peteinpa

You CAN'T set your slack this way! It's all great till you hit a bump, the suspension compresses, and the chain gets tighter! If you want to be anal, tie down the suspension till pivot, front sprocket, and rear sprocket are perfectly in line. Set about 1/2inch slack at tight spot in chain. Put bike on centerstand with tiedown removed and measure slack. THIS your new measurement to aim for. OR....Just set for 1.5 inch on centerstand.

I'm going to say if your rear suspension is compressing at all under bike weight alone, the shock preload is too loose. The factory spec. IS wrong. FACT. I go for 1.5 inches.

Note the piece of wood going to the header crossover pipe as backup.

Yeah, pisses me off that new bikes run terrible due to the EPA while I sit at a light choking to death from, trucks, busses, and semi's belching out clouds of smoke.

My FJ09 came with a Firepower AGM battery. I never heard of that brand till now. Still works great after 2+ years and 10k miles. In times of non-use put on a battery tender at least once a month. All the time is best. I've been useing Scorpion batteries from Batteries and stuff in my various bikes for 15+ years. usually get 7 years out of a battery. When you receive it, put it on the tender first till solid green before installation. The warranty is a year. Any deffect in a battery will show up by then. The rest is up to you. Motorcycles aren't cars. Their system will keep a good battery good. It won't charge a weak battery well.

Yeah it's not a good design at it's best. Sargents plastic pan is thinner/weaker also, making it worse. Pretty sure I'm done with Yamaha come spring. 92 Honda Nighthawk for me. Long seat so you're not locked in one spot. Seat supported on the frame rails, no stupid torque values, No valves to adjust ever, it's going on and on. Shouldn't have left Honda.

Here's my 83 650 Nighthawk while stationed in PR. in 1984.

Update: Carbs out, found ALL the pilots completely clogged shut. Rest of carbs almost spotless. Amazing it ran and idled with choke off. Should run MUCH better now. 4 new clone turnsignals on. Much more to do. The big reveal...The more I think about it I might keep this and sell the FJ09. Winter, too much thinking time. I love the FJ09 engine, but not much else. Even with a Sargent seat FJ gives me butt burn after short time. On the NH it's long seat lets you move front to back, very important! I LOVE the looks of the NH, only tolerated the looks of the FJ. Newer versions, even worse. The simplicity of the NH can't be overlooked. No valve adjustments, coolant, fuel pump, crazy bodywork, etc. Back to back rides in the spring will decide it.

I ride like I'm invisible. What I see on Youtube all too often is riders forcing their right of way, car is in the wrong, but rider continues into area car will be instead of braking/evasive maneuvers. You WILL lose.

If you were bleeding engine compression into the coolant there would be air bubbles in the reservoir. Thermostat is my next thought. Although there have been zero problems on here with almost anything related to cooling, gaskets, etc.

How about the flip side to this? With baby boomers aging out, is there a future to motorcyling? Yunguns don't take to riding like we did. They'd rather sit indoors gaming/on their phones. Facebook Market/Craigslist is Polluted with used bikes. They don't move much. I just turned 58. My riding has changed. I ride alone almost exclusively, used to do the breakfast rides all the time, big group rides, etc. Dont know how I did it even then. More not riding then riding. Now my rides are shorter, 4 or 5 hour afternoon rides are it. I'm fine and happy with that.

As an update to this post, I got a 92 750 Nighthawk!!🙂👍

I'll add that I went to a manual tensioner proactively after hearing all the problems and revisions. Installed it, adjusted it, and have never thought about it since.

You can also reinstall the front axle then rest it on a jackstand. Solid.

I'm coming to the party late, (as usual) but I like it. It's simple, solid, does what it needs to do, looks great, and you gotta love no valve adjustments ever. I found its limit though. North of 100 mph it starts to run out of breath. Do I need to go over 100? No. It gets to 100 pretty fast. As far as cornering I just had to get used to it, does fine. Rear tire is almost gone so might be a problem.