Dallas to Toledo

[Lucasind]

So I got a call Friday night from the truck driver that is delivering the 88' Voyager XII to me here in Toledo, from our friend "Water walker" in Dallas TX.....
He told me he was in Detroit, and asked how early he could bring me the bike Saturday morning ? ANY time works for me......I replied ! So I gave him the best directions , and he was here by 8 a.m. the next morning ! The bike would not stay running ,after getting it unloaded, and the noise it was making, told me to stop trying,...so we ended up pushing the bike 2 blocks to the house, as the 18 wheeler could not come down my street. Up on the air lift she goes, carbs off and apart in about a hour.....WOW ! were they in BAD shape ! ALL the "seafoam" on earth wasn't gonna help these carbs ! ALL four vacuum slides had become one with the carb bodies , and the "butterfly valves" were also froze in place,none of them could open. After the float bowls were removed , a MESS was found in there as well ! So I spent the day working on the new (to me) bike,all day,until I got the desired results, put the carbs back on the bike ,and she fired right up and got a great running XII...... very pleased with the results ,and all abnormal knocking noises are gone ....now that it is running on all 4 cylinders "fine and dandy" I have a lot more work to do on it, and will pick back up on the project tomarow,








A touch of the starter button....and the sweet sound of the in line four ! oh yeah !

[Lucasind]

BOY did she smoke for awhile.......The inside of the garage got a good fumagating this evening !





I would let it run for a bit ..., then shut it off , check things out, then start it again....repeat......the smoking stopped, and looking forward to that first ride ! I think the weather in Dallas is much better for that ride ,than here in Toledo !

[cushman eagle]

Thank you for the report!,Tony. You got it running even quicker than I thought you would I guess I should have had even more faith in your talents than I already did

[Tonyvdb]

I suspect Tony would be able to pull a Voyager apart in his sleep given all the work he does on bikes. Nice to see how bad they can get to running perfectly again

[Neal]

Be interesting to find where he got the bike to begin with. It surely has been worked on before, what with the rear, center tail-bake light assembly.

[hank43]

Congrats on you're find Tony! That is one fine looking machine.! I should have looked for something like that and had it triked, instead of the 1700!

As for the smoke, You trying to compete with me? Read the posting I made when I installed the KAMS system and decided to wrap the pipes. I thought the thing was all going up in smoke, but after a few miles, it all quit.

Wish I had your garage lift, whenever I want to work on the trike, I gotta go to the folks that installed the trike kit, and pay, pay, pay!

See you at the rally, and hope you can ride the new one.

hank

[Lucasind]

So up early this morning, get the coffee going in the kitchen ....and the woodstove going in the garage. Next step on this project after hearing it run last night ,was to put the four air intake boots on the Venturi side of the carbs, anyone that has done the carbs on their Voyager XII knows that this step is a bit time consuming to get back on just right. , but the XII just don't run right unless it's just right . I remember Carl mentioning that he experimented with " pod fiters" before, and the XII don't like that! anyway.....got that all done, and started on the coolant leaks that I saw at first glance from unloading the bike yesterday , no big deal ...normal XII stuff that needs to get addressed , especially on a 30 year old bike.




Water pump o-ring seepage , coolant hose seepage , not seeing anything wrong at the front of the engine , at the coolant manifold so far. When I did my complete coolant system re-do on my 03' last winter.....I ordered extra everything , so I had them all set to go.





At some point in the bike's past someone put a aftermarket fuel pump on the bike, (Chinese) noisy junk , that is next on my "hit list" to get replaced , as I have a OEM here in my shop already also , in fact , I keep it in the saddlebag of my 03 ' XII for that unexpected out of town on a Sunday fuel pump failure day !

[Lucasind]

Congrats on you're find Tony! That is one fine looking machine.! I should have looked for something like that and had it triked, instead of the 1700!

As for the smoke, You trying to compete with me? Read the posting I made when I installed the KAMS system and decided to wrap the pipes. I thought the thing was all going up in smoke, but after a few miles, it all quit.

