zagger

Thanks for filling us in on Yooper's condition. zag

I think the author of the article needs to get up early, head out on some small roads, blow the stink off, and just get over the idea that there are many kinds of people and many different ideas of what they enjoy. Why get your undies in a bunch just because other people don't prefer your choices? zag

As part of your gas tank cleaning efforts, you might want to consider putting in some stuff called "Red Kote": http://damonq.com/techsheets/red-kote.pdf My '83 gas tank seemed generally ok on the outside but I noticed quite a bit of rust sitting down in the "crevasses" where the sheet metal sections are welded together. Rather than fight with dirty gas forever, I simply used Red Kote to encapsulate and trap the rusty bits. Of course, I first cleaned out the inside of the tank as well as I could and made sure it was completely dry before using the Red Kote stuff. As I remember, after banging chains and soapy water around inside the tank (water lowers the spark/explosion risk), I rinsed the tank very well with water and then with denatured alcohol simply to remove as much of the water as possible before trying to dry it out. Then I let a small fan blow air through the tank (in the level sensor location, out the filler) for several days before doing the coating. As I remember, the Red Kote stuff is kind of syrupy and wasn't very easy to get it to flow around inside the tank. Diluting it a little with MEK helped a lot. By the way: Red Kote and MEK are not good to breath in - work outside and leave the tank outside for a day or two to fully dry. Both are very flammable/explosive so be careful and don't smoke or do anything that makes sparks. Hope this helps, zag

Kinda shiny for me, and the passenger pegs seem to be set a bit high. http://www.mrzip66.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/easy_rider_peter_dennis_and_jack_on_cycles.jpg For $1.2M do you suppose they would sand it down and paint it flat black for me? And lower the pegs? zag

Maybe you should drop the year from the search. No reason to care about the year as long as the parts are for the correct engine. I cannot imagine that parts will be hard to find. zag

Poor snake! Probably just found a cozy spot down inside the engine compartment until you decided to fire up the car and drive it away. Ya know, they don't have any arms or legs so when they are thrown from a moving car, they might land in an awkward position and really hurt themselves! zag

Are the other two cylinders more in the normal range? Just curious since you are going to have to tear into it anyway just to know what is what. For the low compression two, it would seem like tearing into the engine would give you the answers. Who knows. Cylinder/piston scoring could have low numbers like that. Once you have the pieces sitting in your lap, I'm guessing that the problem will be obvious. Lots of parts can be found online from the usual sources. I have an 83 venture and I've never had any trouble locating parts. Even the internal engine bits and pieces. However, if your engine has suffered a major lack of lube for a period of time or some other calamity, it may be simpler to locate a used engine which is more functional with fewer problems. Of course, it is just a roll of the dice to find something at the moment that you decide that you need it. I rebuilt an 83 and didn't have any serious shortages of parts. I'm gonna guess that everything you need for your 85 is out there and available. I don't know where you live, but in the north, we are gradually drifting into "building season". If you aren't in a major rush to locate each thing, you will likely find the parts you need without huge expense or struggle. At any rate, that is my experience. zag

Hmmm. The Ol' Faded Blue Beast might be fast, but the flat black beast is pretty quick also. Wonder how we can put this to the test? zag

And the Zumo also stores tunes. Lots of tunes if you add more memory! Verbal turn directions interrupt the music when necessary. I chose the nice, polite sounding female voice that says, "Excuse me, sir. I must ask you to turn left in one half mile. Many apologies, sir, it won't happen again." zag

A couple of weeks ago I passed a long line of harleys riding nose to tail. By the time I got to the leaders of the pack, I was going over twice their speed. Pretty zippy for a big bike. zag

I use a "wideband" exhaust gas analyzer made by innovate motorsports. Note that this type of sensor is similar to ones used for fuel injection systems - except that it is designed to function and give readings at fuel/air mixtures that are well away from optimum. The sensors and electronics typically used with fuel injection systems only operate over a limited measurement range since it is assumed that the entire system is stock and never very far away from the design conditions. http://www.innovatemotorsports.com/products/db.php The biggest advantage with a guage is that you can actually see the engine combustion conditions while it is loaded, in different gears, different speeds, etc. While most people would probably argue that this can be done while the bike is stationary, in actual fact the airflow around a bike can have a big effect on the air pressure at the engine air filter location. If your setup is stock, then I guess you can hope that the Yam engineers thought this through and the effect is minimal. If your setup isn't stock, then you are "wandering around in the forest" hoping to luck out and find the perfect setup by randomly trying different things. The biggest hassle of this type of system is that it requires you to weld a threaded connection into one of the exhaust pipes - upstream from the muffler. The sensor has to be placed well away from the open end of the muffler where outside air would influence the measurement. I just used the gauge on one pipe and made the assumption that all four are the same since they are set up the same. Probably not perfect, but MUCH better than not measuring anything! When you are done adjusting everything, a threaded plug with crush washer can be used to seal the unused hole. Or you could just leave the sensor in place if you like to watch the gauge permanently. I have more than one bike so it is nice to be able to move the system from one to the other if I have done something that might affect the carb operation. My venture is highly modified and I simply could not get it running well without some means to actually measure the engine's operating conditions. I never used the software supplied with the system since just watching the gauge while riding really gives a good idea of what is happening inside the engine cylinder. Hope this is a help to you. zagger

