M61A1MECH

I have not owned and FJR but I have test rode them several times at various events. To add to what is noted above, on the (electric shift) AE models I tested they do not have a clutch lever, you still have to shift that is done either by using the traditional foot operated shift lever or a "paddle" type shifter that you control with your thumb. It is located very near the horn button and more than once I and fellow riders thumbed the horn button when we wanted to shift. s far as getting used to the AE, I was surprised how ell it works and it took all of 3 seconds to be comfortable with it, what you cannot do with those models is blip the throttle, if you do the clutch thinks you wanting to go and it engages and you go if you are not holding the brake lever. The bikes are very quick, very smooth, and handle differently than either my Venture or my Goldwing, they handle well, but on a demo ride you do not get a lot of twisties. The one thing I did note was that the grips are small in diameter, much like the Goldwing stock grips and by the end of the 20 minute demo ride my hands were cramping, due I believe to two issues, the small grips and a more forward leaning riding position than I am used to. The grips can be fixed with Grip Puppies and he riding position is a matter of finding what is most comfortable, it is not that you are laying on the tank, it is just more forward leaning than my previous cruiser and touring style bikes. I have wanted an FJR ever since I rode my first one, but do not think I could afford two things that would ultimately arise. 1) Multiple speeding tickets 2) A divorce from my current bride Both of which I am sure would happen in rapid fashion if I bought one. If you look at the Yamaha website you may be able o locate some dealers that offer test rides on certain bikes, the FJR is typically one they allow test rides on , but not all dealers participate in the program.

As WIZ noted above, I make various plug and play harnesses for several bikes, but I have not ben able to find the connectors needed to develop a true plug and play for the First Gens. Dingy and I worked on that for a few months a couple of years ago, but I never found the one 13 or so pin connector needed. However I cab offer this. Yes you need an adapter that converts the bike's 5 wire system to the trailer's 4 wire system. They come in two styles, 1) One is a powered isolator / converter, this type takes fused power right from the battery to power the lights on the trailer and has an electronic relay package that sense the input from the bike for the tail lights, brakes, left turn and right turn and illuminates those as required right from the battery. The advantage of this is you are not putting extra load on the bikes original wiring which is marginal at best and if a problem develops in the trailer wiring you do not lose the lighting on the bike. 2) The second is simply a converter package that connects (taps) into the bike's original wires and converts the 5 wire system to a 4 wire system This system works, but I would not recommend it unless the trailer is fitted with LED lights, that way the draw on the bikes harness is minimal. OK so having said all of that, it sounds like you already have your bike set up with a 5 wire harness, so you could simply put a 5 wire to 4 wire converter in line using the existing plug. I can provide a plug and play converter that will plug into your existing trailer connector and then plug into your new Harbor Freight 4 pin connector. If that sounds like something you would like to do, PM me here on the forum or email me through the forum message system and we can discuss exactly what you need and I can work up a quote for you. Let me know I am happy to help any way I can.

Bob, I would beg to differ with you on this point, if the vent passage in the system is blocked or there is some other obstruction preventing system pressure to release you could very well end up with pressure building up in the line which will cause the clutch to partially disengage. One scenario is that the vent in the master cylinder is blocked due to crud or oxidation and the clutch fluid heats up from engine heat. The expansion of the hydraulic fluid because of change in temperature will push on the piston in the clutch pack and could cause slippage. So one question may be, is the slippage worse after the bike has been operating for a while , verse at the start of the ride? It may take a while for the hydraulic system to become fully heat soaked and the issue to show up.

Here is a set of Venture type bags for sale over on Delphi, http://forums.delphiforums.com/vrider/messages/16258/1, the problem you may have is mounting this style bag to your bike with the 4 x 4 exhaust, this style bag is best fitted to bikes with 4x2 pipes like on the Venture and Tour DeLuxe

Dion, sure give me shout , but I do have a ride planned for Saturday.

Which coast are you traveling along? East or West? I am just south of Daytona, if you get over this way, give me a shout. 386-314-8588

For used factory replacement parts try PinWall Cycles, http://pinwallcycle.com/, just search for venture.

As you noted the wiring and connector is there (white one under the seat), if memory serves me correctly there is a round plastic hole plug in the side panel above the rear floor board or in that general area. I believe that plug fills the hole where the cigarette lighter type outlet is intended to be located. Could be wrong, been wrong before. If I still had my Venture I would go look and confirm, but it is long gone.

Here is an Ebay listing for $190.00, http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/381641891600?lpid=82&chn=ps&ul_noapp=true

You can polish the bottoms of those floor boards and they will look like chrome, but you have to stay up with them or they will oxidize back to dull after a while. I wonder what would happen if you polished and clear coated them??

What did I win? You could also change out the filler plates above the rear floorboards to the ball milled style, everything else chrome I can see looks to be ball milled except those.

Chrome floor boards front and rear.