Wish I had your garage lift, whenever I want to work on the trike, I gotta go to the folks that installed the trike kit, and pay, pay, pay!

See you at the rally, and hope you can ride the new one.

hank

Hank , I must have missed the post you made about your bike smoking after wrapping the pipes . how about a link , or when it was posted.
and about having a air lift .......I think it makes WORKING on something , a pleasure , instead of a PITA ! If I did not have that lift , I probably would not work on many bikes "for fun" !
YES you will see me at the rally , but the only way the new bike will be there is if my son rides it there I'm thinkin . My 03' is great with all the goodies and Russel seat and utopia back rest , progressive suspension etc . plus I think I will be pulling my big trailer to the rally in June , and since I went thru all the trouble to paint it to color match my 03 ' ......it just wouldn't match the 88' paint colors !

[Highway Rider]

I think this is the link that you are looking for Toney viewtopic.php?f=14&t=6589&p=49833&hilit ... rap#p49833

[Lucasind]

Hey THANKS for that link Jim , No wonder I did not remember reading it ......because I hadn't ! ......it was posted way back in 2012 , a few months before I became a AVA member !

[Waterwalker]

Sure glad you got this bike. I would have had no clue where to start after swapping Carbs from Mr. Leo and then would have screwed that up. Like we talked, and my posts stated, I had no idea. Can you imagine if I had to Pay someone? Might as well buy a new boat hull.

HMMM - makes me wonder how the prior owner keeps his twin engine Cessna.Need some angels on those flights .

[Lucasind]

Sure glad you got this bike. I would have had no clue where to start after swapping Carbs from Mr. Leo and then would have screwed that up. Like we talked, and my posts stated, I had no idea. Can you imagine if I had to Pay someone? Might as well buy a new boat hull.

HMMM - makes me wonder how the prior owner keeps his twin engine Cessna.Need some angels on those flights .

The Voyager XII carb removal / repair and re-install would have been a tough one for you to accomplish if it was to be your first attempt at carb work Micheal ! that's for sure ! ......I am about 20 hours into all of the needed repairs ,so far .... a M/C shop labor rate adds up quickly and would have put you beyond the "claimed worth" of this bike ! A good running /dependable XII is priceless to me ! This machine has many years of life left in her , and besides.... I love the colors on this year !

As far as the PO not maintaining this bike ? that's for sure ! This is a prime example of parking the bike , and NOT performing the proper steps of fuel system preventitive maintenance. All of this was avoidable ! ....but , then again if it had been done ....I would never have gotten a chance to own this bike !

[trikebldr]

OK, Tony, can I tell everybody NOW that you have a new toy to play with? LOL! This story makes me think about looking around for a XII to pay with.
Question; is the XII noticeably easier to handle at low speeds compared to the 1300? I love the feel of the 1300 while on the road, but in town it's just too much to handle in stop and go traffic.

[Lucasind]

Awww c'mon Bruce,,,,,play along . everyone needs a XII in their stable to balance things out ! Here is one you could go get this weekend !
If you dont.....I might !

https://wausau.craigslist.org/mcy/5998942088.html



And while your up that way .....you might as well grab this too !

https://milwaukee.craigslist.org/mcy/5983442943.html


As far as your other question about weight/ balance/handling ? I just don't know ! I'm not as OLD as you !

