FJ12Ryder

Horrible, horrible stuff. I had a friend who was a beer distributor before the "Taste Great, Less Filling" commercials started. He said the beer sold like crazy after the commercials started. Who says marketing doesn't work.

Heck, that would more than double the value of my '99. LOL

A lot depends on how often you plan to use the lift. There's not a lot of sense in spending $800-$1000 for a lift you'll use a couple times a year. For occasional usage a "cheapo lift" will do the job just fine. I still have my cheapo lift from HF and it still works just fine, and lifts everything from my VFR to my step-son's Street Glide. It cost me less than $250, and I can buy necessary stuff like beer and gas with the money I saved. Having an air-over-hydraulic would be the best reason to upgrade IMO.

Very apt description of the adventure-type bikes. I see quite a few motoring through here on the interstate lookin' nice and clean. 🙂

I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I bought my VFR partly due to its looks. Taking the fairing and related parts off kind of defeats the purpose. I lived through the era of the UJM, so "naked" bikes don't appeal all that much. I can recognize the work that has gone into building one, but that's it. And big "adventure" bikes make very little sense to me. Can you imagine trying to pick up one of those behemoths on the downside of a slope, or even on level ground? For most people it's just style over function...again.

"Knobby tires"?

Yep, a lot of people have hard-ons for K&N. I've used them in all my bikes since for ever, and had no failures, no excessive oil usage, no problems. That being said I would not use them in certain circumstances. I pulled the one that came on my Cummins diesel because that thing just moves too much air and needs to be cleaned frequently. It was a mess when I pulled it out with crud everywhere. The ones in the bikes clean up great. YMMV.

Yeah, I've never had more than two keys for any bike. A lot of them only had one key. Never had any time when I needed more than what I had. Of course that's only been over the last 55 years, so it could still happen. YMMV. Whoops, on Edit, I did drop the VFR key under the tank and couldn't find it so had to have one made.

The Skylift is pretty cool, but just not versatile enough if you have more than one bike. I have the HF lift, and it works okay for the price: about $200 some years ago. But I would be looking at a lift that has air operated hydraulic lift if I had the money. Just depends on how much money you want to spend. They all do the same thing, some are a little more stable than others.

I'm passing along some info that I received, absolutely know nothing about the batteries. https://www.batterysharks.com/SearchResults.asp?Search=YTZ14s&Submit They may be complete junk, and for $27 for a VFR battery, the odds are good. But for someone looking for a battery for a project bike on the cheap, these may do the trick. Again, Sgt. Shultz and I, know nothing, nothing.

I've had one on my Cummins diesel for over 7 years with no issues. Love it. Always opens and closes with minimal muss and fuss.

At least 3 pages.

Not to be harsh, but it's pretty unlikely. More likely that you didn't get them tight enough when installed. If it worked loose when you tightened it correctly, why would you expect it to stay tight when you installed new ones? No matter how careful you are. In over 50 years of motorcyling, car/truck driving, I've never had a plug get loose.

They do have a new design, I have one for the VFR, but haven't put it on yet. They are a two piece design that allows you to put the drain outlet where ever you want it. Yep, no need to trim the tab. It's called the BSX Series. I have Fumoto valves on all my vehicles, well not my lawn mower, but all the rest. Sure make oil changes less of a mess. And makes it easy to grab an oil sample for Blackstone Labs.

Most likely Honda doesn't spec any anti-seize for the simple reason they don't want people globbing the stuff on there and screwing stuff up and blaming Honda, because "It says it's okay in the Service Manual". It's called CYA. Believe it or not, I owned a 1971 Triumph Bonneville. It came with an owner's manual, not a service manual, an owner's manual. Included in that owner's manual was how to pull the cylinders, hone the bores, and decarbon the head. You don't see that anymore, and it mostly boils down to CYA...and dealer profits of course. 🙂