Snaggletooth

It was a couple decades back I felt like I was the "Go To" guy for jury duty. Seemed like I was on the list every time a case came up. Spent many hours waiting for the selection process, waiting some more for the cases to go to trial and many being resolved before it made into the courtroom. Got sent home a lot after they dropped the case or settled it prior to court. I got to the point I was trying new ways to be excluded from the process. During the jury selection process questioning I came up with a couple questions of my own. The one that usually got me home by lunch was "How far apart are the guys eyes?" Thank you sir, you may go. Not that I was slacking on my duty, I'd just had my fill of sitting through absolutely moronic civil cases. Somebody whining because the neighbors security lights were too bright. Another one was over a hedge that wasn't trimmed to one persons standard. Another because they could smell the chorline in the neighbors pool. Why does this stuff even make to the courts? The last one i got called for I sat through 3 days of jury selection. They went though over a hundred people before they found what they wanted. Told to report the next morning. When the opening statements started we were told it was a case involving three counts of felony rape against a young man involving a 13 year old girl. Well, dang. This shouldn't take too long right? Probably won't even get a lunch out of this one. My mistake. The presentation alone by the lawyers from both sides, the families from boths sides, the witnesses, the experts and other assorted concerned parties took over a week. Then the deliberation by our little tribe of concerned citizens started. That was a whole new experience. Spent just a few days short of three weeks in the jury room. Even my boss got involved. He wasn't happy about me being gone for that long even though I was going into the office at night trying to keep my desk afloat during my absence. He wanted to know who the idiot judge was that kept people away from their jobs was. Turned out the "idiot" was an old friend and good golf buddy of my great leader. I don't know exactly what all went down after that phone call he made to the "idiot" but never heard another word from the boss about jury duty after that. I'm getting carried away here but the point is that when you get involved in jury duty a lot of facts come to light that most people never hear or see in the news. 12 people walked into that courtroom with a mindset of how it was going to go down by the end of the day. Me included. When you get down the facts, the actual truth, things can change. It's a slow process but hopefully it works when it should. If it don't, there's not much hope for anyone. I quit grumping about jury duty after that.

Yep, worse than hens teeth. More like chicken lips. I've had the ones on my bike try to wander off a couple times. It's not the mounting tape that's the problem. It's the sticky fingers. Ended up going hard core to keep mine.

Yep, these bikes run surprisingly well on 3 cylinders. Some have been surprised to find out they had a cylinder not firing due to a bad plug, poor wire or a messed up carb. And I'll say from personal experience that if it's only firing on 3 it's tough to get it up to 95. Once you resolve the issue you're back in the 110 club.

Check around local grocery and retail stores. Many display racks and even the signage in the stores are ABS. I collected a nice select of thicknesses and sizes while working in shipping and receiving for a few years. Chatting up the local product reps put a lot of stuff into my hands. Most of the old racks and signage were destined to the trash when the displays were taken down. Not the fastest way to get what you want but can't argue with free. Opened up a lot of old "lets me try this" projects without a cost loss. I never minded screwing up free stuff. And a lot easier to shape curved pieces by laminating a stack of thin sheets with epoxy to build a stronger project piece.

If you can find sheepskin in the 3/4 shorn form you're golden. That's the curly type. I found one made by HartCo (no longer available) several years back made for the 1st gen seats listed on eBay. I grabbed it as it was cheap and turned out I was the only bidder. Was quite impressed with the 3/4 shorn stuff. Holds up very well, nice cushion effect, repels water pretty well and drys quickly in the sun. I wash mine in Woolite once a year and it springs back to the original feel after a wash and raked out with my fingers. Kills the monkeybutt issue, takes off the pressure points to keep the blood flowing, removes the "yikes" factor on a dark seat on those intense sunny days and keeps the boys alive on the near freezing frosty days. I'm a believer in sheepskin. The only thing that would make me happier is throwing it over a "Butt Bulter" modded seat. Get a hold of Rick Butler here for that mod. Never a bad review on his work.

Just thought I'd rub it in Dan. Another year down the road and miles left to cover.

Cute Bob. Getting bored are ya?

