[Vwdiesel] My motorcycle history (no diesels)

Fri May 13 15:55:07 EDT 2005

My Motorcycle History. Sounds like a folder name, like my documents or my music. Any ways, way too many bikes to remember them all. My first was a Lambretta scooter - 250cc. Pretty fast & unstable & no helmet laws back in 1963. Then a Yamaha 250 Big Bear Scrambler. Precursor of true enduros. Not very good at street or trail, but powerful. Next -  650 Triumph Tiger 110. Pre unit. 340 lbs. full of gas & oil. All tricked out - 55 HP. TT cams & pipes. 11 to 1 pistons. A real hot rod built in a shack in the woods with rock music blaring & big bags of dope. 120mph in a heartbeat. Still have that one in my garage. A couple of BMW /2's thrown in there. Roller bearing cranks, magneto ignition. Earls forks. Smooth & slow.
Yamaha DT250 - without a doubt, the most rugged piece of machinery I ever had the pleasure of flogging. Days paddle wheeling through 18" deep mud at full throttle. Spinning doughnuts all day in the snow. Mid Winter hauling logs out of the woods, a chain hooked to the swing arm. 2 spark plugs - switch when one fouled. Up loose shale mountains where if I'd tried to stand, I'd have fallen end over end to my death 500 feet below. 
Buddy killed in car crash. Bought 1938 Indian Scout frame & engine from his sister for $500. Next 2 years fabricating & scrounging parts. Ridden daily for the next 6 years. Suicide shifter. Foot clutch. Dead throttle. Never broke down or left me stranded, ever. Still have this one.
1966 Ducati 250. Beautiful lines & pretty hot for a 250 of its day. Excellent suspension & steering geometry. Still have this bike too.
All the bikes I just mentioned were built from basket cases.
Worked for BMW car shop for a few years & got BMW North America to sell me a new 1985 Standard K100 for cost. Never would have bought anything that exotic otherwise. Went to BMW training school for bikes & cars. Still riding this one every chance I get.
Another BMW - 1971 750 /5. Lots of back roads & daily commuter bike for a few years. Just sold last week - still a good runner.
In between garages & dealers I had my own shop for 9 years; fixed & built & tinkered & tuned  endless customer bikes. More VW air cooled than anything else. 
But after all this experience I could pick any vehicle I want. 35 years fixing anything with wheels, and I end up with a VW Diesel as my daily driver. Lowest cost per mile of any vehicle I've ever worked on. I think one would be hard pressed to find a better ride.

As for your Venture, if you have 2 pick ups, try switching them out to move fault to other coil. You should be able to isolate this way. Since you have radio on board, you may have carbon center high voltage wires which have high failure rate. Test with ohm meter each wire - should be somewhere around 1,000 ohms each if I remember correctly. It's been a while. Since each coil fires 2 cylinders at once (through 2 plugs), a single bad plug wire will kill 2 cylinders. Yamahas are fairly complex as motorcycles go. Nice to have a wreck around to swap out parts & thereby locate failures.  Dealers have all kinds of sophisticated test equipment for diagnosis, but more often than not they plug in new parts til problem is solved. Especially electrics. If I think of anything else, I'll let you know. It takes a while sometimes. I do not have Hagar's gift of instant access to memory. I sort of have to put in the order & then wait. LOL Good luck & keep the shiny side up.

Bob in the entire state

-----Original Message-----
From: Sandy Cameron <scameron at compmore.net>
To: vwdiesel at audifans.com
Sent: Thu, 12 May 2005 17:22:58 -0700
Subject: [Vwdiesel] My motorcycle history (no diesels)

1958...48 indian chief, assembled from parts of 3  Drove it 2 years, traded
it for a jeep waggon in the fall.

1982. Son getting antsy for a bike (2 years short of a license), bought a
honda 360 and rode him around on the pilion. (when he turned 16 and got a
licence, he took off with my new dodge diplomat, something about "chick
magnet) no more interest in bikes, so I rode.

1984, bought a brand new 81 yammy V twin,  XV920RH (NOT a Virago) from old /
new stock
Still have it.

1995, retired with some money, bought a 1985 Venture Royale, stereo, air
suspension, hot&cold running water, loads of luggage space, Still riding it.
(although right now I'm trying to psych the electronic ignition module as
it's not firing one of the coils)
It would be easy if they had not potted it in some kind of rubber cement)
Looks like goose poop. Certainly going to relocate it when I put it back.
Had to dismantle the whole bike to get to it.

It's something on one of the trigger inputs, looks like it might be the
input chip for 2 of the cylinders. Any help out there?

Sandy

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