I have never heard of anyone having a tire problem using car tires.. I have also thought about the fuel pump failing. To tell you the truth, I’ve often wondered why they even put fuel pumps on Venture’s with the fuel tank mounted above the carburetors. I can’t think of a reason why gravity wouldn’t get the fuel to the float bowls If there was no fuel pump at all

maintenance is important. Motorcycles don’t wear out as much as they are neglected to death. As a result of a motorcycle being tough to work on to do maintenance, it gets neglected. When I bought my Goldwing from the original owner in 2018 with only 13,000 miles on it, it still had the original clutch fluid, brake fluid, even the air cleaner which had mice in it. I actually have a video under my other screen name Entitled, with these three words, Goldwing made mouseproof.. that’s my yellow gold wing in that video, but just look at how deep I had to dig into that machine to get at the air cleaner in that short video.. that’s my gripe with the gold wing. It is so difficult to work on, that the original owner of the one I bought and never did any maintenance.. it actually still have the original 16-year-old tires on it when I bought it..scarey… i come from the sport bike, café racer, side of the tracks myself. just a few machines I’ve had RZ 350, FJ 1200, ninja 600, katana 600,seca 550 & 600,cb400f,cb 750f,Moto Guzzi V 11 sport, I have sold Hayabusa when I worked at a Yamaha/Suzuki dealership owned by a buddy of mine part time but I never rode one. I understand they are very comfortable and they have a great seat and you can ride them all day without needing a chiropractor.. I have the Kawasaki Z 400 right now and my Venture. For short rides when I want to go out & sprain the speed limit on country roads thru hooterville, or for scooting around the suburbs on back roads when I’m on a mission to go to the store or something, I will ride by Kawasaki. But when I want to kick back in my La-Z-Boy Venture, and go for the whole day, there is no question about which machine i want for those all day long distance rides…

I wouldn’t go as far as to call them garbage. They do keep out rocks and birds.

Bikes that sit, need a lot of things looked after. Especially things like the brake fluid and clutch fluid need changed absolutely. And take a flashlight to look inside the gas tank for rust.. The tires are gonna be old probably so they will need changed. Find the DOT number on the tire. That stands for Department of transportation. In the last four numbers that look like they are branded into the tire or the week and year the tires were made. Example, 4508. Means, that tire was made in the 45th week, of 2008.. so you’re going to be buying tires, changing engine oil and filter, final drive oil, and you’re gonna be changing the coolant. You have to buy aluminum compatible coolant, usually the pink or orange antifreeze of today is actually a lifetime coolant now. You may never have to change it again. And you’re gonna have to change the clutch and brake fluid.. that should be changed about every two or three years max because it’s alcohol-based and it absorbs moisture right through the breather in the cap of each reservoir… Sitting like that, it may need the carbs taken apart and cleaned. If you use carburetor cleaner, which is an acid, do not get it on the vacuum diaphragms in the tops of the carburetors or the sides in those Vacuum Chambers on the ventures.. carburetor cleaner being an acid will destroy them. They look like the paper on small speaker cones. Remove those things before you use carburetor cleaner on carburetors.. that’s pretty much the standard stuff you have to do on any older machine. In 2018 I bought a 2002 Goldwing with only 13 K on it. It needed everything replaced including the tires, brake fluid, final drive fluid, antifreeze, clutch fluid, oil, filter, when I took the air cleaner out of that Goldwing, which took me almost 6 hours just to get to it, I found that mice were living in the air cleaner. Mice love air cleaners on cars and motorcycles because they are small holes and when they get in there they feel safe and sometimes it’s warm when they find it. Then you start your bike and then you’ll see them jumping out.. I hope the guy never used a pressure washer on it. I hope it has the stock exhaust unmodified. I hope you get the factory service manual, the factory owners manual, the factory tool kit complete, both keys, and any extras like oil, filters, cover that belong to that machine..I’m excited for you

@@Jodyrides thank you Jody. I love your videos. You are a wealth of knowledge.

It’s beautiful but the most beautiful bike ever made I think is the 1986 moto guzzi Lario

thanks, but to be honest, it looks better in the pictures. It’s amazing what a camera can filter.. what I like better than the looks is the familiar feel and the comfort like sitting in your old La-Z-Boy chair or your favorite leather boots..

