Cogswell

The ride down from Lewiston, ID to Baker City, OR is pretty nice too. on that. Coming south from Canada, so is the ride from Missoula to Lewiston!

I've been to that McMenamins . . . it's much like Edgefiled - the same type of atmosphere - quirky and off beat and the same great beer. I'm not sure about the parking - I don't recall that there was any off-street parking or at least any that's close to the building. I can check . . .

I hope to be in - I have a conflict to work around but it's probably doable.

I've never had a filter that a strap wrench could not remove. They can get in to some pretty tight spaces though on your '08 you may need to drain the coolant to separate the coolant hoses in front of the filter - but if it gets the filter off, it's all good. http://www.sears.com/craftsman-2-pc-strap-wrench-set/p-00945570000P http://www.harborfreight.com/2-piece-rubber-strap-wrench-set-94119.html

Unobtainium sure is expensive! Nice find.

Glad to hear you've got true commitment! The switch should (unless the P.O. removed it) have an adjustment nut on it - you should be able to adjust it up or down to get it to actuate just as you would like. As for the rear / front rotors, it's normal for them to have just a very slight amount of drag, but it shouldn't be enough to slow the wheel materially if you spin it. If you can spin the front wheel and have it make 4 or 5 revolutions and you don't feel any pulsation in the lever, you should be fine. The sure way to check the rotors is with a dial indicator, which most people don't have. My guess is they're probably fine.

What about the return spring? Does that need to be lengthened? Also a new thing - my rear brake is now dragging. When spinning the wheel you can hear it "shish shish shish". Is there an adjustment for that as well? Adjust the pedal up a little bit. If the brake stops dragging, then you didn't remove enough from the master cylinder rod (it's bottoming out) and you will need to trim it a bit more. If the brake still drags after backing off the adjustment then you have another problem. It it still does, the way you described it 'shish, shish, shish', makes it sound as though the rotor may be warped causing it to alternately contact the pads and then not. As for the spring length, that is what the small ring is for - it gives it just enough extra length to allow the switch to be in the off position with the pedal adjusted further down. It keeps the spring from being over stretched and allows you to return the whole thing back to stock easily if you want to remove the blocks when you sell the bike. Given your feelings about the P.O. , swapping this bike for another sounds like a distinct possibility . . .

I feel the same way when it comes to my GF . . . This indeed is a PITA, but you do not need to remove anything to make this work. I put mine on my 6th gen, but it should work the same on your '99. Back the adjusting nut off, then begin turning the master cylinder actuation rod (the hex is right at the rubber boot) until it comes out of the turnbuckle - the black triangular shaped piece it threads though that has the "gold square" attached to it. As you do this the brake pedal is going to go higher and higher. Don't worry about that for now. Once the threaded rod is out of the turnbuckle, flip the turnbuckle down and you'll have the master cylinder push rod hanging down. For the next step you're going to need a Dremel or equivalent with a small cutoff wheel. I cut off only about 1 1/2 threads from the rod, as I wanted to leave enough for it to go back to stock if I wanted to. You can run the locknut down the shaft to clean up the end if it gets a little buggered from cutting with the Dremel. >BE CAREFUL< - the cutoff wheel is going to want to "walk off" the threaded rod and gouge anything near by, so work slowly and carefully holding to Dremel with both hands. Take your time. Once that's done, thread the rod back through the turnbuckle and adjust to taste. Leave the heat shield, rear set and everything else in place. Now that you have that done, you still have the issue of the spring that actuates the brake light switch. Once your pedal is adjusted you'll find out that your brake light is on continuously. To fix that, I went to the hardware store and picked up the smallest split ring I could find - like the one your car keys are on. This one is tiny - maybe 1/4" + in diameter. Thread it through the hole in the brake pedal, hook the spring to it and you're good to go. But first, I strongly recommend you go inside, have a - maybe two in this case to cool off. Take a stab at it tomorrow. Usually when I'm in this frame of mind is when I really get it fouled up and them I'm p.o.'ed at myself. You can do it - it just takes a little time.

There are tons of ways of doing this - and you'll get a lot of responses with various ideas. I bought one of these http://www.rammount.com/CatalogResults/PartDetails/tabid/63/partid/082065077045066045049052057090085/Default.aspx The bracket holes for the U bolt line up with the tank mounting bolts. I got some longer bolts for the tank and bolted the bracket down with the tank. Then get the appropriate adapter for whatever GPS you have and you're good to go. Some people like the mount that fits in to the hole in the steering stem, but that's where I have my powerlet to bring power to the GPS unit, so that didn't work for me. I've done about 7,000 miles with this setup and it's rock solid. Shop around on the Ram website - there are numerous ideas for fixed mounts that don't move as you turn like I did, mounting in the steering stem or mounting to the clipons. Some people also like to put them in the clear map pocket in their tankbags or suction cup them to something - I remember one guy that suction cupped it over the tach and another that somehow rigged it to the inside of the windscreen. There are tons of options.

