Oh No, I did it again! Final(?) update post #43

[Wagner73]

I have the utmost respect for all y'all that have the space, where with all, patience and skill to rehab and restock usable parts and keep the deserved old runners on the road!

And four good carbs, a Dyna ignition, plus all the other better bits seems like a killer deal for $300!

 

[Highpower]

An addendum to my last post:

I was never happy with the carbs on my original GL as one had sat with water in the float bowl and the emulsion tube casting was very corroded and I wasn't sure it would seal off properly. This bike had a decent set that only needed the usual clean and rebuild.

It came with a Dyna S ignition which has already replaced the points in my bike.

The wheels were in better condition cosmetically and had decent tires to boot.

My rear brake was toast, master cylinder frozen and brake hose cracked. The rear brake on the parts bike worked perfectly and was installed as a unit when the rear wheel was exchanged. Minimal bleeding required to boot!

I could never get the choke cable to work smoothly on my bike and the one on the parts bike works perfectly.

It had a good rubber strap for the fuse holder, mine was broken.

Many, many other miscellaneous parts that tend to nickel and dime you to death, Plus, I have a running motor with all the other ancillary bits like voltage regulators, etc.. Unfortunately the wiring harness was attacked by someone with a set of wire cutters and crimp butt connectors.

Currently sitting waiting for me finish stripping it down, the motor is going to have the cylinders filled with oil and put on the shelf under my bench.

An experiment: The front fender was bent up and rusted at the rear

I cut off the bad section and reshaped it.

I'm still deciding if I want to run it, as I kind of like the look of the original, but other than the bent part, the chrome on the the donor bike's fender is much better.

 

[Highpower]

One step forward and and one step back: sigh

I was tuning the Honda and it suddenly stopped running on the left side. WTF? I knew it wasn't the ignition as cylinders 1 and 3 ran fine, but 2 and 4 quit except for random sputtering. I removed the float bowl drains and almost no fuel came out of 1/3.

I removed the carbs (again) and couldn't really see what the trouble was. Air flows freely through the fuel line so I reset the floats (again) and when I went to reassemble it six of the bowl screws stripped out. Now I wasn't over tightening them, the threads were weak from having been overtightened in the past.

So I'm once again at a standstill until the 4mm Helicoil kit arrives. I swear, I have never had a bike fight me like this one does. Little does it know I am an extremely stubborn old man and I refuse to be defeated by a stupid machine.

The adventure continues!

 

[Adamc]

One step forward and and one step back: sigh

I was tuning the Honda and it suddenly stopped running on the left side. WTF? I knew it wasn't the ignition as cylinders 1 and 3 ran fine, but 2 and 4 quit except for random sputtering. I removed the float bowl drains and almost no fuel came out of 1/3.

I removed the carbs (again) and couldn't really see what the trouble was. Air flows freely through the fuel line so I reset the floats (again) and when I went to reassemble it six of the bowl screws stripped out. Now I wasn't over tightening them, the threads were weak from having been overtightened in the past.

So I'm once again at a standstill until the 4mm Helicoil kit arrives. I swear, I have never had a bike fight me like this one does. Little does it know I am an extremely stubborn old man and I refuse to be defeated by a stupid machine.

The adventure continues!

Man I feel your pain. Had mine in and out several times before it became a runner. But now it wont hold a 900rpm idle and stalls (Wants 1200). They are comming off again, Bugger!

 

[Highpower]

It seems that my carb synchronizing gauges have been disappeared into Post Office oblivion along with the glass timing hole plug I ordered last week. I am reasonably sure that my static timing is pretty good, at least good enough to run the bike until I can throw a light on it.

The carbs on the other hand, were a mile out of sync.

So in a fit of utter boredom I tried a redneck carb sync that has been mulling about in my fevered brain for a while. I am sure that this has been tried by someone else before, but I haven't heard of it.

First, I made sure all the idle mixture screws were set the same at two turns out, this is probably a bit rich, but I wanted it to idle as best it could while I was trying adjust the carbs. I fired the bike up and let it warm up to full operating temperature and set the idle speed to 1500 rpm. That was a low as it would reliably idle without dying.

The carbs on a GL1000 all tune to the #3 carb and since I was already standing on that side, I started out on #1 turning the sync screw in and out until the idle changed then locked it down. then I did 2 and 4 on the other side. I went back and forth a couple of times gradually lowering the idle speed screw and fine tuning the sync screws until I got a solid 1000 rpm idle with no fluctuations. The motor takes throttle without hesitation and feels a lot more responsive throughout the RPM range

I might fiddle with it a bit more, but I am hoping the PO will find my package so I can set the timing and see how close I got with the synchronizing.