Jesus I used Honda, Kawasaki, Yamaha, Suzuki 10 W 40 motor cycle for stroke oil. I shop on eBay for which ever gallons I can find the cheapest with free shipping. The important thing is, that that oil has a motorcycle company label on it which means, they approve of that oil blend for their vehicles, which I’m sure they are very specific about the additives package. Because they don’t want to get a reputation for having motorcycles that break down, and they sure as hell don’t want to be repairing engines under warranty because of junk oil. I also use only Yamaha or Honda or whatever brand of motorcycle, it’s the only Oil filter I use. Same story. If that’s the one they have tested and have made to their specifications, that’s the one to use.. in fact, in every owners manual I have ever seen. They are very specific about using OEM parts. Original equipment manufacturer parts. Back in the 90s when I was working part time in one of the motorcycle shops. A story was going around from a local Honda shop where I knew some of the guys that worked there. A Goldwing owner was using a Chinese chrome oil filter on his new Goldwing.. The engine suffered in oil related failure. Honda sent a rep to investigate, and Honda rejected covering that motorcycle under warranty because he was using a non-OEM oil filter. That motorcycle owner ended up buying a used Goldwing engine from a salvage yard & that shop put that salvaged motor in his motorcycle at his expense.. I was actually stunned when I heard that Honda would not cover that engine under warranty.. I was working in a Yamaha shop owned by a friend of mine part time at that time. A customer came in with a Yamaha XS 1100 with something inside the engine broken. The customer bought the motorcycle used from a private owner. And the motorcycle was five years old… Yamaha gave the guy a new engine and the shop I worked and put it in for free paid by Yamaha. Yamaha determined that the part inside the engine that broke should not have happened. It was not due to age, neglect, or abuse. So they gave him a new motor.. I always suspected that Yamaha did that because they had a lot of XS 1100 engines just sitting in their main warehouse, and they did that for good public relations.. getting back to the oil I use. My last shipment of oil I bought for my motorcycles was the regular Honda 10w40 Motorcycle oil for four stroke engines. I got 2 gallons on eBay for $48 with free shipping for 2 gallons. I use that in my Yamaha royal star venture, it shifts fine on that oil. And I use it in my Kawasaki Z 400. That motorcycle shifts OK. It still has very low miles on it and I know that they usually start to shift a lot easier once they break in. I’ve checked all the angles on the shift linkage, which must be at 90°.. that motorcycle it takes a little more effort to shift than my Venture, probably due to the short shift lever. It’s not hard to shift, it’s just that my Venture shifts so much easier/smoother.. I always change my oil when the oil is hot hot. Usually when I go out for the day, at least two or three hours, when I pull in the driveway, I will actually let the bike idle until I get out my oil pan, and my socket and ratchet, and I will shut the engine off, and pull that oil plug and let that oil start gushing out when it is super hot.. I do that because all of the sludge grit gum soot acid metal particles and corrosion are suspended in the oil when it’s that hot, and i let it drain overnight..You would be amazed at how much oil drips out one drip every minute overnight. Probably a cup from my Venture.. I also always fill the new oil filter up with fresh oil and let it sit for five minutes, the oil practically disappears inside the filter because it gets absorbed by the filter paper. Then I refill it, and then I screw it on the engine so that the engine does not starve for oil pressure while the engine is filling the oil filter that is full of air for about 10 seconds.. I also never never never put any additives in my oil in any of my vehicles, never. Look at it this way. If you have a recipe for baking a cake and it calls for two eggs, putting more eggs in would change the formula and things would not come out the way you expect..

I have an 05 road star. They are great bikes with very low maintenance. I might consider a royal star.

Four year lifespan on tires? Where do you live with that regulation? I bought my tires for the machine in this video in the beginning of 2022. The DOT number showed that those tires were almost 2 years old when I got them. That means that I am only able to use them for 26 months where you live.. also: I bought myself a new ram 4 x 4 crew cab pick up truck as a gift to myself when I retired in 2017. The tires that are on the truck I’m sure are from 2016.. my truck only has 9000 miles on it here in 2022. If I lived where you live, I would have been required to replace my tires?? I recently read an article about motorcycle tires that was a response from the manufacturers. People that make the tires I think it was Dunlop, Metzler, Michelin responded, they said that tires for motorcycles are safe to use up to six years old.. Where do you live that has that regulation about tires that must be replaced if they are over four years old?

Scott. You could be right about K&N air filters. But watch these test videos on youtube.. this test did prove that K and N air filter did flow the most air, but I am interested in trapping dirt particles. Watch this video. here is the title: Which car air filter is the best? then watch this video entitled- k&n air filters and your motorcycle the good the bad the ugly

@@Jodyrides I have heard of various other tests saying K&N were no good and don’t doubt there are videos but I feel with the millions spent on R&D and the decades in operation, K&N wouldn’t offer warranties to replace customers engines in the event of failure due to dirt ingestion. That would be extremely costly and bad business. I always use the grease provided on the mating surfaces where required and make sure the filter is dampened and then dried before installation. Never had an issue.