Families are God's personal blessing. Just be thankful for the time you had. zag

I almost stopped reading on the first post when you said "you seem an intelligent group". Obviously some guy who is completely out of touch with reality! I also reconstructed an '83 venture and just love the engine. I'm sure you will prevail in the end, just keep plugging away. zag

Well, somebody has to say it. I'll bet your neighbor's complaint has more to do with your Bub exhaust than with you personally. Lot's of folks don't like the motorcycle melody and just want vehicles to be quiet. This is the sort of fight which spawns new laws like those California just passed (http://www.ridelust.com/motorcycle-exhaust-bill-passes-in-california/). I guess we only have ourselves to blame. zag

Sorry guys, I cannot attend. Just found out this afternoon that my wife is going in for some fairly nasty surgery on Friday, Oct. 8. It might seem pretty insensitive if I headed out of town for a colored leaf trip with camping to enjoy myself. I'll join you another time. zag

While some cupping could be caused by an out of balance wheel, I think that most of it is caused by the way the "islands" of rubber on the tire deflect and wear. If you rub a pencil with an eraser along the top of a table while pushing down against the table, you see the eraser deflect and the most eraser wear happens on the leading edge. Each island of rubber (the areas surrounded by grooves) on the tire works the same way and wears the same way. My bikes have tires which are worn down in "cups" that you can see from 10 feet away. I hate that but I don't believe that balancing will help. Balancing helps keep the center of mass at the axle and minimizes the shaking. My most recent experiment with beads is the most interesting. Last winter I built a custom front suspension for my venture chopper. Riding it this summer, the front wheel would literally bounce right off the road when I hit about 65 mph. Most unpleasant! Slower was ok, faster was ok. I thought that the damping and spring constant of the front suspension was the problem and I wrestled with those ideas. This last weekend I put beads in the front wheel and found that the bouncing was caused by an out of balance tire (professionally balanced when the tire was installed). Apparently, the frequency of the wheel vibration at 65mph matched the resonant frequency of the front forks and all hell broke loose. With the beads it runs nice and quiet regardless of the speed. Pictures of my new front end:

The point is: your axles are not fixed and unmovable. And neither is the rest of the bike. A spinning out of balance wheel causes the suspension to compress/extend and that loading is transmitted to the frame of the bike and to you, the rider. Every part of the bike, including you, move up and down with the wheel motion. That is the shaking you feel. And that motion is what moves the beads. If you mounted the unbalanced wheel to solid steel posts mounted in 10 tons of concrete the out of balance condition would still exist but the resulting amplitude of vibration would be much less - not zero but much less. In this situation the beads would not find the light side of the wheel (the point furthest out from the center of rotation) because the amplitude of the off-axis motion would be too small. In fact, the beads can never totally balance any wheel. As the beads start arriving on the light side of the tire, the amplitude of the vibration is reduced and the forces propelling the beads to that location go lower and lower. Eventually the amplitude of vibration is so small that the beads don't move anymore. As the rider, you would conclude that the wheel is now balanced. However, it is only balanced to the extent that the bead motion has stopped - a slight out of balance condition still exists. Of course, how is this any different than a spin balancing machine? The machine has a measurement resolution limited by the sensing system and the electronics. In other words, it cannot detect microscopic imbalances. The mechanic does not have an infinite choice of lead weights. The weights come in specific sizes and he must choose the "best match" for balancing the wheel - leaving a slight imbalance that cannot be fixed by his selection of weights. The design of the wheel may limit the locations for attaching the weights causing further complications. The early venture cast wheels have 3 "spokes" which block clip-on weights from being attached in that area. And the valve stem area is another place where clip-ons don't work. Stick on weights have less restriction on mounting locations but they are off-center unless you spread the weights onto both sides of the wheel. There is no "perfect" solution for balancing a wheel other than to make all of the components (wheel, disks, tire, etc) perfectly balanced to start with. You would also need a zero-wear tire so that nothing changes as you put on the miles. I know! How about a solid steel wheel (no tire) machined to be perfectly balanced and hardened so that it cannot wear down! Don't take corners too aggressively! zag

