Winging it

Wrapping can be pretty difficult when you start getting into the really complex curves and shapes, and it can take a lot of time to do. I've tried to learn myself how to shoot paint and it didn't go very well, but with no prior experience I feel that I was able to put the vinyl on while learning on-the-job and have wound up with a very acceptable result. There are seams in the vinyl that are definitely visible -- if you look at the picture of the bike with just the one sidebox lid wrapped, you can see where I tore the vinyl and had to cut in a new section -- but you can make them a little less obvious by putting them on the corners and edges. Apparently, it has a lifespan of 3-5 years, but being garage-kept should stretch the life closer to the 5 year mark. The really nice part, though, is that the amount of prep work is very minimal for doing this in your own garage. No need to build a paint booth, you don't really have to worry that much about dust and bugs -- they will impact the finish if you get them under the vinyl, but simply shooing the bugs away while you're working and using a bench brush to clean your table before you start takes care of that. There's no need for any protective gear unless you don't trust yourself with an Xacto knife, and the process doesn't generate any fumes that are unpleasant or harmful.

I think the biggest lesson that I've learned is that the vinyl is only going to stretch so much before it starts to fold in on itself so you just can't be afraid of seams. I've heard that the pros practice with bowling pins and being able to wrap one in a single sheet, but I'm not to that level by any stretch (ha!). Despite that, I'd say that the final appearance is almost as good as if it were totally seamless. That last piece that I pictured up there is the part that goes behind the rear wheel, between the sideboxes and it has so much curvature to it, I believe I wound up using five or six discreet pieces of vinyl to get it done and it took me right around four hours. If you look at it up close -- say 8-12 inches from your eyeballs -- you can see all the seams, but once you get to 18-24 inches +, it winds up looking pretty good.

I made some more progress with the bike last night so now the only part left to wrap is about 30% of the front fairing. When I'm done with that, perhaps I'll write up a wrapping primer and stick it in the tech tip section.

I'm tempted to try wrapping my Grom. It seems like the panels are pretty simple and it shouldn't take too much vinyl.

(Almost) Everything is wrapped and I've started assembling the parts I need to take care of the mechanicals. I picked up fresh brake fluid and oil, a new oil filter, and the adjustable thermostatic switch for the cooling fan from Advance last night and I just ordered the fork seals, brake pads, shifter seal, and rear shock seals from Bike Bandit.

I've pulled out a bunch of old crappy stereo wiring and starting putting the bodywork back on in places that I won't have to remove for access. The local Honda shop can get me some fresh Dunlops so I need to take the spare rims over to have them get started on that project. In the meantime, I can start on the timing belt, thermo switch, and oil and coolant changes. When the tires arrive, I'll do one end of the bike at a time and replace the tire, brake pads, brake fluid, and bodywork. There isn't anything filling the hole where the sound system goes, but I'll get to that eventually!

All the old radio wiring is gone from the bike now, which is nice. I put the headlight back in and got the timing belts changed. While trying to wire in a new thermostatic control for the cooling fan, I discovered that there is no power at all for the existing cooling fan, so the on-board temperature switch might be just fine. The weird thing is that there's no power for the fan at the fuse box, so maybe something has come loose from the ignition switch, if I'm reading the wiring diagram properly. If I can't figure that out in fairly short order, I'll just run a new circuit and fuse for the fan through the universal thermostatic switch.

Using a combination of acetone and brake fluid, I was able to clean the blue and orange overspray off the timing covers. In the future, I think I'll just use the brake fluid method as the acetone tends to want to pull off the clear coat and I don't want to have to pull all the clearcoat off of all the chrome bits.

While hunting around for the timing belts, I found the rear air shocks from the other bike, so I can go ahead and get those taken apart for rebuilding and I think that the various chrome racks for the side and rear luggage are much less rusted that I remember, so I think I'll be putting those back on. Poking around in the fairing, I can't seem to get the vent ducts from the Aspencade to fit right and the left turn signal wiring seems to have a break in it, so those will need to be fixed. I also don't know what the lights directly to the side of the headlight are supposed to do. So far, they don't seem to come on at all, so I think there's something to be worked on there.

For tonight, though, I've got some stupid work to do, so I won't be making any progress.

Looking sweet, although I liked the orange

Now that I'm back in town, I've got to get over there and check it out in person.

