Its official!

[Tat2demon]

Im a collector now! Found this on Craigs yesterday and picking it up Thursday. A few rough spots but all the important bits are there.

[donebysunday]

Is that the Venturer ? Looks like a great find !!!!!

[Tat2demon]

Its a 79. I think the Venturer was 81?

[Tat2demon]

Needs the carbs gone through (no surprise) new exhaust and some other minor things like fork dust boots.

The exhaust is RC performance but at some point it was dropped or hit something and caved in the side of the muffler. I have RC on mine so Ill be stealing the good header off the new one and replacing my welded headers on my 78 with it.

I couldnt believe the difference between good clean carbs and these that havent been cleaned in at least 10 years. This thing is a pig compared to mine.

[DGXSER]

Nope, not a Venturer. It was the 81 standard model. It also did not have those style Vetter bags.

Nice looking bike. A few typical items to go through, should be a nice rider in short order.

[Tat2demon]

So it ran like complete crap when I brought it home so I knew the carbs needed a cleaning but I had no idea.

When I took the carbs off and drained them into an oil pan, tons or rust and water came out. Each bowl had about 1/8 inch of rust in the bottom.Underneath the float needles was just about packed, and the jets were just nasty.

Luckily, all the floats are good and the idle screws are in great shape. They even had the factory plastic caps on them. Other than someone taking the caps and bowls off at some point to polish them, there is no evidence that the carbs have ever actually been worked on. No screw driver marring or marks anywhere inside.

I was surprised to find the airbox drilled and a K+N filter even though it was almost completely plugged up. The box has some holes in the wrong places that were siliconed over. I cleaned them off and covered them with RTV.

Someone also took out all the fuses and replaced them with in-lines.

[GLoweVA]

With there being almost nothing but aluminum and brass in the carbs, where did all that rust come from?

WOW! There's so much dust and debris on/in that bike!

Good luck and be thourough on that carb cleaning.

[DGXSER]

Some of the brown is sediment from the fuel that was left in the bowls. However, it maybe a very ugly scene to look inside the gas tank.

[WMarshy]

Some of the brown is sediment from the fuel that was left in the bowls. However, it maybe a very ugly scene to look inside the gas tank.

Exactly what I was thinking. Might as well replace all the fuel line while your at it. Looks like a nice bike under all that dust. Tank looks nice on the outside.

[ViperRon]

Do a good job cleaning the Petcocks and filters in the tanks too. As mentioned by others looks like rust from tank was heavy.

[Tat2demon]

I did the carbs yesterday and did the tank and petcocks tonight. I sloshed the gas around before draining it and it all came out brown. Expecting the worse I looked in the tank to find a surprisingly smooth interior. I think all the brown crap is a failed tank liner.

The membranes in both petcocks were in great shape so all the stuff in the carbs was almost like river silt. Very very fine stuff.

I took the tank to the car wash and power washed the insides clean. Got home, filled it with gas so it wouldn't rust up and found out the overflow line is broken inside the tank so I can only fill it about half way. Ill plug it up tomorrow.

Pulled the cams tonight and putting in new shims tomorrow then get it all buttoned back up.

[Tat2demon]

Got everything put back together Saturday morning just in time for the poker run. I took the new bagger and, with a lot of hesitation, let a friend from Chicago take Matilda. Its the first time anyone else has ever ridden her.

Anyway, the new F ran pretty dang good. I lost my front brakes after the first 50 miles. The MC piston wouldn't return. New kit showed up today and seems to be working well.

After riding my 78 with no windshield for the last year its very strange to have the fairing and windshield. On my E, when you're doing 75 you feel every bit of it. With the fairing on the F I was comfortably clipping along and when I finally looked down I was doing 90. Didn't feel like I was doing over 30.

Did 202 miles on the run and that was more than enough to know that I need to have the seat redone. I didn't even want to sit in my chair when I got home.

[Tat2demon]

[natemoen]

Glad it went well for the most part!

What's wrong with the seat?

[IanDMacDonald]

Tat- I know you were looking at re-painting your bike, but I honestly thing the current paint scheme is eye-catching and beautiful to look at. My vote is to stick with that, and buy ANOTHER E to customize, lol.