1986 Yamaha Venture Royale "Project: Freightliner" DONE WITH BONUS TRAILER

luke000

Been Around the Block
Let me start out by saying, yes I like this bike, I know you guys are going to rip on me being 18 and buying an "old mans" bike, go ahead. Its a 1986 Yamaha Venture Royale. Its got a 97HP 1300cc liquid cooled V4 (de-tuned Vmax) picked it up yesterday for $2050, loaded her on a trailer and off I went....Then about an hour away from home we got cought in the snowstorm so she got a tad bit dirty. Now the bike is pretty clean as it sits so i wont be doing a full "restoration", more just getting it back to peak shape for next season. I will be doing a few upgrades while I am at it as well.

My tentative to do list (so far):

New tires
Repack wheel and steering bearings
Exhaust work
Problem with onboard air compresor
Leaks coolant
Check Order Replace carb diaphrams
De-link the brakes and SS lines
Upgrade front brakes to callipers from an R6
Flush and replace clutch fluid
New throttle cables
New Battery
Change all fluids
Full tune-up
Clean & polish, Clean & polish, Clean & polish, Clean & polish, Clean & polish, Clean & polish, Clean & polish, Clean & polish

And now for some pictures from Yesterday:
Getting the bike loaded on the trailer:
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Back home in my garage:
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And some other stuff I got with it:
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And now as of tonight after starting tear-down

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Re: 1986 Yamaha Venture Royale "Project: Freightliner"

And as for the name, I sent a picture to a co-worker of the bike torn down and he said "If you assemble it right it may come out looking like a freightliner" and so Project Freightliner is born.
 
Re: 1986 Yamaha Venture Royale "Project: Freightliner"

> Problem with onboard air compresor

I believe that marks the first time that sentence has graced this forum. Best luck.
 
Re: 1986 Yamaha Venture Royale "Project: Freightliner"

As one of the few "old men" on the forum, I will congratulate you on buying a bike that you will find very useful for actually going places. Personally, my favorite kind of ride is when I load up the bike with my luggage, kiss the wife goodbye and say, "See you in three weeks, darling." You can do day after day of 500-800 mile days on that bike.

Not quite sure why you want to change the front brakes. I would think the stock brakes are just fine. Rebuilding the calipers is always a good idea on an older bike, at least clean and lube the pistons and slider pins for good, smooth operation and low drag. I would also suggest that you clean and repack all of the wheel bearings with a good waterproof marine grease like Lucas Red and Tacky or Green Grease. Older bikes like this often need wheel bearing service. The old grease is going to be more like wax, and may be contaminated or the bearings could even be rusty.
 
Re: 1986 Yamaha Venture Royale "Project: Freightliner"

AlphaDogChoppers said:
As one of the few "old men" on the forum, I will congratulate you on buying a bike that you will find very useful for actually going places. Personally, my favorite kind of ride is when I load up the bike with my luggage, kiss the wife goodbye and say, "See you in three weeks, darling." You can do day after day of 500-800 mile days on that bike.

Not quite sure why you want to change the front brakes. I would think the stock brakes are just fine. Rebuilding the calipers is always a good idea on an older bike, at least clean and lube the pistons and slider pins for good, smooth operation and low drag. I would also suggest that you clean and repack all of the wheel bearings with a good waterproof marine grease like Lucas Red and Tacky or Green Grease. Older bikes like this often need wheel bearing service. The old grease is going to be more like wax, and may be contaminated or the bearings could even be rusty.

Thanks for your support! The reason i want to switch out the front brakes is they are seized up pretty good, the seals are very expensive and for around the same price I can pick up a set of modern calipers that have more stopping power and don't need a rebuild. (plus they look a little better) I am looking forward to some long haul trips on this bike for many years to come.

And as for the wheel bearings, I just added that to the list.
 
Re: 1986 Yamaha Venture Royale "Project: Freightliner"

I think it's a great project! The original V-4 Ventures like this one were always the "hot rods" of the barcalounger bikes. I remember back when they first came out a couple of the writers at Motorcyclist magazine swapped in a new v-max motor and went out raising hell with it. The swap was a lot easier than building up the stock venture motor, pull that off and rename it "FrightLiner"! I'm with ADC on having a bike for getting away on. Good choice I say!
 
Re: 1986 Yamaha Venture Royale "Project: Freightliner"

Hey, thats a cool looking bike.
 
Re: 1986 Yamaha Venture Royale "Project: Freightliner"

I just finished a productive day of work. Between today and last night I have:

Removed the brakes off the bike, and ordered my new brakes (special thanks to Bradj for those)
Got my new tires (Kenda Kruz) in the mail and got them mounted
Came to the conclusion that I need 1 carb diaphragm
Cut open, gutted 2/3 baffles, and re-welded my mufflers (sounds a lot better, not too loud better tone)
Re greased my wheel and steering bearings
Ordered new hose to fix coolant leak
Removed more junk off the bike

I have another full day of work tomorrow including some electrical, body, and brake work.
 