[Lucasind]

So I got the 88' XII out and road it around the block a few more times, at this point she seems to be running good and I decided to take it out a bit farther from home and twist up some RPMs. this proved to be a bad decision ! I ran it up thru the gears and got a half mile from home when the bike started running bad , losing power !
oh ,oh ! I quickly turned down a side street and started heading back to the shop .....when the bike quit running. I sat along the curb with the key on , the aftermarket fuel pump is noisily "clack clack clacking" away (it does that from time to time) ....I restarted the bike and very slowly headed for home , cause thats all she would give me ! Got about 4 blocks from the shop and she quit again, and no matter what I tried .....it would not restart !
Anyone out there pushed a touring bike 4 blocks lately ? and to make things worse ,a guy in a van came past me as I'm pushing the bike ,rolls down the widow and yells
"BUY A HARLEY" not very cool from him, and pretty darn embarrassing for me !
So a" huffin and puffin" I get the bike back up on the air lift and start checking things over to find out what the heck happened ! To make a long story short....here's what I found. the rate at which fuel exited the bottom of the fuel tank was pitiful to say the least ! even tho the clear fuel filter had some fuel in it , and when the engine called for more fuel as I ran the RPM's up , ...the carbs were run dry of fuel. Soooo after 3 rounds of blowing compressed air backwards thru the fuel tank line, she started flowing fuel out of the tank at a nice rapid rate now ! This is when it dawned on me why the fuel pump is so noisy , the pump was having trouble pulling any fuel . have you ever taken your finger to the inlet side of a electric fuel pump while it is running and heard the tone of operation change ? I have, duh !
The OEM fuel pump that I had here as a spare turned out to be a bad one,,,,,,,I guess I should have waited till the new fuel pumps that I ordered got here before I rode the bike ...again...I now feel confident (after clearing the fuel tank's outlet) that even the old aftermarket fuel pump will be good enough to run the bike , but I won't put it back on the bike , but instead just be patient a few days till new pumps get here. The sediment that clogged up the tank , is still in there ....and just might return again in the future.....I will add Sea Foam to the fresh fuel , hopefully it will dissolve some of the sediment , Things that can happen to a 30 year old bike ! sheeez !

[Lucasind]

Drained every bit of fuel out of the tank and rinsed it thru a few times, seems ok now...............also made sure the tank is venting properly , Hope for the best....Time will tell !

I suspect that our Voyager XII fuel tanks have some type of screen on the inside of the tank , similar to what a fuel petcock has. but having never opened one up I don't know for sure. I looked in the manual for perhaps a sketch or picture of the screen .?...but did not see anything .

[cushman eagle]

Tony,if you take the fuel gauge sender out,can you see the tank outlet,maybe with a mirror? If you can,you may be able to see if there is a screen.

[Lucasind]

Yes ... That is this weekend's plan , remove the seats and have a peek from the top . I.ve done the Goldwings in the past, just never had a reason to get in there on a XII.

[Lucasind]

So over the last month or so, when I got the chance from rare "good riding days" around here ....I have put over 100 miles on the new to me 88 voyager ,that I got from our friend "Waterwalker in Texas , very pleased with it over all, the carb work and fuel tank work that I did on it turned out great during this time .........when all of a sudden # 4 carb decided to start " P"ing on the ground ! then the next day # 3 carb decided to join in ....then the #1 carb decided to join in hey ...let's all P together ! The only carb NOT "P"ing on the ground is #2, tried some "on the bike tricks" to make this stop .....unsucessfully So I had no alternative but to take em back off the bike and back to the work bench they go ., I anticipated some trouble perhaps....the tank ain't the greatest, but I have certainly seen worse over the last 40 + years,so I decided to run a double fuel filter trying to prevent this from hap'n in the first place, well after a month .....it started hap'n anyway !

Anyway ...I thought I would share my handy dandy device I made years ago of how I test to see if the carbs are gonna co-operate BEFORE ya put em back on the bike ...... Yeah it's jut a couple of 90 degree brackets and a piece of wood, but this easily made set-up hold the carbs in your bench vice nicely, then with your auxillary fuel bottle ,you can fill the float bowls up and watch your results ............













So I guess I will spend more time polishing the float valve seats ...and install 4 new float needles, and see what happens next ! so much FUN !

[cushman eagle]

Tony,do you suppose that there was just crud breaking free of the fuel system between the fuel filter and the float valves,holding the valves off the seats. So the valves just need to be recleaned.