I've got the Ventureline backrest on my '84. I had to horse trade a bit to get the right mounting brackets for the MKI but worked out fine. Made a faux sheepskin cover for the pad as well for those hot days. I'm about 6'3" and fits me well. I wouldn't be without it for any long ride. My back used to creak around 250 miles without it but been doing over 500 days this last year without a problem. Makes the days much more comfortable.

I don't know if this is a proven fact but what I've seen. Some friends of mine, came by mishap to find a large patch of poison ivy on their property while cleaning up the area and suffered from the contact. They got rid of the exposed clothing they had worn and after couple weeks of treating the rashes the decided to burn off the nasty growth in that area. They did a controlled burn and avoided any contact with the plants and cleared the entire area to ash and had the burn area plowed under. By that night they both were suffering the same rashes as they did from direct contact only a lot more of their skin was covered. The doctors said they thought that the oil from the poison ivy was probably carried by the smoke as the growth burned off. His best advise.... stay upwind as far as possible and another two weeks of treatments of shots, pills and creams.

Ahh geesh! All those years I spent spitting in my dive mask I could have been selling it?

Yep, the 26H will work, but not properly. It takes a small change on the vac porting to make it better. I used a 26H on my '84 for a year or so without any changes for about 6 months. Just a lack of the old power but it got me around until I repaired my damaged 41R then onto Dingys Ingitech upgrade.

I bought and installed the Ingitech TCI upgrade from Dingy over a year ago. I had been running a repaired OEM unit and spare ones for years. When the last one started acting poorly I jumped on Dingys set up. Pretty much plug and play thankfully because I ended up doing the upgrade in a limerock parking lot miles from home base. Dingy had the unit already programed for my '84 so no issues with playing with programming. Just fired it up and took off down the road. Runs much better and starts at the touch of the button. I may have lost a couple miles per gallon but I'm still at well above 40 MPG and pulling a trailer most the time. Still haven't played with any programing on the new unit. It was good to go from the start. Never a miss or a sputter no matter if I'm putting around for teasing a crotch rocket. So I'm happy with it.

Wish I'd known about that product when I had my Spitfire.

Yep, those anti-dives solenoids cause quite a drain at idle. Disconnecting them will help but remember your brake light is a pair of 1157 bulbs back there. Those alone can cause a dip on the voltmeter at idle when you hold the brake on. My '84 didn't have the electric solenoids but still showed the dip on the meter. I had changed every bulb on the bike except the two 1157s in the brakes to LEDs to reduce the load on the system so the brake light dip was about the only change on the meter I showed. As long as the battery is healthy and the charging system is working properly the short time you spend with the brakes on at idle shouldn't cause you any problems. The system should bring the battery back to full once you exceed 2,000 RPMs again. Wait until the cooling fan kicks on in the hot weather. That causes a nice dip on the meter to. A mod to a digital volt meter will help you feel more comfortable with your electrical system. Much more accurate reading than the stock OEM gauge. But I feel you be fine. Just part of the nature of the beast.

I ran into a rider the other day on another '84 Venture while at a fuel stop. We got to comparing notes on our bikes and he was impressed with his new purchase EXCEPT for the, as he described it, "the Ungodly banging" it had recently developed when starting. My hearing is shot but all it took was laying my hand on the left side of the case to tell him what the noise was. His starter engage clutch was shot. He listened to mine and was surprised at the difference in sound and feel as my bike had considerably more miles than his. I had to run through the upgrades and mods done to mine over the years to explain why. It's a long list but the the one that got his attention with the Dano starter engage clutch mod. I had to stop and think about when I did that one. I pulled up the site and found it's been 5 1/2 years since I got the mod done by Dano. So 5 1/2 years isn't that long on a bike 31 years old is it. But at the time I did mine I was running a customer service route using my bike as it covered a lot of miles with up to 15 or 20 starts and stops at clients stores 7 days a week. When my engage failed it meant using my car for the route. My cost factor to run that route jumped a notch. Danos mod put me back on the bike in short order. I continued that route for another 3 years with never a missed beat from the engage. Not to mention the Venture was my daily ride for all travel and over the last year camping around the Midwest in sometimes remote places where a failure to start would have been, well difficult to deal with. So with all that said, it wasn't the only mod done to my bike but probably one of the most critical ones to keep the bike roadworthy and reliable. I just wanted to say thanks Dano for the work. So as I was getting ready to take off he mentioned he was going wait a bit for the bike to cool off. It was difficult to start when the bike was hot. So..... off on another mod story. He now knows the club website and what to look for. Maybe he'll join soon. I hung around long enough to make sure he got rolling. He seemed happier knowing his bike might last him another 8 year with a little TLC that this group provides so well. So that's just the short side of the benefits of some of the mods found here. Thanks to all of the guys here. Snagg

