RedRider

I've never heard anyone say they wish they hadn't gotten the Russell. RR

It depends on what you are looking for. If you want to go from a 100 mile seat to a 200-250 mile seat, the Butt Butler is the bomb. Rick does really good work. If you want to do major miles - Russell Day Long. Best seat evah!! Not cheap, but is custom made and will provide you with comfort for as many miles as you want to do. I have one on my 2nd gen - done multiple back-to-back 1000+ mile days without issue. Son has one on a 1st gen - done 1000+ days with no issues. RR

I would not consider the pumpkin (final drive) a weakness. From my time on this board, I have heard of a couple of troubles, but it certainly is not an endemic problem. I have at least 70k miles on my replacement final drive and it had 30k on it before I installed it. For clarification, some folks have had their Venture converted to a trike. When that is done, the final drive is replaced with a drive axle and the pumpkin is not longer needed. Hence, a take off. Therefore, it becomes an extra part available for others. Somewhere on here are some pictures of the magnetic plug from my original drive before I changed it out. It looked like a metal ice cream cone with all the shavings. The problem was one of the pinion bearings failed and the misalignment between the gears caused the metal wear. It did not leave me stranded (rode several thousand miles to get home) before checking more closely and deciding to change it out. I change my pumpkin fluid every time I change my rear tire. FYI - mine is a 2000 Venture which runs the same final drive. And just in case, I have a spare in my shop. Don't expect to need it though. Hope this helps. RR

Plug with a sticky string. Ride it like you stole it. RR

I would change the gear oil and check it a couple of thousand miles later. The shavings are expected at the first change. If they are present at future diff oil changes, I would start asking around about a trike conversion takeoff. 12k miles isn't very many. Mine went 80k before I changed it out (and many others have gone farther than that without changing the pumpkin). RR

Words no red blooded male has ever put together. Just sayin' RR

Were you able to finish the SS? How'd it go? RR

The Barnett clutch setup is excellent for improving performance of the clutch. I might suggest installing the heavy duty springs with the Barnett. As for it seeming to lag in power, remember the V4 likes to rev. Don't drive it like a V-twin. Get the revs up to access the power from these engines. RR

TPMS is a good tool when riding long distances. It is essential to monitor a slow leak and LD riding/rallying does not really lend itself to constantly monitoring the tire pressure with a hand gauge. Here is a very in depth discussion from the IronButt magazine of available motorcycle TPMS's. RR

Send a PM to Flyingfool. He makes these. Might be in classifieds.

Yup, that appears to be it. Here is the FI control diagram. No O2 sensor. RR

Now you've got me all curious. Will review the repair manual tonight and advise. RR

This is an '86 bike. My guess is the FI controller only has so much adjustability. So they need to load a new map for higher altitudes. Kind of like loading a new map area in your GPS if it can't​ store the whole country. RR

GoldenRider made it home yesterday after rain, wind, and mountain cold. Epic ride. The bike ran well but raised some concerns when in the mountains. It seemed to loose power (it is FI). I didn't think about it until he told me this, but there is a small plug with a jumper wire on the side of the engine. If he would have pulled that (he had no idea it was there), it sets the FI map to a high altitude setting. Would have been nice to have tested that as I never had a need for it. RR

Pucster, that bike will barely do 85 with all that stuff on there. He is staying off the interstate the whole way. We laid out a route on the blue highways only. Also, he is doing this without GPS - maps only. Did a 5000+ mile trip in his truck last summer the same way. Yes, I am proud of him. RR

Son #1 (GoldenRider) flew from Phoenix to WI last week to attend a friend's graduation and to see the family. While here he took my Venture to Fort Wayne to visit the Grandparents. He just took off to ride an '86 BMW K75C back to Phoenix for son #2 (moved out there a couple of months ago). 53 degrees and raining. Perfect weather for a 2000 mile trip with intentions of camping each night. Wish I was going with him (kind of). RR

Take pictures please. RR

I'm pretty sure the servo assist problems was with the GS models, not the RTs. They were produced '05-'07 or -'08 IIRC. RR

I had this happen after 50-ish thousand miles with the Barnett. I installed extra heavy duty springs and have had no issues since. $23.00 from Barnett. RR

When the dealer was talking about 6 bearing in the swing arm, I suspect he is covering the 4 needle bearings in the suspension setup (dog bone links are connected with a bolt through these bearings) and the two swing arm tapered bearings. When I serviced my rear suspension a couple of winters ago, I had to change out these 4 needle bearings, the hollow common inner bearing race, as well as the dog bone links and the connecting bolts. The bolts had bent breaking the common inner bearing races and taking out the needle bearings with it. Wasn't a difficult job, just time consuming. The swing arm tapers were in good shape and were relubed and reused. I had about 130k miles on the bike at the time. The squeaking is almost assuredly from the shock. Mine was squeaky for many 10's of thousands of miles before it finally failed. Replaced with a Hagon shock. Squeak-Free and properly suspended since 2015. RR

Barnett with heavy duty springs. Wouldn't even mess with the discs. RR

http://docs.mystiklubes.com/msds_pi/M20080.pdf Looks like you are good to go. Last line in Applications: "It is designed to be used in wet clutch applications that require JASO MA quality oil." That's a fairly inexpensive full synthetic. RR

IIRC, the Barnett pressure plate is bright purple. You really can't miss it. Also, Barnett has heavy duty springs available that work wonderfully. I went through a clutch every 20-30k miles. Tried the Skydoc mod, heavy duty washer spring, regular Barnett springs (got 50k out of that). I also removed the full friction disc and went back to the split disc/spring inner (better/longer friction zone with split disc). With the heavy duty springs, it rocks. Does make my forearms ache a bit if caught in Chicago traffic for a while. RR

The only way I would do this is pulling the drive shaft first. I would rent a one way U-Haul trailer. RR

I used JBM on an old KZ440. Good product. RR