Depending on what you are doing, my aux lighting harness could or would have been a help, I also make custom ones for those applications where you have to interrupt the circuit for something like a modulator. Here is a link to one of my products on he member vendor page. http://www.venturerider.org/forum/photopost/showproduct.php?product=4&title=aux-lighting-harness-for-2nd-gen-venture&cat=18 Good luck with what ever you are doing.

So here is my history with Yamaha oil. Back when I had my 98 Royal Star Tour Classic every time I would go to parts counter to get oil and filters, they would sell me Honda oil and Yamaha filter for about the first 4 years I owned it (40,000 miles) , one day I decided as I really like Yamaha I should stay brand faithful so I switched to Yamaha lube. Right after the switch I started getting slippage in the clutch, I drained out the Yamaha lube, pulled the clutch pack and cleaned everything with brake cleaner and reassembled with the Honda oil I had been running all those years. The slipping was reduced but still there if I got on it hard in 5th gear. I bought a new OEM spring and a new pack of friction plates, even though the ones I had just cleaned measured OK, I was thinking was ever was in the Yamaha lube had saturated he material on the friction plates, so best to change them. Did that and continued to use either Honda oil or Valvoline motor cycle oil for the next 56,000 miles I owned that bike, he clutch never slipped again even two up pulling a trailer in the Smokey Mountains. Long story short, never going to use Yamaha Lube in any thing I own ever! That is my story and I am sticking to it.

That is very odd, normally the Barnett pressure plate fixes the issue for good. I have seldom heard of Yamaha friction plates wearing out unless they were slipping badly for a long time or abused. One fellow that was over on Delphi, had a slipping clutch and then entered a slow race competition and smoked his friction plates really bad, that is about the only case I have heard of. I suspect this has been asked before, but are you certain the oil you are using or may have used in the past was suitable for a wet clutch? If the friction plates were exposed to an improper oil type they could have soaked up enough of the friction modifiers so as hey weak they continue to leach out those modifiers and cause slipping. Are you pulling a heavy trailer that is adding extra load on the clutch? Just for grins, you should mic the friction plates and the steels when you remove them, to see if they are out of spec, if they are then yes if the total height of the stack is short enough it will result in a slipping clutch , I would be very interested in hearing if the plates are out of spec or not. Good luck, and as MarCarl noted , best to change out all of them if you are in there doing the change.

Follow the tire manufacturer specs, the bike specs are for the OEM tires that come on the bike from the factory, normally those are Bridgestones. Not using the tire manufacturer specs , especially in the case of the Metzlers, is potentially related to the high failure rate that have been reported on those tires.

Ok so the same fuse that feeds the front running lights also powers the tail light, dash lights and head light. If those are working it is not the fuse, which I believe is labeled as the head light fuse. Could be the spring loaded contacts in the light socket are corroded and not making contact. What have you done to verify the bulbs are good? Have you tried a different set of bulbs , just for grins?

May be a new Venture coming one day, but will need to be one heck of a machine to get me off my Goldwing.

This has been a common problem with Meltzer's over the years, Meltzer will not stand behind their product and continually blame the user for improper inflation causing the issues.

If you have a 2001 Venture, then yes any 1999 to 2013 Venture motor will bolt right in, they made no changes to the Venture motor or the bike for that matter from 1999 to 2013. If you have a 2001 Royal Star then it can be done it has been done but takes a bit of doing.

I got tired of crawling under vehicles to change the oil, both the wife's Solara and my GMC Terrain you can access the oil filters from under the hood, so I bought one of those vacuum systems that sucks the oil out through the dipstick tube to see if it would work. Surprisingly enough it worked quite well , the one I have is a basket ball sized translucent white sphere with graduations on it, you can see the oil as it gathers inside and you can tell if you got all or most of it out by looking at the level. Works the best if the motor has been warmed up to get the oil flowing easy. Maybe not the best way to drain the oil out, but beats getting on the floor and crawling under or cleaning up a mess that I always seemed to make.

The link does not work, but found several videos on You Tube, saying you can revive car lead acid type batteries with a solution of distilled water and Epsom salts. I have not tried that , but I did revive a 24 volt lithium battery for a lawn trimmer that would not charge due to being extremely depleted, to the point where the charger would not recognize it. Just took a like battery that was charged, put jumper wires from the good battery to the bad battery for a few hours. Got just enough charge in it so the charger would see it and it charged back up after being on the charger for an hour or so.

Taz is correct, I was confused the other day when I answered the OP on the question, I was thinking he was asking about putting an older Gen 1 1300 cc motor into a Royal Star frame, that would be the same as putting in a V-Max motor where the heads are ported differently. It is possible to put a Royal Star Venture motor into a standard (96 to 01) Royal Star frame. Sorry for the confusion.

You can pull the filter and lose only the oil that is in the filter, very little will drain out when you pull the filter, I was in the habit of changing the filter on my Venture about every 3,000 miles when I was running synthetic oil and changing the oil every 6000 miles, I would change the filter about half thru the interval.

I would suggest BLACBIRD, as in SR71,