@@Kwhopperfan I myself used K and N air filters for decades. in my Honda Pacific coast that I commuted on for 24 years. I had the individuals on my FJ1200..I was actually gonna buy them for my Venture when I first bought it in October 2021. When I opened it up to do the inspection, that’s when I was happy that they were in there. But then I saw that the tubes leading right from the air cleaner look like the inside of a used shop vac hose.. did you watch my video with the title Yamaha royal star venture major flaw all that dirt that I show in the inside of the air filter duct I was blaming on leaky joints where the duct were connected to each other. But after I made the video. I thought about it, and that dust was thickest right after the point where the air cleaner plugs into the ductwork..All that dirt actually scared me. I wondered how much damage I had. So that’s when I started doing research on KZfaq for videos of testing, and my worst fears were confirmed.. there’s another issue. If there was damage to an engine in the machine was brought to the dealer. And that damage was caused by dirt that got past the air filters. And they were not OEM filters. I know that Honda would reject it. They would not pay for the damage. I have seen that from Honda. Yamaha may have paid for it because I actually saw Yamaha give a guy an engine, an XS 1100 engine because his engine broke something serious like a rod, and here’s the strange part. That guy did not even buy the motorcycle new. He bought it used from a private seller, and it was four years old. Yamaha said that they would give the guy the engine because that should not have happened

depends on the parts i need where i get them…. Engine parts? Gaskets? I would get them from a dealer. Body parts, I would check eBay and be patient. Mufflers? I wouldn’t use anything but standard exhaust.. i’ve had lots and lots of motorcycles. I really haven’t had to buy all that many parts. I don’t consider consumables as parts.. when I buy a used bike, and all but three of my bikes / quads have been used. I have a rule that I never break. I will not buy a modified motorcycle. I will not buy a re-painted motorcycle, I will never never never buy a motorcycle with a rebuilt engine. I will never buy a motorcycle that has been crashed and repaired… I will wait until a creampuff comes up for sale. My last big bike was a GL 1800 Goldwing. It only had 13 K miles on it. It still had the original tires on it when I bought it.. my current Venture only had 30 K miles on it.. they are out there. You just have to be patient. By buying a cream puff ball stock machine, you avoid all a lot of headaches… when I do need parts, thank goodness for eBay. I have had two deer collisions while riding motorcycles. I hit a deer on my way to work one morning on my Honda Pacific coast at 35 miles an hour. I just caught that deer on the hip with my headlight area of my fairing. It broke the right side of the fairing off, broke the front fender, smashed the fairing stay, The headlight. I did not go down. I was able to repair the machine for less than $1000 but it did take me about 3 months to gather all the used parts from eBay The second deer I hit I was riding my BMW K 1200 LT. The sun has just gone down. I hit that deer right in the ribs at 70 miles an hour. $5500 damage. I let the insurance company fix that bike.. I didn’t go down that time either. It almost cut that deer in half… A motorcycle buddy of mine owns a collision shop and he did a perfect job repairing that machine.. Not even one Phillips screw head had a nick in it. Basically he just put all new parts on it. I buy a lot of stuff if not everything off the Internet from Yamaha dealers like motorcycle superstore, or ridezilla.. I have noticed that nothing on Amazon has the lowest price. there are always many places to get whatever you want that they have on Amazon, you can get that exact same thing in many places much cheaper, mostly on eBay. I like to buy on eBay using PayPal because of the double protection you get from them. What kind of parts do you mean when you ask-where do I buy my parts? I am all for supporting your local dealer. The only problem for me about that is, I have no more local dealers. They all dried up and blew away.. I can’t imagine any parts you may need that you can’t find on the Internet.. unless you own a Hesketh or a marusho..

Hi Lorenzo. you are asking the wrong guy about anything to do with the speaker system on a motorcycle. I do not turn the radios on on my motorcycles. The engine makes all the music I want to hear. In fact, when I sold my Goldwing in June 2021. The buyer wanted me to show him how the radio works, I did not know. We could not get The radio to even turn on and make sound. We had to go on the Internet. It turned out the mute button was on. but when it comes to working on things like that especially when the housings are made of plastic. when in doubt trust your paranoia I won’t touch it if I’m not sure Sorry I can’t help