Edited to add: Cold started it first thing in the morning today and it started immediately and idled after a short warm up before the temp gauge even started to register.

Teaser: Next on the agenda is to make a new stainless steel exhaust system. I think I’m going to go with some short Dunstall-looking reverse cone megaphone mufflers that stop behind the axle but ahead of the back of the rear tire.

 

[Highpower]

It's been a while since my last update, so I thought I would post a quick one.

I had a feeling the right side wasn't putting out as much exhaust as the left side. At first I thought that there was some sort of blockage in the RH muffler as it was full of oil residue and I had to weld a patch on it due to a severe rust-out. I thought that maybe a scab of rust was blocking it internally, so I made a tool to go through it from end to end with a 1" hole saw and open it up. If nothing else it sure sounded better.

In and around all this, I was looking at the exhaust manifold on the right side and while it was hard to see with the heat shields installed, but upun closer inspection, darned if the end of the manifold that the muffler fits over wasn't crushed to about half it's diameter. Not only that, but both of the manifolds on the parts bike were similarly crushed. I can't see why they got that way, but with a bit of heat and some careful body work, I was able to repair the damage.

I had ordered a carb synchronizing gauge on the first of the month and got the carbs adjusted.

I'm thinking: Oh boy! I finally get to ride it!

Before I got to the end of my driveway, the front wheel started to lock up. After a bit of troubleshooting, I determined that the right front caliper is the culprit. Screw it, I ordered rebuild kits for the front and rear calipers, front and rear master cylinder rebuild kits and new hoses for the front and rear. My oh my that stuff sure adds up.

The stock muffles are rough cosmetically, have patches welded on them and the baffles have been bored out, I have decided to build a new exhaust system. I found a company called Burns Stainless that sells stainless exhaust tubing in pretty much any diameter and bend you want and I'm going with a short section of 1.75" tube out of the manifolds to a set of Emgo vertical oval mufflers. The plan is to end the exhaust just to the rear of the axle, subject to change when I get the mufflers and decide what looks the best. The mufflers haven't arrived yet, nor has the various brake rebuild parts, so I am once again in a holding pattern.

I did finally get off my lazy butt and installed the new timing belts I have been staring at for the last two months or so. I was dreading the job for some reason and procrastinated as long as I could, but boredom finally overtook me and I did the install yesterday. I knew I had to do it as it still had the original Honda belts even though they looked perfect okay. As I thought, the hardest part was removing and installing the radiator and really the whole job from start to hearing the bike run only took a couple hours.

No pictures of anything as the bike looks the same as before.

I am pretty sure I am upside down financially on this thing with the addition of the brake parts and the exhaust system (I am afraid to add up the receipts) but I really don't care. I do these projects to give me something to do and I like the thought of resurrecting another motorcycle from becoming a parts bike.

I would like to actually ride the darn thing farther than the end of my driveway before winter sets in though.

 

[Adamc]

It's been a while since my last update, so I thought I would post a quick one.

I had a feeling the right side wasn't putting out as much exhaust as the left side. At first I thought that there was some sort of blockage in the RH muffler as it was full of oil residue and I had to weld a patch on it due to a severe rust-out. I thought that maybe a scab of rust was blocking it internally, so I made a tool to go through it from end to end with a 1" hole saw and open it up. If nothing else it sure sounded better.

In and around all this, I was looking at the exhaust manifold on the right side and while it was hard to see with the heat shields installed, but upun closer inspection, darned if the end of the manifold that the muffler fits over wasn't crushed to about half it's diameter. Not only that, but both of the manifolds on the parts bike were similarly crushed. I can't see why they got that way, but with a bit of heat and some careful body work, I was able to repair the damage.

I had ordered a carb synchronizing gauge on the first of the month and got the carbs adjusted.

I'm thinking: Oh boy! I finally get to ride it!

Before I got to the end of my driveway, the front wheel started to lock up. After a bit of troubleshooting, I determined that the right front caliper is the culprit. Screw it, I ordered rebuild kits for the front and rear calipers, front and rear master cylinder rebuild kits and new hoses for the front and rear. My oh my that stuff sure adds up.