Re: 1986 Yamaha Venture Royale "Project: Freightliner"

Slower day today, I took the controller for the air compressor apart and discovered there were 9 broken joints on the circut board that needed to be re-soldered. I did that and Ill be damned the system works again! Then I spent the rest of the day running around and rebuilding the F%$#ING frozen rear caliper. That was a pain in the ASS it was a 4 piston caliper that sat for years and when I started only 1 piston kinda moved. But now it should be good.
 
Re: 1986 Yamaha Venture Royale "Project: Freightliner"

Today I removed the radiator and replaced the busted hose causing my leak, flushed the system, reassembled and refiled the coolant. NO LEAK! ;D (knock on wood). The hose I needed to replace was discontinued and normally $30 :eek: but after ordering it only to be told by boats.net after I called them to find out when they were going to ship my part that they could not get it either, I went to auto-zone and found an almost identical part for $5 that i just needed to cut a half inch off each end.
 
Re: 1986 Yamaha Venture Royale "Project: Freightliner"

HEY EVERYBODY!!! Sorry for my lack of updates, rest assured I have been working my ass off on the bike. Since my last update I have de-linked, and upgraded the brake likes to stainless steel lines (magnum BYO kit) and upgraded the front calipers to R6 calipers. I have flushed the clutch fluid (NASTY FLUID!!!!!) and refilled it. Replaced the carb diaphragms and found out i needed a new slider so I have one on order that should arrive on Friday!!! I decided to hold off on LED light conversion until next winter and I will probably wait until the summer to add a 12V outlet. I however did add 2 fog/driving lights to the bike under the fairing (removed the fairing and repaired some cracked plastic at the same time). I have also preliminarily polished most of the chrome out and started to re-install most of it. I will try and upload some pictures tomorrow or Friday.


PS: I also have an extra thing I am currently working on for this bike that was more of a spur of the moment impulse idea but it will add the true meaning to "project freight liner", another thing that I am sure will be a first thing mentioned on this site just like "on-board air compressor"
 
Re: 1986 Yamaha Venture Royale "Project: Freightliner"

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I ordered an AGM battery just a few min ago to upgrade the almost dead lead acid battery. This bike has a sensor that replaced one of the caps on the old lead acid battery that monitors the acid levels and sets off an idiot light on the LCD display and a red blinking LED if it is too low. Because there is no liquid to monitor (instead a gel) and it is a sealed battery I cannot replace the sensor so I will have to some black magic soldering and some sorcery involving a 2.2k ohm resistor somewhere in there to cancel out the idiot light. If anyone cares or is bored here is the process http://www.venturerider.org/forum/showthread.php?t=489
 
Re: 1986 Yamaha Venture Royale "Project: Freightliner"

Congrats on the big Yammy! I can tell you that once you go for a long trip with your friends on sport bikes and you arrive after 7-8 hours riding still able to stand up straight, you will have the last laugh! Big old BarcaLounger bikes are hard to beat!

I have a 97 Valkyrie which I have taken on a number of long journeys, and the 1500 flat 6, 100hp makes the portly old girl kick some butt!

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Get that thing running before the snow melts and start enjoying those long, comfortable rides.

Oh yea, I am one of those old farts too :)
 
Re: 1986 Yamaha Venture Royale "Project: Freightliner"

Short little update for today, I got the resistor soldered to the 12V power on the bike and the wire for the battery sensor. Total cost $1.32 at Radio Shack for 5 1K resistors (only 1 used) NO MORE BLINKING DASH LIGHTS!!!!! ;D
 
Re: 1986 Yamaha Venture Royale "Project: Freightliner"

The bike is worth doing all that you are doing.. I have had my 86 since 2010 and have gotten to really know her and what she can do. She is luxury on 2 wheels with alot of give. "Brown Angel" on the site w/Venturerider.
 

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Re: 1986 Yamaha Venture Royale "Project: Freightliner"

This thing is cool! First time I have ever seen one. Congrats!
 
Re: 1986 Yamaha Venture Royale "Project: Freightliner"

love it ! This was when I first got her. 8)
 

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Re: 1986 Yamaha Venture Royale "Project: Freightliner"

Engle62 said:
love it ! This was when I first got her. 8)

Love that color.

And I know I have not updated this thread in a long while but I have been hard at work on the bike and I am happy to report the project is %96 done! Only a few things I need to finish up, I hope to have the last of the big parts Saturday.
 
Re: 1986 Yamaha Venture Royale "Project: Freightliner"

Hey there, I found your thread through a google search for info on de-linking the brakes, and when I saw the thread was on a forum called "dotheton" I just had to check it out.

I like what you've done with it so far, I think I'm kind of in the same camp you are though. Was 28 when I got mine (traded a '00 Buell M2 Cyclone for it), but it was for the sole purpose of doing a 5500 mile road trip last summer. It's now in the process of becoming an over-grown cafe/street fighter thing. I certainly don't fit in well on the Venture-specific boards.

Just curious if you'd happen to know the brake line lengths for the de-link kit. I've got different bars (superbike bars on short risers) now so I'm sure mine would be different, I'm just curious to find a starting point to get "in the ballpark".
 
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