@@Jodyrides appreciate your answer thanks have a good day

I admit that not buying Dunlop or Continental or Avon or Metzler or Michelin tires as I have always done for my street bikes over the decades is a bit of a concern because I decided to try Kenda tires on my royal star venture.. but I’ll tell you what. if you look at my video, I’m not sure which one but it’s about the wheel maintenance or the balance stand from Harbor freight. When I spin that kenda tire on the balance stand..That tire spins true. There is no radial or elliptical motion in the orbit/spin of the tire carcass. That tread runs true with the bead. I have seen tires in balance stands or truing stands that when you spin them, The tire tread area follows its own orbit, like it has a recap on it that’s not on straight and does not run true. I did not see any of that irregular pulsing at all in the outside tread area of the tire when it was spinning in my stand. It almost looked like I could put a dial indicator on it and spin it and it looks like it was spinning very true.. but as usual, I will keep my eye on the tires, and I will keep checking KZfaq to see if there are owners with Kenda tires that have a story to tell about problems. I’ve only seen one, But in that video, it looks like the guy ran over something that caused one of the belts to break, because that tire has a big slice in the tread. We will see. I have just hope I’m not 2000 miles away if something does decide to go Lucas on me..

I must admit I wanted to go with a big brand-name tire like Continental or Dunlop. My experience with Metzler‘s would keep me from buying them because they tend to be about 25% more to buy and they seem to last a hell of a lot less.. I tried Metzler’s on my commuter Honda Pacific Coast, they were down to the tread depth gauge bars at 4000 miles. That is the lowest mileage I ever got out of a tire on that machine.. I had been using Kenda tires on my off-road play dirt bikes for decades. There are roughly half the price of a Metzler which is the pretty much unanimous choice of motocross riders that I know. I do not motocross, I just play. I am not a good dirtbike rider. I never had a tire failure on any of my off-road machines using Kenda tires. when I learned around 2015 the kenda was making passenger car and light truck tires, I tried them on my GMC 4 x 4 Canyon. I could not believe I am serious here, I could not believe the transformation in the ride on that truck. It rode like a car. Very soft ride, over bumps, very quiet also. And these were not car light duty tires. These were design for SUVs and light duty pick up trucks. They were fantastic. in the fall of 2021, my wife’s CRV needed to have the original tires replaced because winter was coming. They would still pass inspection, but, I wanted four new deep tread tires on there for winter… again, my wife’s CRV ride improved greatly. My wife was smiling.. so when I discovered that kenda was making motorcycle tires for heavyweight cruisers, I thought I would give them a try and I am impressed. Many people on KZfaq say that they have gotten high mileage with no problems out of these Kenda tires.. every time I put new tires on just about every street bike I have had, the bike feels fantastic again. That’s how my royal star venture felt, The tires I took off were 11 and 13 years old, so I’m pretty sure just about any tire I would have replaced them with would have felt like a huge improvement. I noticed no bad habits with these kenda tires.. I can actually completely let go of the handlebars like to pull up my jacket zipper or to fix my gloves and there’s no wobble no tank slapper starting, which is pretty common on a lot of motorcycles. I did notice that on my venture I could not let go of the bars with those old Dunlop elite tires that were on the machine without the front wheel starting to shake the handlebars quickly left and right like a tank slapper about to start. I have had none of that with these new tires. I like them…

i’m not very willing to try new miracle cleaners and coatings. I ruined the paint on my red Ford Econoline van with a product called New Finish. About a month after I put that on my van, the paint went totally dull and oxidized. I could run my finger across the van and my finger would be covered with red paint like it was chalk. that pissed me off for a long time because I kept that van for 31 years. I only use that van to get to races, and later just to haul motorcycles. I commuted on my motorcycles until they started throwing salt on the roads here in western pennsylvania. Then I would drive the van to work on those days for about three or four months. But the rest of the time, i’m the guy you would see riding to work in the morning in the rain on a motorcycle. Occasionally if it was really raining hard I would not ride the bike, but it was more interesting in the rain. You really have to concentrate, and you really have to be aware that cars don’t really see you, and in the rain, they don’t expect you either.. I have seen those products with those claims and those commercials about ceramic type coating. I actually have a small vile of a clear liquid that is supposed to be some type of ceramic coating. It looks like there might be an ounce in there, may be less. A friend of mine that owns a body shop gave it to me to try. He said that was enough to do my whole ram pick up. But I am not going to experiment with the paint on my $52,000 truck after what happened to my Ford Econoline van paint..

