Geobob

Mine has leaked over the winter for the past I don't know how many years. The first few rides in the spring I would always bring fluid with me to top it off. It never seemed to leak much over the riding season. This year I am replacing all the o rings. Kind of wish I had ordered a new thermostat to throw in there while I have it apart. Is there one out there at say a napa store that will work or do I have to order it from Yamaha.

So the guy on Ebay said the guard was not bent but I can see that it clearly is but not as bad as the other two that I have. Has anyone had success at bending them back into shape with out heating them up and damaging the chrome. they are still available but they cost about $300 a side. I'll cook mine, bend them and powder coat before spending $300 on a new one.

I thought the o rings looked flat on one side because they have been in the bike for 25 years. My local dealer has nothing since Williamsport is a small town. I really hate to see the bike sitting there waiting for o rings.

This looks to be the most active forum these days for the old venture so let me start with my most immediate issue ( I have several). I am sort of restoring my beloved 1988 venture royal. I just spent $2000 dollars on plastic repair and painting and it all looks great. I was fitting up the upper fairing panels and inner panels and was thinking they all should have shoulder washers. I cannot see in the parts book or manual if this is the case. I know that my panels did not line up well and had many cracks around the fastening points. I'm thinking this was from hard mounting the parts to the frame. If anyone can tell me for sure if the three of four mounting points should all have some play or not. Needless to say, I have had the panels off several times and there have been several crashes so simple going with how they were attached is not realistic. My better judgment tells me to come up with some soft attachment method regardless of how it was originally done just to be safe. I am leaning towards the rubber grommet with the inner bushing maybe. It really depends on what is available and from where. The inner fairing panels appear to have had shoulder washers which allowed for some play. I went to Napa today and the guy actually found something similar and filed them out for me. Now that was service. They may be a bit long but I think the hard mounting lead to forced alignment that eventually led to crack panels. The back mounting point with the spring on it has a shoulder washer. The front upper point looks like it does not but maybe it should. The front lower mounting point looks like the hole could fit a should washer but I don't have one (gee how could that be). The last mounting point looks like it under the headlight on the cross member (I think mine is installed upside down since it appears there is no way it is going to mount up the way it is). If anyone is can help feel free to write or even call 717 578 1923. I have several other topics I need advice on. Like a clutch plate replacement job. Thanks Bob Williamsport Pa

I just went through this today. I had my 88 apart and serviced the starter. Figured I should fix that drip that has been there for the past 8 year or so. Well guess what, just any o ring will not work. I tried very hard to make those o rings from the parts store work but there was no way I was getting the parts together. So now I'm waiting on OEM ones. Maybe the local shop will have them. On another note. I am surprised that they provide enough of a seal but apparently they do. I also ordered an new plastic thermostat cover.

This is an interesting thread for several reasons. I have been riding and changing bike oil for a little over 30 years and never used "motorcycle oil". Everyone I talked to said regular oil was fine and we found Mobil one to give a better or smoother shift to our CBXs. So last summer my girlfriend buys a bike while I'm out of town and has to take it to some local garage to have the oil changed. They told her they could not or would not put anything in the bike other than motorcycle oil. I thought this was crazy and a waist of money. Now just after that I got the Venture out and for the first time in 60k miles the clutch has started to slip at high speeds under hard excelleration. I just changed the oil this year and put synthetic motorcycle oil it it. It still slips. So where should I read next. I don't think changing out the clutch is out of the question at this age and milage but it would be nice to fix it by just sticking with a certain type of oil if that would work. The bike is very ridable so I could easily keep riding it and just keep changing the oil with motorcycle oil and hope the problem goes away but I kind of doubt that will happen. What say all of you.