The stock muffles are rough cosmetically, have patches welded on them and the baffles have been bored out, I have decided to build a new exhaust system. I found a company called Burns Stainless that sells stainless exhaust tubing in pretty much any diameter and bend you want and I'm going with a short section of 1.75" tube out of the manifolds to a set of Emgo vertical oval mufflers. The plan is to end the exhaust just to the rear of the axle, subject to change when I get the mufflers and decide what looks the best. The mufflers haven't arrived yet, nor has the various brake rebuild parts, so I am once again in a holding pattern.

I did finally get off my lazy butt and installed the new timing belts I have been staring at for the last two months or so. I was dreading the job for some reason and procrastinated as long as I could, but boredom finally overtook me and I did the install yesterday. I knew I had to do it as it still had the original Honda belts even though they looked perfect okay. As I thought, the hardest part was removing and installing the radiator and really the whole job from start to hearing the bike run only took a couple hours.

No pictures of anything as the bike looks the same as before.

I am pretty sure I am upside down financially on this thing with the addition of the brake parts and the exhaust system (I am afraid to add up the receipts) but I really don't care. I do these projects to give me something to do and I like the thought of resurrecting another motorcycle from becoming a parts bike.

I would like to actually ride the darn thing farther than the end of my driveway before winter sets in though.

Good work.
Welcome to the GL1000 Bankruptcy Club!

 

[Highpower]

The good news:
The caliper rebuild and master cylinder kits arrived on Saturday. They fit perfectly and the brakes have never felt this good before.

The new mufflers showed up on Saturday also and I was able to make up the new exhaust system for it over the weekend. The mufflers are from Emgo and I used a couple of 1 3/4" stainless exhaust pipe sections from Burns Stainless to connect them to the stock headers. With some cutting and welding on the pipe sections to get the proper angle, I managed to get the mufflers where I think they look the best. I was able to reuse the stock Honda muffler brackets as I wanted to retain the stock center stand stop on the left side. An added bonus is that they lined up nicely with the muffler brackets that came with the mufflers after a bit of judicious bending. I feel they are fairly unobtrusive and mount the mufflers very rigidly.

A quick clean up on the pipe sections and a bit of polishing and they came out pretty good. I am ordering a piece of 2" stainless tubing to make a couple of heat shields so I don't melt my ankle when sitting on the bike. I need to make my own so I can match the angle of the pipes or maybe not if I think a straight shield will look okay.

The bad news:
I have been chasing some sort of issue with these carburetors since I got it running and I am officially done with them. I located and purchased a carb set up and will run that instead of these nightmare Kehin's. I seem to be unable to transfer the picture into my computer in a format that will allow me to post a picture here......bummer.

 

[Wagner73]

Best looking muffler set I've seen on a GL1000...great work!

 

[Adamc]

Exhausts look great, nice work.
You are changing the stock carbs (a pain to set up) for what alternative?

 

[Highpower]

I am converting it to a single carb.

 

[Wagner73]

VTC Moto? They look nice, although there seems to be a lot of pro/con relative to the single carb conversion on the interwebs.

But what subject exists that there are not a lot of pros/cons?!

 

[Highpower]

The single carburetor setup arrived a couple of days ago and I installed it yesterday. What was nice about it is that it was already set up to work on a Goldwing, so it quite literally bolted right on. The engine runs smooth as silk and except for a couple of final adjustments, it is done and very rideable (is that an actual word?) as-is. While I had the carbs off, I painted the engine using Dupli-Color silver engine enamel. The color is just about a dead ringer for the original silver/grey.

I didn't like the air cleaner that came with it, so I made my own out of some 16 gauge steel that I had laying around. The new air filter is from a Cub Cadet lawn tractor and is larger both in diameter and height than the one that came with the single carb assembly. The stock glove box liner still fits with room to spare.

The paint is still drying on one side in this pic and I still had to flip it over and paint the other. I'm not in the least concerned with looks on these parts as you can't see this at all, but I do want rust protection.

The exhaust sounds AWSOME. It is always something of a crap shoot when you install mufflers that you have never heard before, but these puppies have a great tone to them and I think it will get better as they get a nice coat of carbon on the interior. I'm still waiting for the stainless to show up so I can fabricate the heat shields for the section of pipe between the headers and the muffler as I can already see me melting the flesh on my ankle if I don't install a set. I decided to build my own as there was nothing pre-made that I particularly liked.