my 2008 1300 CC royal star venture calls for 10W-30, or, 20 W 40 yama lube four stroke motorcycle oil. It calls for 3.91 quarts of oil if you change the filter at the same time. so I buy a gallon of whatever oil is on sale on the Internet on eBay. I have been using Honda four stroke motor cycle engine oil, 10W-40. I don’t know if they make a 20w 40.. I also use only Yamaha oil filters. I fill all brand new oil filters with fresh oil and let it sit letting the oil saturate the filter paper in the filter to displace all the air in the filter.. I fill the filter all the way up, and when I check it again a minute later, all that oil is gone, absorbed by the filter. Then I will refill it but not all the way up the second time. don’t concern yourself with semisynthetic or full synthetic. You will not be able to tell the difference. I can’t.. The main concern is that you use motorcycle oil from one of the big four, Suzuki, Kawasaki, Yamaha, or Honda. before you drain the old oil.. ride the motorcycle for at least half an hour to get the oil hot. That will liquefy the sludge that is in the bottom of the engine that has a lot of grit, gum, soot, acid, metal particles, and corrosion trapped in it. oils today are what is known as detergent oils. All that means is, they keep sludge suspended in the oil so it will flow out when you pull the drain plug.. and let the oil drain for at least an hour.. I will ride my bike for at least two or three hours before I change the oil that day, when I pull in the driveway, I have that oil plug out and that oil gushing out of that engine within a minute of shutting it off.. when they are hot like that, all that sludge that gets trapped in all the little nooks and crannies inside the engine is liquefied and suspended in the oil.. don’t even concern yourself with the clutch. If it’s the stock clutch, you got nothing to worry about as long as you don’t put additives or automobile oil in that engine.. so Buy a gallon of oil Buy a Yamaha oil filter get the oil very hot by riding the bike it takes just under 4 quarts of oil .. One other thing. Only use NGK spark plugs..Never buy NGK spark plugs on eBay.. they will probably be counterfeit Buy your spark plugs at advance auto. They’re only a couple bucks, and buying super Duper spark plugs with fancy names and fancy commercials on TV cannot increase the voltage at the plug. Just buy the standard plugs.. don’t try to change the gap. Spark plugs from NGK are gapped correctly at the factory. If the gap is wrong from the factory, replace the plug. That’s the latest method dealing with spark plugs. And never never never ever use champion spark plugs and anything you ever own if you can help it. You might have only Champion Spark Plug some available for your Weedwhacker or your lawnmower, but don’t ever use them in your car or your motorcycle. They do not recover after the first heat cycle to 100% duty. I have experienced that. I have discussed that with mechanics that work at different car dealerships. People take their car to a place like fire stone or Mr. quickie tuneup shop, and they throw in Champion spark plugs in it and do a few other things , and a few days later the car does not run right. So they take it to a Honda dealer where they should’ve taken it in the first place. And the mechanic will put a scope on it and he’ll see immediately that one of the spark plugs isn’t firing, even though they are brand new champions.. they will Change to NGK plugs and everything’s fine.. if the electrode or the gap on your spark plugs is wide/worn and starting to round off the edges, you lose up to 60% of your voltage.. so never clean and re-gap old spark plugs. It makes it tougher on your ignition module and your coil because it takes more voltage saturation for the spark to build up high enough pressure to jump that increased gap on a worn plug.. don’t forget to change your final drive oil. It does not take much. When you’re changing your engine oil, pull the plug under your final drive housing and let it drain, and then refill it with whatever it calls for in the owners manual, 90 weight, it doesn’t really take much, you just fill it up until it won’t take anymore when it starts flowing out of the filler hole on the side in the back of the housing.. after you’re done riding the bike before the oil change, the final drive oil will be hot also and flow out much faster, and that housing does not have an oil filter to catch all the debris, so it’s a good idea to change that oil when you change your engine oil.. you want to buy an oil filter wrench that fits your oil filter. They also make plastic or metal sockets that will fit on your ratchet, and fit on the oil filter. Just take the new oil filter to an auto parts store to make sure you get the right size to fit the oil filter. Otherwise, they are very tough to get off without an oil filter wrench or socket.. don’t forget to coat the new gasket on the new filter with fresh oil before you put it on. Just a drop on your finger and smear it all the way around is enough.. when you’re done changing your oil, you can put it into something like an empty gallon milk jug, and take it to most auto parts stores like AutoZone, advance auto, even Walmart, and they will dispose of your old oil for free. I have a service station near me that uses old motor oil to heat the garage in the winter so he is glad to get my used motor oil for free.. don’t tighten the oil filter too much. Just as tight as you can get it by hand it’s good enough without using any tools. Just wanted to seat, and then snug it down by hand.. you might get it to turn by hand 60 or 90 additional degrees after it seats. That is plenty

@@Jodyrides thanks so much for your help! Good advice that I will use!!

@@henrytaylor2638 A lot of folks have been running Rotella T6 15w40 with good results it has zinc and phosphorus as well. I've been running it for a while now and am satisfied with it.

@@kman-mi7su thanks!

