Another Winter Project...

[Reverend Biker]

Hello to the forum (again). I have been quite busy between my girl and my newest ride that I have neglected staying up on things here at the .net

I wanted to share my newest project... a craigslist find for under $1000! Its an '83 yamaha venture royale (with cheese?)

If you are a Tarantino fan, that might just get a laugh.

This project has consumed about two and a half months of winter and having sat on it last night to adjust the shift and brake lever play got the excitement for the first ride of the season going again...

These photos show the bike since I have stripped the body plastics, repaired the broken mounts and such and started reassembly. The engine purrs with 43500+ miles (barely broken in!). I will add more photos as the project progresses.

right now I am waiting for quotes to have the seat recovered. First one came in at 300-350 depending on materials.

[DixieGranite]

Nice find! That faring looks loaded with gadgets.

[Reverend Biker]

I could not believe this storage unit find! The previous owner couldn't afford to keep the storage unit after the price/month doubled. Their loss was my gain.

The fairing has a build in state-of-the-art 1983 radio, amp, auto-reverese cassette deck on the left. On the right is the air-ride suspension control panel, an aftermarket radar detector and I have relocated some switches seen in the pic (the green wires seen just below the handlbars) for the electric cooling fan and driving lights.

I have to give my father a bunch of credit. My garage does not have the room his workshop does. Since I have been working in his shop, he has gone out and started to weed out all the problems with the wiring from the previous owner and made sense out of the rats nest. So much for not getting involved in my latest project! I can't wait to retire myself... there are so many more projects to work on... like my bobber from last year! I have that one running on one carb... once I get the other fixed it is all cosmetics. Maybe next winter?!

[Reverend Biker]

Hello again...

The project has stalled waiting for rebuild parts. Since my last post I have:

- completely stripped my donor venture. The brake calipers look almost new (no corrosion or wear on the finish). That is where it ends... the calipers on both bikes were hopelessly siezed. I purchased 3 rebuild kits ($125 for 3 kits, 6 rubber o-rings in each). They shipped from the dealer in NH this morning and I should have them for the weekend.

- my father (again, I have to give him credit for coming thru!) was able to take apart the solenoids for the air ride compressor system. He said the grease inside had turned to a sticky paste and basically glued the solenoids closed. He cleaned and rebuilt them. It works GREAT now!

- we found the radio quick-connect to not seat properly and was the cause of static and one speaker cutting out

- swapped the rims from my donor (the rims show some pitting but were no where near as corroded as the originals).

- purchased new tires

- we found that the starter was not the issue, nor the idler gears or flywheel. We think it may be the starter solenoid making the infrequent clunking when we kick the starter over.

- swapped all of the chrome around so the best was on my running bike. I will have to see if I have a photo of the donor carcass so you can see what is really left.






I am in reassembly phase now. The exhaust is back on, both new rims/tires are installed. I am waiting for the caliper rebuild kits to finish the calipers and finish reassembling the brakes. Once that is complete, install the newly recovered seat and the luggage.

I will post when I have the fully assembled photos taken.

The Rev

[Reverend Biker]

I have posted another thread in the tech forum regarding my problem with the shifter. It was easily resolved by a local bike guru and former circle-track racer. (I think the thread was titled "Need an 80's clutch guru")

I have gotten about 450 miles on the shifter fix and the only issue left to deal with is an issue with the carbs. There is a bit of a stumble at idle, and around 4500 rpms. My tech told me the problem is the ethanol has rotted away some rubber seals in the carb.

I am quite excited... this bike handles like a dream. This is the finished project, cosmetically speaking.





The Rev

[Reverend Biker]

Ok friends,

Here is an update from the last post... god.. June of 2011! During the summer 2012 I was having some idling issues. It stuttered and would act flakey. Then on accelleration, around 3000 rpms up to 5000, would have a few dead spots and stumbles. I thought it was electrical so I replaced plugs and plug wires and still no change.

Turns out the plug caps have resistors built in. A set of 4 resistor-caps later and there was an improvement, but the stumble did not go away. In frustration, I took the bike back to the guy who rebuilt my carbs in April of 2012. First question was "Did you run any carb or fuel injector cleaner through it?" Answer... yep!

So... apparently if you have a 30 year old bike and you are not sure of the condition on the fuel system, you shouldn't run carb and fuel injector cleaner through it because it may dislodge chunks of crud that can clog your carb.

Jeff, my service guy, explained that you get little chunks of crud that break loose and lodge in the channels that move the air to the mixing chamber in the carbs. He took 110 lb air and blasted it through the air jets in the downdraft carbs and upon restarting, immediately noticed an improvement at idle and at sustained RPMs. I have since put 15,000 miles on it and it is running 110% better than it was in March.

Each time I complete another round of repairs and upgrades, I notice a performance improvement. At the end of my riding season this year, I have suffered some minor oil leaks; both the clutch and stator covers as well as the valve covers. Running the bike in the 5 - 6k rpm range, I would notice a bit of seepage at the edges of the valve cover gaskets.

That is my project for the rest of the cold months... to get the gaskets replaced. While I have been waiting for the mail order gaskets to arrive, I had a buddy bead-blast the chrome off of the side covers and I am taking a page from the VMax and having them coated flat black. The waterpump housing was painted hi-temp flat black. Disassembly of the parts to be replaced will likely happen early to mid feb... I will take some photos and post the progress as we go.

This is what it looked like when I parked it back in December. From the previous photo, you might notice the chin spoiler is a different color... I had a piece of asphalt kick up and wipe out the gold chin spoiler from the previous post's photo and had to replace it with the spoiler from my parts bike. I really like the look of the flat black lower panels and have started to flat black my spare set of bags to see what it looks like. I think with the couple covers and the water pump flat blacked, it will give it a whole new look.



Keep the shiny side up...

The Rev