Campaman

As lnog as you put the fsrit and lsat lteter in the crorcet palce tehn the yuor barin wlil srot it out.

Usually each plate in a battery will have its own chamber so yes you will need to top up each of the six separately, I have no idea what that other cap is for unless its some form of breather. You need to use the lowest amp setting you can on a motorcycle battery, my charges puts out 1amp, but I guess on your bigger battery you will be OK with the 2amp setting. Things to consider, how old is the battery? batteries do not like being completely drained and if its an older battery you may find it wont take a charge well and keep giving you trouble, it may be best to get a new battery.

I think that even if you can fit the engine and get it running, every thing you like about the baby drag will change, your brakes would probably need upgrading, the suspension will need changing to suit the new weight and the positioning of the weight and I would think that the riding characteristics would all change. My mate has a real cool looking custom built chop that he cruises around town on and parks outside Tescos to get joe public drooling but if we are going for a ride he takes it home and gets his XJ600.

The Welsh invented these ages ago, a lot more cuddly as well, Baa...

You may want to post an introduction here http://yamahaclub.com/forums/forum/48-new-members/ you will then get some answers. And then check the cable adjuster at the lever to make sure its not loose, if it is it may have moved causing the cable to be too tight.

That doesn't look too bad considering you say its been exposed to the elements for 2-3 years, if that was in the UK it would be a wreck.

Hi and welcome. I am just in Leicestershire but also not that far from Leicester it self.

Hi and welcome, the bike looks tidy for its age, I remember them when they first came out.

Insurance companies are not my favourite, but if you see the way some of the young uns around my area drive there Clios, Novas, 106's and Saxos then you can see why insurance companies charge what they do. The problem is how you can prove to your insurance company that you are not going to drive like some of the other idiots do, so that you can benefit from a lower premium because you are driving safely and within the law.

I just spray some in the lid and use a standard 1/2" paintbrush to brush it on, a little goes a long way.

Glad you are OK and what a shame, looks (looked) a nice bike, what was the actual damage? Its always a double shame with write off's, as most of the time the reason they can't be fixed is because the spares are so expensive, and because of previous write off's being scrapped rather than dismantled there are no cheap spares. I have been looking for a replacement locking fuel cap for mine as the lock don't work and Yamaha want around 10-20% of the price I paid for the bike for one, so its easy to understand how easy they write them off.

OK I will admit it, I am 50 this year, have been riding since I was 16, and nothing has really changed, drivers not looking or paying attention to other road users, arrogant idiots who think they have the right to do what that like, and since the introduction of mobile phones you have gained another type of idiot driver. My ride into work in the morning is usually pretty quiet as its reasonably early in the morning, but the ride home at 4pm can be a bit busy and I regularly come up on a queue of 5-6 vehicles behind something slower moving, what I find more and more is that there is a certain minority of nobs that seems to be actively blocking me from filtering past. I have learned over the years to use the bikes acceleration to my advantage, I do not need to sit close to the vehicle in front to be able to get by it quickly and safely, as I can close the gap and get by very quickly if unhindered, and by using all of my side of the road I can get a better view round the next bend than the tin box. I admit that I have lost my rag over the years and taken a few wing mirror trophies but these days I tend to chill and go with the flow as its much better for your blood pressure and riding angry is not good, and even with the nobs I can still make better progress than them. When I first took my car test the smaller engined cars that you had such as Mini's topped out at 80mph if you were going down hill with a wind behind you, now you can get the likes of a Nova, Saxo, 106, Fiesta etc. that get to 100mph or more, maybe what's really needed is a change to the standard car licensing along the lines of motorcycle licensing. How you change things to stop the idiots on mobile phones, young females doing their make up (I have seen this twice this week), mothers being distracted by the kids in the back (It seems like no body walks to school any more), idiots rolling fags on their steering wheels (This morning) I have no idea, but something needs to change, I think part of the problem is that drivers are now too isolated from the outside in these fancy modern vehicles. Rant over......

Yeah that's the way petcocks usually work, should be an easy mod, alternatively just remember to reset the trip odo each time you fill up, that's what I do on my Dragstar so I know that when I am approaching 120 miles I am getting close to needing to switch to reserve.

I have seen a few idiots recently with the good weather, no gloves, jacket and shorts, but seen a right nob on Sunday morning riding his summer sports bike in T-shirt, shorts & flip flops.

It would appear we have got to the bottom of the problem, it would probably be a good idea for you if you could get to look at another 1100 Virago to see what should be there, I assume if it originally didn't have a petcock then there was some other way to indicate low fuel, possibly on the missing instrument panel, so may be the previous owner fitted the petcock so they knew where they were with fuel.

I had one of these from new, and what I found was that when you think you have pulled the choke out all the way, give it a bit more of a tug, as I used to have similar cold start problems until I found out about pulling it a bit more.

I used to have one when they first came out, mine was basically all white apart from the red and blue stripes, yours is also missing the belly pan that mine came with.

I think my cover is also an Oxford, maybe its the way the cover lays over the bike, on my Dragstar its a tight fit, so once I have hooked it under the the back mudguard the cover is quite taught and not actually touching much apart from the front mudguard, mirrors, sissy-bar and rear mudguard.

I am another user of ACF50, I also use a cover on my bike but do not have the condensation problems you are having, my cover is silver waterproof material on the outside with a white softer material on the inside. Are you covering the bike while it is still warm after use, as I suppose that could cause condensation under the cover, I always wait until the bike is cold before covering it.

My first bike was a Yamaha FS1E 50cc when I was sixteen, there were a group of around 5-6 of us that had mopeds and we spent most evenings just riding around town, surprising how many miles you knock up doing that, my first job was 15 miles away in Northampton and the journey took a while as even though my ped was un-restricted its top speed on the flat was still only around 45mph. 34 years on still into bikes.

Hi Try going here first. http://yamahaclub.com/forums/forum/48-new-members/

Another vote for do your test.You don't have to ride at stupid speeds to be quick, I can do the ride into work on my 650 Draggy ten minutes quicker than in my tin box, not because I am speeding but because the traffic has less effect on me.

Right you have a vacuum operated petcock, it could be that there is a fault in either the petcock or the vacuum pipe that also goes to it causing it to make you think you need to switch to reserve because its no longer pulling the fuel through. I would check the vacuum pipe first as if it has a small hole and is drawing in air, you could find that when you have a full tank the pressure of the amount of fuel is enough to allow for the vacuum leak, but then when it reaches a certain level it causes fuel starvation, so you switch to reserve which then increases the fuel pressure as the petcock is then getting the fuel from father down the tank. Another thing you can try which could help prove the above is that when the bike starts spluttering and you think you have ran out, switch the petcock to the prime position not reserve and see what happens, if the bike then runs you do have a vacuum problem.

Gaskets need a flat surface to work correctly, if the problem is the pipe then you would be better off grinding or filing the mating surface flat, an extra gasket could actually exaggerate the problem.

As far as I am aware the V-Star is just the name used for the Dragstar in America, the only differences could be some emissions stuff on the V-Star that's not on the Draggys.