I thought about replacing the section on top of the stock antenna. The advantage to that is being able to fold the antenna over when you put the cover on. I may still do that since for the time being I have my bike out side and under a cover when not in use. I'm still trying to figure out what happened to the stock antenna. I think I would have noticed it broken off when I folded it over and covered the bike. If that was not the case then someone came along and reached under the cover and broke off the end of the stock antenna. This seems very unlikely but we are living in a very low demographic area of this little town. So far I have never had anything messed with but the other day I noticed my change drawer in my car was empty. I know I did not do that. I ussually have the car locked but I know I have left it unlocked now and then when I have nothing in it to steel, or so I thought. I could see the antenna breaking off when I was pulling the cover off but I could not find the brocken section anywhere. So it either broke off while riding and I did not notice it when I folded it over, or someone vandalized the bike in the middle of the night. I tried to get the set screw loose on the stock antenna and it looks like it is going to take some penetrating oil or heat. I work on that after I get a meter. Besides the replacement wip I purchased was too large to replace the stock one with so now we have the fire stick on there. And now I have changed over the mounts but I suspect we could find the parts to get the stock one back on. I was suprised that there were none on Ebay. Can you use a goldwing antenna. A few of those but none for the venture.

CB shops are hard to find anymore and radio shack here in Binghamton has very little. Lots of cell phone extras but not much else. It would have been nice if the guy could have found the parts and ordered them but no he just did not know what to look for. I just put the item number into a search and it came up and yes you can order them from Radio Shack which I did. I got both sizes just to be sure. They had an SWR meter but I held off on purchasing it. It was a bit higher priced than some that I saw on Eban and did not come with a cable. Any suggestions on a meter? And thanks for the offer to help out, that is one of the best things about the Venture riders. People are always so willing to lend a hand. If I can make it up to Rodchester well meet at the DQ.

Yes, I went up to the Loves, which is the largest one around here. They had some of the parts but I don't recall seeing the adapters or any SWR meters.

So I went in search of the adapter at the radio shack and he could not even find it to order it. I'll have to see what I can do with the numbers you posted thanks again. I looked up SWR meters and they look like they can be ordered for very little money. So at this point at least my girlfriend and I can communicate again via cb. He J&M system is transmitting a bit more static than I like. At idle with the bike running it is a clear as day. Once we get moving it starts to pick up some static. We put a taller windshield on her bike and that help a lot. I now wondering if mounting the noise filter to the bike would help. Right now it is just laying in the tool compartment above the battery. I kind of doubt that tunning the antenna will help with the static but we do that once I get a meter. Any suggestions on the meter. There must be 10 different ones on ebay. How do you know what to buy. You can spend 20 bucks or 300 bucks. I'll be happy with a suggestion of any kind. And can anyone suggest a thread on clutch slippage. I'm starting to experience that little problem now that we have 60k on it.

thanks for the heads up on the adapter. I'm willing to bet its an order only part from radio ****. I did some reading last night about tunning and I'll have to find a meter. And yes, no place in Binghamton NY sells them. I need to move?

So I went to radio shack and they had one of the connectors, that was the pl 259 twist on. And of coarse it was made for a much larger diameter coax cable. So can I just wrap the coax in electrical tape and try and get it to thread on or just tape the whole thing up. I had a feeling this was going to be a problem. I did get the new fire stick on there and it picks up a good signal. I think it is working all the time but its hard to tell. I think the coax is secure in the connector but I really have no way of knowing. So now we need to figure out this SWR thing. First of all just how in the world and I going to adjust the lenght of the firestick if it needs to be longer or shorter. It is not like there is an adjustment on it. What am I missing here.

I just found my antenna either broken off by accident or vandalized but I need a new top. There are none on Ebay and what was there was not cheap. Can just the top of this thing be replaced with something from radio shack or what is a "firestick" I'll try anything

I put the battery on the bigger 55-10-2 amp charger and within a few hours it said fully charged. This is after it had been on the cheap trickle charger all night and the Autozone manager told me it tested good but only 70% charged an hour earlier. Did it take 30% charge in a few hours on a 2 amp charger? We put the battery in the bike and road for about 5 hours with stops at about every hour or so. It started every time as one would expect. Brought the bike home and put it on the battery tender that I just purchased and in about 3 hours it went from charging (red) to fully charged (green). I'm going to let or it will site for a couple of days while I'm out of town. I'll bring it in again and have it load tested and see what happens. One thing I think I did learn today is that a good full sleave electric jacket/linner is probably way too much for this bikes alternator. When I told this to the shop owner where we were today, he smiled and said that bikes alternator has no where near the out put needed to run that jacket and the bike. I believe him. I have not checked the specs on this maurader but as dissapointing as it is, I do believe it. I swaped out a honda CBX alternator for a newer one off a zx10 or something and it is way better but I think it would be a different story on this bike. Maybe not. I think we are headed for the new Suzukie 1300 with the batwing fairing and sound system. She can get her feet on the ground and I think she do just fine on it. The shop owner said (do I believe him?) that bike had an alternator that should handle electric clothing. Funny thing about all this is that I'm still looking for that bike that meet or lives up to the 88 venture I been riding for the last 20 years. I had my girlfriend sit on it today just so I could fantisize about her being about to comfortably handle it. She would be so happy if only her legs were a few (well maybe 6) inches longer. Funny she says that about me too. LOL Thanks for all the help guys. I'm learning more all the time from these groups. Does anyone remember what it was like before the internet. We actually had to go to rallies to learn all this stuff. God I need more time off.