That's a good tip - I wouldn't have known that.

Can you post a link to their website? Googling the name only seems to return accessory vendors rather than the manufacturer's website.

I dredged these up - limited help . . . the first - attempt to fit a 6th gen swingarm to a 5th gen engine http://www.bikersoracle.com/vfr/forum/showthread.php?t=105527 And in this one, this reference . . . http://www.bikersoracle.com/vfr/forum/showthread.php?p=1212196 "My VTEC runs sweetly with an FiX lump in, but everything else is original VTEC particularly the throttle bodies, etc. I had to modify the cam covers to accommodate the coil packs . . . " Fifth gens have remote coils and 6th coil-on-plug setup. Mark J. Harris is the guy you're looking for that forum. Should be an interesting project. Please keep us updated.

As Metallican525 did in post #9, I just used a vacuum bleeder to change the fluid in my ABS rather than doing any pumping of the levers as the OP indicated - worked perfectly. If traditional methods of pumping the pedal or vacuum bleeding aren't working, what I would probably try next is to reverse bleed it by forcing fluid backwards through the system. Air rises in a fluid, so pushing fluid from the caliper back to the master cylinder displaces the air and forces it out. I don't have one of these, but have considered purchasing it. http://www.brakebleeder.com/bleeding-brakes/how-it-works/

That's how I shortened mine - with a Dremel and a cutoff wheel. Loosen everything up for some clearance and then remove the turnbuckle from the bolt. I cut off the minimum amount necessary - maybe 1 to 1 1/2 threads in the event I ever want to remove the blocks and return it to stock. Work carefully - the cutoff wheel will want to jump off the bolt and put gouges in anything around it. On the brakelight spring I had a very small (tiny - maybe 1/2" diameter) split ring like you have on your car keys and it made the perfect extension for the spring - just threaded it on to the brake lever and attached the spring.

I rode up to Mary's Peak yesterday but did not know the location of this memorial and did not see it. I asked the ranger at the summit parking lot but he was not familiar with it. If I knew the location I'd take an updated photo of the site. The summit road had gravel down the center of the lanes in places so it paid to be careful.

Yes - the fan moves air from the outside of the fairing through to the area in front of the engine. IMO the auto-shutoff at around 30 mph or so would be trick feature and big plus for such a kit.

My "mental failure mode" with this wasn't by leaving it off, but rather by leaving it on. I was running along at 70 mph and the temp kept hanging around 220 and wouldn't come down. Climbing hills it headed toward 230 and I was thinking 'WTF is going wrong . . . am I having a thermostat failure?? I'm going more than fast enough to cool this thing off." Then it suddenly hit me - I had left the fan running. No need to call me an idiot - I spent the next few hours doing that over and over. It just took once though to teach me my lesson.

I did this as a DIY mod last year, but not for power draw issues. I used a single pole, double throw switch and wired it in with the thermo switch. I use it to get ahead of the temperature curve and keep the engine from building as much heat when I know I'm going to be idling or riding very slowly. Then when I get going I can switch it off a while and then when things stabilize switch it back to normal mode. If I do get in to the 230+ degree range, as soon as I get moving at 30 to 35 mph I switch the fan off and the temp comes down more rapidly without the fan fighting the airflow. I had purchased a VTR fan blade to make that swap, but having installed this switch I'm not sure I will - this works very well - better than I expected. Since I installed this I've had no temperature issues at all. What was suggested in the OP, an indicator light, would be very helpful. I tried to source a waterproof rocker switch that was illuminated, but couldn't fine one small enough to fit on my 6th gen where I wanted it. I'm accustomed to keeping up on switch configs, but on one occasion I forgot what "mode" it was in, and some sort of indicator, maybe a red and green LED (red = "no fan" and green = "fan operating" or similar) on the cockpit panel or something would be quite helpful. I positioned the switch on the left inner upper cowl panel next to the tank - though that's where the front ABS pump resides on a 6th gen, and getting a switch in there was tight. For non-ABS bikes there would be plenty of room in that location.

I was thinking that if I had lights like those wired in with my turn signals it would keep me from running down the road for miles with my blinkers on. Looks really good.

I normally haven't gone that far either. In this case I took a 4,000 + mile trip so there wasn't much choice. Had the trip been further I might have found some place along the way to change it. The longer interval is what made me want to have the analysis done.

There's one up for grabs right now - ends in about 3 days.