I would say that the bike may have lost a bit of horsepower with this particular carb, (a Holley model 1940.) It is off of a mid sixties Ford 200ci six and is no way a performance item. I am going to look into what it would take to convert something a little larger like a Carter YF or maybe a Autolite 1100 to work with the Honda. There are some Mikuni downdraft carbs out there, but like the Holley, Carter and Autolite, they are all for automotive applications and will require modifications to function on the Gl1000.

 

[Wagner73]

Very nice! And glad the mufflers sounded good, because they certainly look good.

And I will be interested to see what you can adapt carb-wise...that carb is definitely not - as you said - a performance item...a friend in HS Mom had a '67 Mustang with that killer engine; 78 mph flat out!

I would think that one bonus of using an automotive carb would be the accelerator pump.

 

[Highpower]

Very nice! And glad the mufflers sounded good, because they certainly look good.

And I will be interested to see what you can adapt carb-wise...that carb is definitely not - as you said - a performance item...a friend in HS Mom had a '67 Mustang with that killer engine; 78 mph flat out!

I would think that one bonus of using an automotive carb would be the accelerator pump.

The acceleration with the Holley is, shall we say, a bit leisurely. I didn't ride it very far yesterday as I wanted to get an axillary throttle spring to assist in firmly closing the throttle. But if you aren't in a hurry to get there, it will easily cruise at 70-80mph.

The accelerator pump is wonderful and it's nice to only have one carburetor to fiddle with vs four of those miserable Kehin's that came on stock GL1000's. I remember that back in the day when I worked on Honda's, I hated Kehin's due to their overly complex design and my opinion of them hasn't changed. By my count, there are 2 air and 3 fuel jets, an emulsion tube and a needle jet/jet needle and a idle mixture screw in each carb. I might even be missing a couple, which could explain why I can't seem to get these working properly.

If room wasn't such an issue, I think a 2 barrel Holley or Autolite would work pretty good also. I am going to do some research to see what would be my best option going forward.

 

[Grimly]

If room wasn't such an issue, I think a 2 barrel Holley or Autolite would work pretty good also. I am going to do some research to see what would be my best option going forward.

If you can lay hands on one over there, a 28/36 Weber downdraught would be a good starting point.
Nice and progressive.

 

[Highpower]

If you can lay hands on one over there, a 28/36 Weber downdraught would be a good starting point.
Nice and progressive.

They are available and seem to be well under $100 on EBay. Once again I am out of mad money for the month, so I’ll have to wait until next month to see what I can get. Since I have what amounts to a set of junk stock carbs, I will rob the throttle quadrant and cable holder from it and use that on whatever I carburetor I decide to use.

There are also quite a few Weber 32/36 carbs available.

 

[Grimly]

They are available and seem to be well under $100 on EBay. Once again I am out of mad money for the month, so I’ll have to wait until next month to see what I can get. Since I have what amounts to a set of junk stock carbs, I will rob the throttle quadrant and cable holder from it and use that on whatever I carburetor I decide to use.

There are also quite a few Weber 32/36 carbs available.

The 28/36 occurred to me simply because I was familiar with them from yonks back, they being used on the Ford 3L Essex engine of the day, producing about 140-ish BHP. As such, they'd be a good starting point with that jetting, at least to get it running and re-jetting as needed.
The same engines were fitted with the 32/36 as time passed, so it should work fine, too.

 

[Highpower]

Bad news regarding using a Weber. I ordered a new one because I dearly wanted a progressive two throat carb. Just as a FYI to anyone else that may be thinking about such a swap, the Weber is too large to fit between the frame rails. I sent it back and got a refund and ordered a Carter YF which has a bigger throat than the little Holley.

The Carter clone should be here before the end of the week. I'll have to work out the throttle quadrant and cable mounting arraignment, but except for that, it should be a straight forward installation.

I know, famous last words.....

I did make a bit of forward progress as I got the method of mounting the heat shields worked out and the first one is finished except for final polish. I had to buy a spot welder (oh darn!) to attach the clamp mounts. I used a set of dies in my hydraulic cable crimper and to shape the clamp mounts, which came out pretty good if I do say so myself.

 

[Wagner73]

Disappointed to hear the Weber didn't fit, it would've likely been a nice setup.

Since I don't have one of these bikes, I can't envision the constraints you have to work within, but it certainly tanks a little idea I had rattling around in my brain, which was the possibility of a 4160-series Holley 390 CFM four bbl. With vacuum secondaries and a manifold with a little plenum, it would likely be killer on the Wing. But if it doesn't fit, oh well!