This a little off topic but I think this was a better place to post rather than starting a new thread. I have an AGM ETX12 battery in one of my bikes. 2002 vz800 maurader and it lost its charge. The auto parts store manager pointed out something I was unaware of and wanted some more opinions on the subject. He said the maintanece free batteries can fully discharge and then will take up to 48 hours or more of trickle charging to get them back up to full charge. He said the bikes alternator puts out so little current that it will not charge the battery after an hour or even much much longer. I had the battery on the charge over night and it was not dead to start with but it was only up to 70%. It was a cheap trickle charger from Harbor Frieght. I put it on a 2 amp charger with a shut off. We will see how it does. It is one of the 55 amp starter, 10 amp charger and 2 amp trickle charger. He was right about it not charging while the bike was running. We jumped the bike then ran it for an hour and it had no more charge after riding than it did when we jumped it. We push started the bike and it ran ok on the way home. We had this problem before where once it is drained down, it wont take enough charge from the bike to fire it back up. I have never seen this before on a bike. Is it just the nature of the new maintance free batteries. I think I have seen my venture with a low battery many many times and after running the bike for a while, the battery takes enough charge to start the bike. I have always had wet batteries in the venture. I'm kind of thinking I like the wet battery technology better based on this charging issue. What is everyone elses opinion on this matter. By the way, I suspect my cheap chargers from Harbor Frieght were the type discussed for just maintaning a fully charged battery. They will put a charge in but I do think it would take days. I had it on the charger for several days last week then put it in the bike. It started right up. I checked the bike and it was putting out 13.68 or something volts. We rode for about 15 - 20 mins then parked the bike for a few days. When I tried to start it yesterday it did not have enough juice to turn over the motor. I guess this leads me to believe the cheap charger really never fully charged the battery and the bike is not charging it either.

Well now I wish I had not thrown out the old radio since it was still good. Yes the buttom was stuck. I will say getting the face off was a bit challenging. For those who have to do this. There are rubber washers under the nobs. Under the washers are nuts that hold the nobs to the case. once you take those off then the face comes off and you can get to the stuck parts. It was just the red button that was stuck down. Probably could have cleaned it with out taking it apart but now I know a bit more about this amazing bike that I just cannot seem to give up on. Anybody need a used radio. I now have an extra. LOL.

Thanks guys, I was actually dreaming last night about taking the thing apart LOL. I don't see how its a power problem since it is consistently on. It's just consistently on channel 9. If the fuse was blown or had a bad contact wouldnt that result in the unit not coming on at all?

That is definelty worth a try since it happened after I wiped down the bike with Plegde. I'll try taking it appart. I went ahead and put in an offer on anther radio on Ebay for $50 and it got accepted. But what your saying make more sence than it just randomly going bad in such a manner. Especially since that channel 9 button really never gets used.

So far I have not found another thread discussing this problem so here we go. I have an 88 venture royal with 65K on it. The CB radio recently just stopped working other than showing channel 9. I purchased a used one of Ebay and put it on and everything worked fine. I check the old one again just to make sure it was not a loose connection or something and it clearly did not work. Well it has been a month or so and the second one just failed the same way. There has to be a connection. I can purchase another one off ebay but I sure would like to know if anyone else has had this problem and if so what is causing it. Is this just a known failure of these radios or can I expect the same thing to happen to the next one. What would cause such a failure. It powers on and off but just will not move off channel 9