packs up about the size of a foot ball both these tents have gone on long back country backpacking trips and many motorcycle trips including VR rallys. https://www.msrgear.com/ca/tents/backpacking-tents/hubba-hubba-nx-2-person-backpacking-tent/10316.html My third tent which will house two military cots yet still packs up small enough to pack with the rest of my gear on a motorcycle but too large for back packing I have a Big Agness flying diamod 4 person ten. I like this one if I am staying put in one place for any length of time. https://www.mec.ca/en/product/5024-443/Flying-Diamond-4-Person-Tent All three of these tents have kept me dry through some of the worst thunderstorms with 60 MPH winds. When it comes to tents I lways consider a 2 person comfy enough for one and a four person comfy enough for two. That is not to see they won't sleep the number they say they will but it means packing in like sardines and sleeping with your head in the opposite direction of the person or persons beside you.

Those instructions are incomplete. ...There is a whole section left out.... Not one word about the best time to stop for a beer or coffee.

Weel somebody had to come and help drink that big tank of coffee I mean supervise ... Good thing I was there to Cause Carl's idea of maintaining a .004 clearance for the intake And .006 for the exhaust btewwn the lobe and shim was just to leave pieces of feeler gauge in place and throw the covers back on. He mumbled something about this way the distance between the cam lobe and shim would always stay the same

I notice in the second pic Don seems to be eyeing Phil's parts...Mnnnn Best keep a close watch on what part goes on what bike Phil.

You is supposed to toss the old oil out not add food coloring to make it look like new oil with updated additives. Leave it to a dutchman to stretch a penny

These may be of some help Testing for a Battery not Charging..pdf TESTING CHARGING SYSTEM 1ST GEN.pdf

Actually the lighter one is closer to normal, indicating proper fuel mixture the sooty ones are indicating abnormally rich mixture. sticking enrichment valves commonly referred to as the choke is one possible cause that often gets overlooked when checking for carburetor causes of too rich a fuel mixture. A good indicator of this is if you almost never need to use the choke to start the bike no matter how cool it is. Other possible cause outside of the carburator are low compression due to improper valve set or ( hopefully not ) worse like bad valve seats for example.

As well as the wear bars you can measure the tread depth. For motorcycle tires minimum tread depth is 1.5mm or 2/32nds, at three equally spaced areas around the tire. This is to eliminate a single flat spot caused by braking for example from condemning a tire when the tread depth around the rest of the tire is acceptable, ( unless of course that flat spot is down to a dangerous level such as near or at the cords ). Anything less and you need to replace those tires. Other factors you need to look for are hairline cracks in the side wall or in the tread grooves. Abnormal sidewall bulges or signs of tread separation. Lastly a tire may appear perfectly normal with lots of tread but got hard with age, so when you feel a tire loosing road grip when they should still be biting replace them. The last thing you need is a tire breaking loose, from the road in a curve or corner. The manufactures date stamp, is a good guide line but I have had tires go hard and become dangerous within three years of the manufacturing date stamp and have to admit it hurts to replace tires with plenty of tread left but I am sure road rash or worse would hurt a whole lot more. With regards to those dots I am pretty sure they are also wear indicators. easy way to find out is measure the depth of the dot with a tread gauge and compare to the tread depth adjacent to the dot if the difference is approx 1.5 mm or 2/32nds than you know.

Hey Earl @skydoc_17you got my attention on this one. Would love to hear your point of view. Always like to hear the pros and cons on things. Makes for informed decision making me thinks.

sounds normal to me Keep in mind also the fuel bowls are vented at the top and evaporating fuel will escape through these vents lowering fuel bowl level, hence allowing the needle seat to start to open relieving pressure on the fuel line which signals the pump to run. As pressure builds the pump begins to struggle and slow down eventually stopping. This is all very normal. Since fuel evaporating is one of the key factors in a normally healthy fuel system it also stands to reason that both time and temp such as sitting in a heated garage or in the sun increases the amount of fuel evaporating from the fuel bowls. The fact that the pump will build enough pressure and the bike runs quite normal would tell me there is no fault with the pump. IMHO from you description I would say you have nothing to worry about. Ride the bike and enjoy any real full system problems will come to light on its own without you try to look for any. BTW despite how it sounds, that last sentence was meant to be reassuring not chastising.

I am not surprised as I too was thinking this is not going to happen this year with what is going on so I too will be dropping out. May as well do it now than wait to the last minute and lead every one on. I sure am going to hate missing this event for the second year in a row because if its one thing I looked forward to every year was the WNY rally. I know @BIG TOMis going to be devastated not seeing me me for the second year in a row and I hate to do it to him knowing what a sensitive guy he is but sadly it just can't be helped.

by the look of those plugs I say your running pretty rich or with a pretty dirty air filter

@skydoc_17sells an excellent clutch kit with upgraded 1st disk and heavier spring which is real popular among members here. Myself I replaced mine with the carbon fiber kit put out by Barnett (this was before I knew about skydocs kits) both are real good options specially if your pulling a trailer. You will find plenty of good feed back here on the site for both specially skydocs kits. You will also find skydoc a great guy to deal with he stands behind what he sells and wont sell you something he would not trust on his own bike.

I never got the impression they were much liked by the rest of the crew either because every time you asked around about something it was either one or both of those two guys that got ratted on.

Nooo I can't see that as being true. As a matter fact in my entire 50 year carrier I have only met two individuals that were like that... Not Me and I Don't Know.

I may have some from an 86 I will have to check. According to parts catalog the bucket was used from 86 to 09. Just do not know how much and how long it would take to ship from Canada. I sent a speedo head for the instrument cluster to one member here and shipping was $20 and he had the part in approx 2 weeks. However given that the part fit 86 to 09 someone closer may be a better option.

Reminds me of a funny but true story, that happened about 40 years ago. A crane repair shop across the highway from us received a bomb threat. So a swat and bomb team set up a discrete surveillance around the place.After some wait and coming to the conclusion it was probably an idle threat, they began to pack it in, when one of the officers notice the truck shop across the road, being broken into. After they had backed a van into the shop and closed the overhead door, the team positioned themselves and waited. You can imagine the would be thieves surprise when after loading the van with stolen tool boxes and any shop equipment they could move, when upon opening the overhead door, they found themselves starring at the business end of a team of swat rifles.