Can't see any reason why a fluid wouldn't work except that water/antifreeze is much less dense than the beads and therefore 2 oz would take up more space inside the tire. Certainly would be easier to get into the valve stem! But there is also air inside the tire - giving problems when the water dries up and leaves just humid air inside the tire. Maybe mercury is the answer. A little messy at tire change time - but that is not my problem. zag

"In an eggshell, if somethings spinning around a fixed, unmovable axis in a perfect circle and the rotor has a heavy spot. How can the beads help?" Your bike wheels have a "fixed, unmovable axis"? How do you figure that? No suspension? zag

Think I'll join y'all. I'll be camping. zag

>>I do have a problem with one comment from that MCN test. They said:"Also, the weight of the beads added so close to the tire tread gave a noticeable increase in gyro stability, making the steering heavier" Some things are just so stupid ya gotta wonder. As I remember from my front end project, the entire front wheel with disks on my '83 Venture weighs 35 lbs. A new front tire all by itself weighs about 15 lbs. Adding 2 oz to the existing total of 560 oz or to 240 oz (if you just consider the tire) is only an addition of 0.3% to 0.8% depending on what total weight you use. Notice the gyroscopic effect? Sounds like the princess and the pea. Nevermind the obvious point that lead weights added to the rim create the same weighting effect since the job of balancing the wheel requires enough weight to offset the initial imbalance of the tire. Therefore, weights on the rim have to be larger than weights placed 3 or 4 inches further out (inside the tire) and would produce a similar gyro effect. Although it seems completely trivial, you may use more bead weight than is actually required for the balancing job. If you don't spin balance the wheel, you really can only guess on the weight of beads to add. You could certainly start with 1 oz and see what you think and add more if it seems necessary. I just put 2 oz in every tire since the effort of jacking up the bike (no center stand on my beast) outweighs the cost and hassle of just adding another oz of beads. If you wanted to be really precise, just have a new tire installed in a shop and have them spin balance and tell you what weight the machine calculates. Assuming they keep the machine calibrated (a big assumption) you can add the same weight in beads and skip the lead weights. The advantage of beads is that they continue to keep the tire balanced thoughout its life, regardless of wear. I guess motorcycle magazines must employ english majors to do the testing and analysis - they obviously are lost in the weeds or just enjoy making stuff up. Or maybe Innovative Balancing forgot to enclose a $20 bill with the beads shipped to the magazine! I should add to this discussion that getting the Dyna Beads down the valve stem can be a real pain. The '83 Venture valve stems must have an abnormally small inside diameter since the beads constantly jammed up and it took patience and the vibrating tip of an engraver (point ground off) to get the little buggers in. My Honda Saber was much easier and the 90 degree valve stem was actually the easiest since tapping on the outside of the curved stem just shot the beads right in. A better system to get them down the valve stem needs to be designed. BTW - don't bother ordering the filtered tire valves from Innovative Balancing. They are too long for motorcycle valve stems - at least that is true on my bikes. Although the risk of getting a bead caught in the tire valve (giving a big leak) seems pretty small since the beads will come to rest in a pile on the low side of the tire, I've decided that I will always position the valve on the low side and shoot in a little compressed air before checking tire pressure just to make sure that nothing is going to get caught in the valve. I guess that valve leaks must have happened since Innovative Balancing went to the trouble to source the filtered valves - I cannot add any actual experience to this issue. Now I will shut up. zag