I made a couple discoveries last night that will likely work out for the best for me. First of all, I was trying to trace back the reason for the cooling fan not getting any power. Particularly infuriating was that I didn't have power at the fuse box, so I figured there must have been something bad in the ignition switch or the wiring that led from it. Looking at the wires I had and then at the wiring diagram, it wasn't making any sense whatsoever, so I peeled back the insulation and finally found my blue-orange wire that is responsible for bringing the power from the key switch to the fuse box. That wire came out of the fuse box and was just clipped and folded back in to the tape. Perplexing. So I dug further and I am about 98% certain that at some point there was a problem with the ignition switch so someone just grabbed a random Honda ignition switch and swapped it in either not knowing or not caring that the output for the replacement switch had only 6 wires where the correct switch has 7. The obvious solution, then, is to just leave one of the wires off and pretend it doesn't exist. I mean, how important could it possibly be?

I went ahead and pulled out the phony ignition switch and replaced it with the one from the '84 Aspencade. That will mean that I need to bring all the box locks over and such, but that won't be a big deal. When I tried to start the bike up after putting the radiator back in, the solenoid doesn't fire now, though. I seem to recall that when I put that solenoid in last year, wiring it up the "right" way didn't work and I had to do something weird to make it work, but it was the way the bad solenoid that was originally on the bike was set up. So, I'm guessing that the previous owner also had to hack away at that part of the harness in order to make his stupid ignition switch work, so I'll go back out there with the wiring diagram and see if I can correct that part of it as well.

On the better news side, I pulled the '84 wheels out of storage to drop off for $280 worth of new rubber and discovered that the tires have held pressure, aren't dry-rotted or cracked, have lots of life above the wear indicators, and had date codes that are within a very healthy margin of "safe". So it looks like I won't be buying new tires right away after all!

I'm going to need to take a couple nights off of bike work for a business trip plus a Rallycross, but I have seals on the way from BikeBandit so I can rebuild the front and rear suspension so other than figuring out the wiring, that's probably the next thing to do. Then I'll get the old bodywork off, swap the tires and suspension in the rear, put the new bodywork on, and then do the same to the front. Some fluid changees and a couple minor re-assembly tasks and I'll be back on the road.

Good news. We need pictures of the bike when you get all the body work on.

I took apart the wire tape to see if I could find the source of the starter relay problem. It was pretty messy, but not really wrong:

After doing some testing, I discovered that the problem was in one of the connectors up near the handlebars. Apparently one of the wires was a bit loose and squeezing it together seems to have it fixed. For now, at least.

I went ahead and got the top box put together and bolted on. I decided to give it a mock up as I wait for parts to arrive tomorrow:

Looks good!

Back for more parts.

I took apart the rear shocks from both the '84 and the '87. Kinda different on the inside, so I went with the '87 shocks because that matches my parts diagram better. The bushings were no good and the boots were completely destroyed, so I've got those on order again. It took a little doing to disassemble: After getting the boot off, there is a little snap ring/c-clip in a groove and it's the type without the little holes for the snap ring pliers. After messing around with it for what seemed to be forever, I discovered via the internet that you can tap the bottom washer up into the body of the shock a bit which gives you the space needed to lever out the wire. Once that was done it wasa simple matter of popping them open with air and then draining the fluid and replacing the oil seal. I found that for some reason I could not get the oil seal to drive in to the shock with that metal bottom washer in place. Taking that out and pressing it in with a section of black iron pipe and a hammer worked perfectly, though. Go figure.

While I wait on those parts, I'll go ahead and continue on to see what I find. Scary fact: One of the reasons that the bike was rattling and clattering so much over bumps was that the right shock wasn't actually bolted to the bike on its top mount. The nut that is supposed to hold that and the frame for the luggage was missing and everything was just kind of banging around. Isn't that great?

I got the new boots and bushings installed on the rear shocks and got them put back on the bike. I filled them with a synthetic ATF (because it’s what I had on the shelf) after installing them on the bike by sitting backwards where the seat goes and pushing down then pouring in fluid as I lifted off the bike. I’m not 100% sure that I wound up getting the same amount in both sides (there was some spillage), but it should be close. I aired them up to about 45psi and they seem to be holding and not leaking.

I also got the old brake fluid drained out and filled it with new synthetic DOT4 fluid. Pedal and lever both feel pretty solid, but I can always bleed it later if I need to. While I was back there, I drained out final drive and re-filled it with fresh gear oil. It was hard to tell exactly how much drained out, but it didn’t seem to drain very much out.

With the shocks installed, I got the sidebag mounting bracket re-installed and started put the left bag on. Before I put the right bag on, I have to put the latch hardware on, but once that is done the back half of the bike will be ready to go.