@@kman-mi7su it appears T6 is for diesel engines...?

motorcyclist magazine did an article in the late 1980s about the changes made to car oils. That is when we started to see 5W 20 and then 0W 20 oil‘s. The reason is, the federal government asked petroleum makers, auto makers, how we could get more miles per gallon.. The answer was, make the oil thinner. The thicker the oil, the higher the friction. at that same time, there was a warning to motorcyclist that use oil that much lubricate the transmission, as well as the engine and clutch, and the power take off out of the transmission to turn the driveshaft at a 90° angle.. car oils had the amount of zinc and phosphorus reduced in the late 1980s. The warning that motorcyclist magazine gave to all motorcyclist was, not to use car oils from now on or your wrist. Catastrophic failures of your transmissions. The force on the teeth of transmission gears right around that time with the introduction of the Hayabusa exceeded 100,000 pounds per square inch. The oil is subjected to shearing in transmissions. And increased levels of zinc and phosphorus in motorcycle specific oil protects transmission gears. I have heard of friction modifier’s causing clutches to be ruined, but I do not know of anyone personally, that has ever experienced that unless they put aftermarket additives in the oil which I have never done, and never will do.. adding additives to oil on your own is a little more than risky… it’s sort of like baking a cake in the recipe calls for one egg, but someone comes along and adds a dozen eggs to that recipe. You have a very different outcome… it’s only since the 1970s with suzuki introducing their shaft, drive four cylinder 650 G model that one oil was able to handle all the lubrication duties inside the engine transmission and add that gear connected to the output shaft that spins the Drive shaft. I thought that was quite a step up in metal tempering and in lubrication for oil to be able to stand up to that. Because at the other end of the drive shaft, in the final drive, that’s still calls for 90 weight gear lube… if anyone wants to use regular automotive car oil in their motorcycle, I have no problem with that. Just don’t ask me to do it. If you inspect the gear faces in your transmission, you may find a lot of pitting, and if you have a magnet under your drain oil. When you drain the oil, you may find a hell of a lot more gear, flake, suspended in the oil. A little bit is always going to be present from Transmissions crashing every time they shift gears, and from clutches and clutch baskets with the tabs from the fiber plates sticking up through those gaps in the clutch basket hammering the clutch basket. I have seen how clutch baskets gets so hammered from those tabs on Fiber plates of a clutch that the tabs actually put grooves/dance in the clutch basket requiring it to be replaced because pulling the clutch and doesn’t allow those tabs to slide in that slot that they are indexed into and you can’t always get the clutch to disengage when those tabs get caught into the grooves, they have hammered in the clutch basket.. I can tell when my oil needs changed in my motorcycles. Shifting becomes more difficult, and it becomes more difficult to find neutral. I fell for the sales slogans of Pennsylvania grade crude oil, wolfs head oil about 25 years ago. I thought I would try it in my Honda pacific coast, which was my daily commuter for 25 years… when I got home from work, one day, I pulled the plug in with the oil drain overnight on a Friday night. I refilled the transmission with wolfs head 10W-30 motor oil for cars… The following Monday morning, I started my machine, and headed for work as usual, the bike literally would not shift without attacking the shift lever. I made it to the stop sign at the end of my street, I turned around and went back home. I took one of my other bikes to work that morning. at the end of the day I went home and drained all of that oil after warming it up. I put in regular four stroke motorcycle oil. Shifting was back to normal.. I could not believe what a difference the wrong oil does make.. I have only used motorcycle oil except that one time that I tried wolfs head. But ever since that day, about 25 years ago, I have used nothing but motorcycle specific oil… before they were making motorcycle specific oil, I had a transmission lock up on me on my RZ 350. One of the gears seized to the main shaft. It locked the back wheel, solid, pulling the clutch and does not save you when that transmission locks. When I split the cases, I had seven gears that needed replaced and the main shaft… having a transmission lockup is different from having a piston seizeure.. when a piston locks up, pulling the clutch, and will save you if you’re fast enough. But when a transmission locks, hang on, because you are along for the ride, and wherever your bike goes, it’s taking you with it… I still have that 1989 motorcyclist magazine report on the changes to car oil to get us more miles per gallon in our cars with total disregard for motorcycles. That’s when they recommended never using car oil in transmissions of motorcycles again because you could suffer, catastrophic transmission failures… I have had motorcycles that use 90 weight in the transmissions. My 4 moto guzzi’s.. I actually used Castrol 20 W 50 in my moto guzzi SP 1000.. when I pulled the heads and cylinders on that machine to do an inspection. All four of the cam followers, hard surface coating was pitted severely. The only other time I have seen that was in my 1958 mga on the lifters where they bounce off the cam. That is just about the only place in a pushrod engine. That has the environment of some thing similar to what takes place in a motorcycle transmission. And that is, long time metal to metal sliding surfaces as the cam spins on the lift her face. Pretty close to the same thing as gears slide together applying power, except it is much more severe on the faces of gears when you have 150 hp going through the system applying force to the transmission gears. The camshaft at the lifters only has to fight the spring tension of the valve springs which is constant, the force on transmission gears is not constant, it is widely variable, according to throttle position… I learned years ago when I road raced Motorcycles for eight years, winning six championships, two time national champion. At the factory knows more than I do. I learned that after my first season of modifying my first road, racing machine to death literally. After that, I stuck with exactly the specifications and recommendations of the factory engineers. I finally realized that they know a Little more about it than I do.

