First long distance ride.

[Guest]

I recently returned from my first extended trip, and the 850 held up like a champ. A friend and I rode to Tallahassee, FL (he lives in Ames, IA and I live in Omaha, NE). We did two painful 13 hour days (the first day was entirely in the rain) down to visit friends, stayed for the weekend, and broke it into 3 days coming back, with a stop to visit another friend in St. Louis.

The only prep I really did was to change all fluids and the leaky petcock and took a 300mi trip as a test a few weeks before leaving. I noticed a slow leak coming from (I assume) the tensioner before leaving, but I didn't want to tear into anything that might keep me from taking the trip so I just checked the level every stop and kept it fed. The leak got worse on the trip, and that is the next order of business, but the description on bwinger's site seems pretty straightforward, so I am sort of looking forward to it.

So, with just over 2800 miles on that trip with no issues to speak of, I feel pretty good about my first bike purchase. It may have a couple of years on me, but it seems to have weathered them better than I have...

Oh, and if anyone is curious, my buddy was on a V65 Sabre.

Happy Friday.

—Chris

[mighty13d]

Glad you enjoyed the trip! I am trying to go on a nice long one like that at some point.

[Redman]

.
.
.

Chris,

Good to hear the good report.

Sounds like quite a trip for you just recently getting your first bike. Nearly 3000 miles, Lot of people never go on a trip like that. (mumbble mutter like myself mumble mumble)

Good that you found bwringer info on the tensioner. Keep in mind that there are two seals for the tensioner.
Something I found about the seals for the tensioner, is that some years the microfische only show one of the two, if you go forward a couple years then it shows both. And the part numbers are the same for all years. I think it was the 80 850G that I discovered that on, went back to dealer a couple times, and they gave me just the one. THen later I found more on-line resources. I think I had to go up to like 83 before I found part numbers for both seals.

Have any pictures of your trip?

Dave

.