I got the wiring re-wrapped and tucked in place, so now I need to get the oil drained, replace the shifter bushing, fill the oil and the coolant, swap the speedo gear, swap the fender and front tire, fix the front left turn signal, put the front faring back together, and get all the bodywork bolted back down. Getting real close now!

Every time I see a goldwing this age and style, I think of this... even though it isn't a goldwing, just the sharp edges and geometry and I think, "IT SHOULD FLY!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1NpZxn860M

Keep up the good work!

Last night I finally was able to do it: The last remaining orange part on the bike was the front fender and I yanked it out, replacing it with the wrapped blue fender. That was the very last orange bit on the bike (other than the atrocious overspray, of course) and it is finally gone.

Other things that needed work: There was some sort of relay or something that was wired in to the rear trunk brake lighting that caused the bulb on the right side not to light. I ripped that out and returned the wiring to stock and everything works. The seat and the faux tank are bolted in securely, and I applied some more PVC cement to the left side cover mounting pegs.

The front wheel swapped fairly easily but I found some weirdness along the way. The speedometer gear on the '84 Aspencade wheel appears to be totally identical to the one of the '87 Interstate. I don't know if going to the digital box was a later change or what, but I left the '84 wheel as it was and mounted it up. Getting it to mount, however, was a slight challenge as the brake rotors on the '84 wheel were both vented discs which made them much thicker than the ones on the '87. The caliper brackets have grooves cut in them to clear the rotor, but the '87 brackets needed some clearancing to fit the older rotors. Fortunately, the '84 caliper brackets were tucked away in the corner, still attached to the forks of the '84, so I pulled them off and swapped out the brackets. Worked like a champ.

The radiator is refilled with new coolant, and I've begun to re-assemble the front fairing. I need to swap the locks on the faux tank and the fairing compartment -- but I'm not sure if the lock from the '84 fairing compartment is still functional. I may just wind up having two keys on the ring. We shall see. It certainly isn't a priority.

Next up, I need to get the oil changed and swap out that seal. After that, it's just getting the other mirror on and playing with the fairing. I am short one of the windscreen bolts so I need to source a new one, and then I can put the front together. Still left to color change, though, are the fairing edge trim bits and the little vent covers for the lower fairings. I don't need either of those to be able to move the title and register the bike, though! I'm fairly confident that I will be getting a license plate for the bike in the early part of next week.

It will be great to see it back on the road.

Just returned from the courthouse. Put about 20 miles on the bike to take it there, get it "inspected" and tagged, fill it with fresh gas, and bring it home.

I'm not finished yet, and I didn't exactly get any pictures because I was in a bit of a rush, but it rides quite well. The front suspension and/or the anti-dive system needs to be addressed. I may not have enough air in the forks, but heavy braking will dip the front down really hard and it seems a little bouncy up front just going over bumps in the road. Something is interfering with the cooling fan, so I need to double check the wires and everything to get it to stop making that noise. I also need to swap out a couple more key locks on the front compartments so that I only need one key for the bike. There's a little orange left, and the lower fairing vent covers and the upper fairing trim both need to be wrapped and put on. At this point, though, it is totally ride-able. And even legal to do so! Woo!

Definitely more to do, but at least I can ride it while I'm finishing up!

Awesome!

Looks good!

How hard did you find changing the timing belts? I've got half an eye out for a naked GL1000 but the fact that they'll most likely need a timing belt change immediately was always a concern.

Thanks!

The timing belts were actually not very hard to do at all. The tricky part is that one of the cams will be under a little spring pressure -- for me it was the right one -- and you need to check, double-check, and then triple-check that everything is on the mark. And then check it again. Otherwise, it's a pretty straightforward operation. The radiator can be a little tricky to remove, but it just needs a little patience. Also, remove the water pump cover first (which is what the lower rad hose connects to) and then pull the whole assembly with hose attached down off the radiator. Save yourself a ton of money and get the Gates belts from Amazon since Gates manufactures the OEM Honda ones. Also, when you put it back together, go to Autozone and get a Dayco B71382 radiator hose. You can cut that and get the upper and lower section for the 'Wing for $10 versus $50+ for the pair from the big H.

I don't know how much of that info carries over from the GL1200 to the earlier motors, but I don't think there was that much difference until they added the 5th and 6th cylinders in the 1500. Regardless, I think the timing belt job took me about 2 hours, give or take, and there was some beer drinking going on there, so if you were getting all serious about it you could shave time off that.

Since we finally had a break in the rain, I got up early this morning and went out for my first real ride. I put about 50 miles on it and went, appropriately enough, to Rabbit Hash and back. Granted, the general store wasn't open at that early hour, so I didn't stop, but it was a great ride regardless!