I am the wrong guy to ask about cleaning products for the whole bike. I only know that when you use detergents, or degreasers, or pressure washers, all those things that you have to routinely lubricate get the oil or grease blown away.. your floorboard pivots need oil, your kickstand pivot needs grease, your clutch and brake levers, your foot brake pivot, steering head bearings, swingarm bearings, suspension shock absorber linkage, wheel bearings, all the lock mechanisms , ignition switch, your handlebar switches for the high/low beam, the horn button, even the kill switch ,four-way flasher switch. Your carburetors have a pretty sophisticated linkage connecting all four carburetors to a bell crank system. Even the enriching circuit when you pull on the choke lever. Those brass rods that have rubber boots on them need to have lithium grease put on them. Your throttle cable ends inside your twist grip, your twist grip itself has to rotate on a film layer of oil on the handlebar.. washing a car with soap and water is different than washing a motorcycle. You’re not really subjecting all of the petals and levers and cables and bearings and electrical connections and switches to solvents and detergents and high pressure water on a car.. have you ever held a pressure washer up to your hand. I am 100% positive that you could completely rinse the skin and organs and muscle completely off of a skeleton with a pressure washer .. The only thing left would be teeth, tendons, bones, hair and nails.. no I’m not the guy to ask how to clean your motorcycle. Like I said in my video the only thing I use to clean my street bikes is that spray Honda detailer..

@@Jodyrides thanks for the replay, appreciate it!

my venture in this video is a 2008 with 30k miles on it when i bought it..

Check out my video entitled Yamaha royal star venture major flaw. At the time I made that video I did not realize all that dirt was just coming through the filters

@@Jodyrides Will do. Beautiful bike by the way.

all k&N and foam filters that I have ever seen all require a very special oil. I have a bottle of it that I have used for years with all of my dirtbike, quad, trials bike foam air filters, and I had a K and N filter in a Honda Pacific coast that I commuted on for 24 years.. yes you have to clean them with solvent, then you have to clean them with mild soap and water, let them dry, then you must really oil them with the special oil that is very tacky. If you put some between your thumb and finger and open it up slowly, there are hundreds of tiny gooey stringy like spiderweb thickness strands of oil.. that is the very special tacky oil you must use with those filters. You can’t just use motor oil or mineral oil or castor oil or asphalt base or paraffin base oil. You have to use that oil for foam and KNN air filters only on those filters because if you use regular oil. That oil gets dirty and then it gets sucked into the engine with the dirt. That gooey oil traps the dirt at the surface of the filter, at least on paper they work that way.. Watch the video on KZfaq by project farm. I think the title of his video is which air filter is best and he tests many of them in a very scientific very convincing manner. using vacuum and a particulate counter to measure which filters trap the most tiny particulates.. I only started to investigate the effectiveness of those filters when I saw how filthy the intake track of my venture was when I took the motorcycle intake system apart to adjust the valves and clean the filters and do maintenance. I was actually quite upset because I had never seen that much dirt in the intake system of any vehicle right after the air filter..I wish I had put two into together and realized that all of that grime in my intake system right where the filter is plugged in was from the filters. I have a video here on KZfaq showing the dirt that was in my Plenum, the part of my intake system which is just above the carburetors. In that video I point out that all of that dirt was stuck to a smooth flat surface were the incoming air is going very fast. You wonder how much dirt got sucked into my engine using those K & N air filters. They were very oily. They were in my machine when I bought it in September 2021. I will let the bike sit over winter and I started working on the machine when the weather started getting better in February 2022 here in the north east.. so yes I am aware that foam and KNN air filters require a very special gooey oil. In fact they come from the factory already oiled. And that oil is so gooey that when I do clean and re-oil my dirt bike and trials bike and quad filters, I put them in a plastic bag then I pour the oil on them in the bag… Oil on air filters is critical especially with two cycle engines. In fact when my kids and I would go dirt bike riding. I had two air filters for every machine. One in the bike, and one cleaned and oiled in a plastic bag so we could change it at the play area we were riding in that day if it was very dusty. Every motocross rider that I know takes multiple clean air filters with him to every race… because the slightest amount of dust with a two-stroke engine is more damaging than with a four cycle engine..