I have been wrestling with front end shaking in one of my bikes. I put on a new tire, had it spin balanced the usual way and the problem got better for awhile and then gradually became worse and worse. I tinkered with the lead weights with little effect and began to believe that the tire must be out of round. Even though I had quite a bit of tread remaining, I ordered a new front tire and decided to experiment with the old one before taking it off. Somewhere I came across the Innovative Balancing Dyna Bead product and did my "due diligence" online in various forums. The posts on Venture Rider nearly convinced me that the beads were useless but based on my experience with a similar idea for balancing wooden airplane props (beads and oil inside of a metal tubular assembly), I decided to give the Dyna Beads a try. I put 2 oz of beads into the troublesome front tire, removed all lead weights, and hit the road. All I can say is "WOW"! Smooth as silk, all shaking gone, bike corners much better without all the shimmy and shake. I decided to keep the old tire on and use up the remaining tread before installing the new one I bought. After this experience I replaced the worn out rear tire and skipped the spin balance and went straight to using the beads. Super smooth ride with zero shaking. I distrust all forum BS endorsements like the one I just wrote since the writer is often prejudiced by the fact that they just spent money on something and will swear it is wonderful no matter what. As a physicist I wanted a good explanation for why the beads actually do work. I came across a nice explanation on the Practical Machinist website which I have edited for your enjoyment. Explanation: Try the following thought experiment: take a wheel that has serious imbalance - let us say that the true center of mass is 3 inches from the geometric center of the wheel. If this tire is spun freely (lets say by tossing it into the air and spinning it) it will rotate about its center of mass. That point is a point displaced 3 inches TOWARDS the heavy side of the wheel. Therefore the heavy side describes a radius 3 inches less than the light side. It is just like the Moon orbiting the Earth. They actually orbit each other about the common center of mass, with the heavier Earth traveling a much shorter radius than the lighter Moon. Now mount the wheel on a very light, very loosely sprung axle. The spinning wheel will try to spin just as is did before - about its center of mass - forcing the axle to to move in a 3 inch circular path. Note that the heavy side of the wheel is still traveling a shorter radius than the light side. Now stiffen up the springs holding the axle in place. Things get a lot more complicated because it depends on how stiff the springs are, the relative mass of the components, damping factors etc. -BUT- the center of rotation is still displaced towards the heavy side of the wheel. It will be somewhere along the line between the axle center and the original center of mass of the wheel. And the heavy side will still describe the shorter radius. Going back to our wheel spinning freely in space, add some ball bearings inside. They are constrained only to lie somewhere on the circumference of the tire. They will congregate towards the largest radius, that being their lowest energy state in the free body system. In doing so they will change the center of mass of the system (and its center of rotation), if they are heavy enough they will distribute themselves in such a way that there is no larger radius to flee to - and your wheel is balanced about its geometric center. Note that this depends on the tire being round - if it is out of round (so the axle is not at the geometric center of the circle) then the wheel will not balance as we define the term. Hopefully this is an adequate response to the folks who wonder how the beads "know where to go" in order to balance the wheel. They are just moving to the lowest energy state, like a ball "knows" to roll to the bottom of a hill. I rarely post and I have never recommended trying anything to other riders. However, I have come to the conclusion that a lot of handling problems we all experience from time to time may be caused by out of balance tires. Even tires that have received a professional balancing job seem to get out of balance as they wear - and who goes through the trouble of taking them off to balance multiple times? The shop I go to told me that the beads are junk and don't work and they "know" because they tried a wheel with beads on their spin balancer. Unfortunately, this test will give the wrong answer. Spin balancers are designed to rotate the wheel as slowly as possible (for safety reasons) for as short a time as possible (for economic reasons). The slow rotating speed and short time means that the beads do not have time to move out to the balanced condition. Everytime the wheel stops, the beads end up in a pile at the bottom of the tire. When you ride off, it takes a perhaps a few seconds for the beads to orient themselves properly to balance the wheel. You cannot feel this happening because the tire rotation is too slow to cause shaking. By the time you get up to speed the balance has been achieved and everything feels fine. The spin balancer test is done too quickly to establish the balanced condition and both my shop and the motorcycle magazine mentioned in earlier posts came to the wrong conclusion. I will now go quiet again. Over and out. zag

Good sloppy joes and coleslaw! And beans! Thanks for the invite, enjoyed it. Glad I saw the windshield vent installation, not so sure I'm doing it. But then, I do want a vent. zag

Y'all got a chroming tank? I'm thinking of converting from flat black to chrome and sparkles! zag

"Be easy to spot a dead cylinder with those......." Dead cylinder? I don't think so! You wound me sir! I don't think I've got any way to record audio that would sound like much of anything. The four mufflers do have baffles so it has a deep rumble sort of sound but it is not excessively loud. I built the four pipes by sand bending the tubing by eye and making the mufflers from scratch. I have rotating washers inside the end of the mufflers to adjust the backpressure - this works quite well. At cruising speeds it quiets right down and is not annoying at all. But, honestly, I'm not much into the sound of bikes since loud and fast are rarely the same. zag PS: I might end up in your driveway if I ride this down to the NC Smokeout next year! I had thought of going last weekend but had some front brake issues that had to be solved and I missed the chance.