I had the bike on the side stand a lot yesterday while I was cleaning out the garage and I got a bit of smoke when I started it up. The little puff out the back is normal, but the stuff burning off the exhaust led me to find that the left valve cover gasket has a little bit of a leak to it. No big deal -- I'll get the gasket and the next time I change the oil, I'll swap out the gasket. In the meantime, I'll just use the center stand (which I prefer to do anyway).

Upon my return, I found that there was a second small oil leak coming from the back of the engine. I'm not 100% sure if I've fixed it, but I did find that the bolt that holds the stator cover on was super loose. Like bump it lightly with your hand and it turns loose. I torqued that down to the 7 foot pounds and ran it for a bit to see if any more oil would weep out and it's clean. Hopefully that will take care of it. It's not a big leak, but my goal is of course zero.

I've never ridden anything this big before (that's what she said), so it's a little intimidating to shuffle through the twisties. It will dig in, lean, and go just fine, but there's something about the heft of it plus the width of the fairing that tells my brain that it can't possibly lean as far as it's leaning. I definitely need to ride it more to get used to it.

They handle really well for a big heavy bike.

I've scraped the pegs on mine pretty easily.

I do love it on the highway though, 75mph all day is no problem.

At this point, I've managed to put a couple hundred miles on the clock between rain storms and it has been great to ride. I ordered up a complete lock set from eBay because I don't have a good gas tank lock that matches the ignition lock and because the luggage latch hardware from both bikes is kind of pitted and ugly. The new lock set is great, except that the ignition switch plug has a broken terminal so I'll need to put the existing plug on the new switch before installation.

The rear brake started grinding on me somewhat suddenly, so I got some new EBC pads, swapped the rotor for the one that was originally on the '87 and then greased the heck out of the caliper to keep it from dragging. So far, it seems to be doing okay.

The forks needed new seals, so I got the All Balls kit off my shelf and went out to swap the seals with the forks on the bike. Once I got it apart, I discovered that the bushings were pretty worn so I got a new set and proceeded to put everything back together. It took a while to figure out how to press the seals in -- I used a section of 1-1/2" PVC pipe with a flange on it that I cut lengthwise and wrapped around the fork with the flange pressed against the seal. I took a 4 or 5 foot section of steel square tubing and beat one end flat with a hammer, and then bent the tip over itself and hammer it flat again to kind of blunt it out a bit. Using an impact socket, I gave it a rounded shape to match the seal and then lowered in down through the fairing and put it against the PVC flange. I gavee it a couple whacks with the hammer, twisted the lower fork section, hammered a couple more whacks, and so on until the seal was in place. It actually worked really well and I had the seals installed in a matter of minutes, once I figured out that tool.

To get the top caps installed, I tried pressing down on the springs while trying to hand-tighten the cap, but I just couldn't do it. I heard that there was a high probability of cross-threading the caps, but I figured I have another set of forks and I wasn't getting anywhere with the gentle method. I put all my weight on the impact gun and used it to push the caps down. Once they were seated on the threads, I gve it a short burst on the trigger and lo and behold, no cross-thread!

It's still a little wobbly when I'm deep in a turn, so I'm not sure what to go after next, but it does ride much better now. I was thinking the steering bearings, but they're not notchy at all and I thought that when they went bad the biggest tell was that there was a "spot" in them. For now, though, I'm just enjoying being able to ride!

Had a great ride with the wife down to Rabbit Hash for some great brisket at the Scalded Hog and a tour through the general store. I definitely need to do the steering bearings, though. I couldn't feel it through the handlebars, but if I put the front wheel in the air and then move the tire side-to-side, there is a noticeable notch right in the center. That's going to be a pretty big job, though. I'll need to manufacture a lock nut tool, get a spring scale to set the pre-load, and then get the bearing kit and the new lock nut. It looks like it requires taking the whole front end apart again so I might do new brake pads on the front while I'm in there anyway. We'll see. Slowly but surely I'm making a basically new bike out of it!

I also think that I may need to change the oil in the front already -- I suspect that despite the cleaning I gave it, there was enough of the old oil and gunk in there and the ATF managed to clean it all out. It's just a little bouncy in the front.

On the entertainment front, I found a bluetooth/usb/tuner head unit from Panasonic that looks pretty shallow. I'll get that installed along with some speakers for the front, and then while I have everything apart, I'll get the USB charge port installed for my phone.

I still need a handful of trim parts to finish things up, but other than the steering bearings up front, I think things are great mechanically.