The guy that did the extensive testing on air filters including an already oiled straight out of the package K & N air filter did not have to oil it, or should I say re-order it, because they come from the factory pre-oiled.. I have the K and N oil that is used to re-oil The K and N air filter after cleaning. That oil is very gummy. It’s not like oil at all. It’s more like glue that doesn’t dry. If you were to put it between your thumb and forefinger and spread your fingers apart, there would be thousands of tiny gooey stringy strands of whatever is in that oil between your fingers so much that you would not even be able to see thru them.. I have been oiling dirtbike air filters for decades with a similar oil. I put the cleaned foam rubber dirt bike air filters in a plastic bag after cleaning and drying. You clean them with mild warm soap and water, then you rinse them with warm water, and let them air dry. Then you re-order them in a plastic bag… when I would go riding trials bikes or my motocross bikes on trails, I would take at least two filters with me in case it was very dusty, and I would change filters when I would go back to my truck for gas and water and lunch.. Anyone can use any filters they want. They can even go without air filters if they want… when I saw how much dirt I had in my intake system that gone through those filters that I had, K and N and I bought the machine, I was stunned. I am still going to do a compression check to see how much damage it may have done to my compression rings. A friend of mine has a borescope, You can also buy them on eBay pretty cheap to plug into your phone and stick it down the spark plug hole and see how much damage has been done to the cylinder walls with those KNN air filter is not really doing much filtering. If you’ve seen my video entitled, “Yamaha royal star venture major flaw “.. all that dust on the inside of my plastic ductwork from the air filters to the carburetors was dirt that God threw my key and an air filters that were in the machine when I bought it used.. that’s all the proof I need..

Brian Watch the KZfaq air filter comparison test with the title which car air filter is best? Let’s find out! search that comparison test that I feel was done very scientifically. when I first bought my Venture used with 30,000 miles on it. Of course I started changing all the fluids and filters first. When I removed the air filters for inspection, it was actually a shock to me when I saw how much filth and grit was inside my motorcycles intake system after the filters. I have a video with the title “Yamaha royal star venture major flaw “ in that video, I show how much dirt actually stuck to the smooth walls of my intake system after the air filters. In the video I mistakenly blamed leaking joints where all of that intake plumbing plugged together. I saw that the machine had K and N air filters and was actually relieved because I was gonna buy them. Then I saw videos showing very damaged/scored pistons out of four stroke motorcycle engines that had K and N air filters. That’s when I searched for a test of the air filters by comparison, and that’s when I realized all of that grit that actually stuck to the walls of my intake system inside the tubing was a result of the k&n filters.. if all of that dirt that stuck to the walls got through those filters, I can just imagine how much got sucked into the engine and how it damaged my intake and exhaust valve seats and valves, and the top compression ring, and scored my cylinder walls and piston skirts.. I actually don’t care what air filters are oil filters anyone uses in their machines. But, that brings up another subject, because when I was a mechanic in a motorcycle shop. I remember a man had a Honda Goldwing under warranty that had an oil related engine failure. He was using a chrome Chinese oil filter because he liked chrome,, when Honda reps came to see for themselves, they saw that that oil filter was not OEM. It says right in the owners manual of every motorcycle to only use OEM parts. That chrome oil filter was not an OEM filter.. Honda rejected that warranty claim. That man ended up buying an engine out of a salvage yard, and that Honda dealership installed the used engine, which he paid for out of his own pocket.. which brings up the subject of air filters. What if a customer installs K and N air filters, and after a while the machine is not running with all the performance it used to because of valve and piston damage from grit getting through. And they do a leak down test to check the compression while the machine is under warranty .. and the dealership mechanics determined that the cause of the damage in the engine was non-OEM filters. I have every reason to believe that Honda would reject that claim. Honda is number one in sales but they are also the strictest on warranty coverage.. anyway check out that Air filter protection comparison video by a KZfaq or called “project farm “

@@Jodyrides Trust me, I've seen all the vids on them. I made the mistake of using them in my younger days, but I know better now. I watch Project Farm all the time, that guy is awesome to spend all his time and $ with no sponsors for all of us. I just came across your channel from watching Royal Star Venture vids and will sub you, especially because you're from my hometown also! I've been wanting a nice Royal Star Venture since I can remember and still do.