You ain't kiddin. Everything you say comes back to bite ya over time. After my divorce several friends had commented on how much weight I'd lost and had asked "How much?". My answer was about 270 lbs. Got a lot of blank confused looks and "I didn't know you were THAT heavy". Well, it's like this. I personally lost several pants sizes and 140 lbs. Then add the ex to that and its 270 lbs. Needless to say that comment got back to my ex resulting in several colorful messages from her defending her weight. All I could do was agree with her reminding her that was how much she weighed when she was 27 years old. That set off another tangent of colorful language. I had to remind her that her life (the numbers 27 and 130) is like the lettering on her rearview mirror. (appear to be larger). Any questions on why I'm divorced? But sir, as this thread got jacked I'll say this. On my '84 I went through the same issues on rather or not to change to the larger top trunk and bigger bags from an '86. I wanted more space to pack when I traveled. When it came down to the cost of the modification (which you have found a way around) and figuring the space gained for my needs, I decided to purchase a trailer instead. Kept the slim lines of the bike and reduced the load on bike suspension. To rethink it today I should have done the '86 bags and left the original trunk in place just for the day trips. I'm not a fan of adding weight or bulk up high. Those suitcase style bags have their benefits but to me the '86 top closing bags have more to offer when traveling. Just my opinion. Late, but connected to your original post. So meanwhile.......back at the ranch................

I got distracted and confused. We talking about the bike or what's on the bike? Lot of difference.

Add a lil "Opinion" to your mirror and you can catch some interesting activity on a rear mount.

Yep, I thinks it's my third year on this set of Froggs, (from a bikes shop) and 2 years on an old set of used ones I bought off a member here way back. The used set impressed me so much with the durability and the breathability I bought the new ones with some new features. I wear the pants in the near zero temps and the jacket year round for rain and wind protection. Never a leak on the pants so many bring up. I've had coworkers that knew I liked the Froggs and bought them at suppliers like Wall World and were not happy with the durability of those. You compare the material between the bike house and box store and you'll see the difference. For the money, not much to compare with in my opinion. Add a few bucks and you can find better products.

I had a warped and out of shape one my '84 back when my slave blew out on me. Had a couple spare masters for both clutch and front brake at the time that weren't in the best for shape either. So while I was down at a buddies auto shop he had his parts washer fired up so I threw in my used slave cylinder and the diaphragm along with my spares. It's a heated unit with a pressure spray. Did the job. Not only clean but the twisted diaphragms were back in the correct shape. So in my opinion the moist heat will do the job on a warped one. Been about 3 years now with the old ones and still holding up great. So if you're in a pinch it's a workable solution.

Geesh, the last trailer I pulled that big with air conditioning was a 48' Great Dane reefer. Somehow yours looks considerably more comfortable. Nice home on the roam. Enjoy!!!!

Ah geesh, hate to hear this. Makes a guy want to drive a snowplow year round. Thoughts for ya Gary. Heal well.

Yep, a big old PLUS 1 on that. Dingy has been with us for quite a while and always a never ending supply of tips and fixes for our Venture ailments. His knowledge and effort has has bailed me out a number of times. From quick wiring fixes to upgrades through the bike. The last one was the TCI unit he provided over a year ago. Been absolutely flawless performance since then. Don't carry a spare OEM TCI anymore. So yep, thanks Gary for everything. Not to mention I'd run out of space to mention to thank every member here that has provided parts, advice, information and support here. It's a long list. Outstanding group of like minded riders.

Prayers up Dan and headed your way.

Kickstand up on the prayers Rick. Heal well, heal fast.