Honda custom Build

Stripping the Goldwing part 2

2015-10-25T08:36:00.001-07:00

Fall is here and winter is close. This winter I am not bringing the project bike in the dining room. That was very convenient but also a pain in the ass.

Mr. G helped me take some of the crap off of the bike, mostly the stuff I wouldn't be putting back on the bike, and some of the stuff I might want to work on during the winter.

The stuff not making it back on the bike are all the Interstate stuff (fairing, cases and crash bar), fenders and trailer hitch.

In all we removed 149lbs od dead weight.

We also removed the rear air shocks and the carbs.

Now we are left with a very naked Goldwing.

Not so big and threatening now.

Goldwing teardown

2015-09-27T10:07:00.000-07:00

I've started some of the bike's tear-down. It has a crap load of stuff I don't want to keep.

Top box off,

side cases off,

seat and fake tank (that's right, the real tank is under the seat) and luggage rack off off.

Finally the fairing is gone.

Note that lump on the front, that is a weight used when the bike has a fairing, that will be gone soon.

Sometimes you find weird stuff when you take apart a bike but this takes the cake. It was under the fake tank?!

This is the stuff I've taken off so far. It's got to weight over 100lbs. and I haven't taken off the trailer hitch yet.

Here is a cheap fender I picked up. It might make it on the bike or not, I just want to see if I can carve a gargoyle in it and maybe have it lit up somehow.

New Goldwing project

2015-08-01T13:32:00.001-07:00

Well here it is, the next project. You might remember that before the CX500 I had my heart set on a Goldwing. Due to some idiot named Larry we ended up scooping an awesome deal on some CX500s. Stuff happens for a reason I guess, we had fun with the CX.

Mr.G was gracious enough to get the thing to my place since I'm a little battered from something that is none of your business, sorry.

Now keep in mind that this thing weighs a ton and this vintage has no reverse.

We got the bike from Mr.D, my boss (the best one as far as I'm concerned). Mr.G took it around the block a couple times to make sure it went, turned and stopped to his satisfaction. Apart from an issue with the tilt steering, this one has it, Mr.G gave the OK.

Once at my place and shoehorned in a corner we quickly removed some of the easy stuff to see what we're dealing with.

This is going to be interesting!

Not much of an update

2015-07-04T16:13:00.002-07:00

Mr Bossman got a new toy...

We infected the Bosnian...

I made a table and lamp...

And the next project is lined up.

The Billings Estate Vinage Motorcycle show

2014-08-17T14:52:00.000-07:00

I've never seen on of these Yamahas, I want one.

It's a single cylinder 600cc dual carb and dual exhaust, neat.

Nice velocity stack plug!

Look at the brazing on the frame.

Note the speedo goes the opposite way. And bottom, a tire iron kick stand.

2014-06-22T13:09:00.001-07:00

Here are a few pics of it done. I'll upload a video as soon as I can.

At last!!

2014-05-26T09:32:00.001-07:00

As we left our heroes last at the Bat-cave...

My brake piston was seized so we rebuilt that.

Having test ridden the thing I can tell you that even with the stainless braided line this thing stops like a dump truck. I would definitely recommend swapping the front for something with dual disks.

Here is the holder thingy I was making. By the way, I found the little f@#ker today. Figures.

And here it is, Finished.

Note, there is a number between the letters OC and D on my plate. That bugs me a little.

I'll post a video after we go for a good ride.

It's alive!!!

2014-05-05T15:59:00.000-07:00

The monster is awake.

That was Mr. G giving it a try. Mr. Double J noticed the clutch is slipping , Mr. G is confirming that.

Mr. D also had a go at it.

I had a sticking throttle when the wheel was turned to one side. I removed the push cable and lubed the pull cable and now it returns well.

I had to take out the carbs to do so, I don't have the steady hands or the dexterity to work in that confined space. Stupid me, when I tried to put the damned things back I had them backwards. I got frustrated until I realized what I was trying to do. The first thing I did when I figured out what a nimrod I can be is look around to make sure Mr. Double J didn't see me. I know he's going to read this, and that's OK, but fixing it before he found out was important. I have a way of frustrating Mr. Double J with my nimrodedness. I don't blame him, I can do some real head scratchers.

Now what that is sorted out I have a clutch issue to deal with. I have the one out of the spare engine, I'll check its tolerances and if it's good it'll go in the bike.

It's out of my house!!

2014-04-25T16:05:00.000-07:00

I finally got the damn bike out of my dining room. I'm so glad, do you have any idea what it's like to entertain with a bike in your dining room?

Out the front door it went, thanks Mr. Double J. Chico supervised the extraction.

Now we tie up some loose ends and see how well it tuns without an H pipe and with pod filters instead of the air box.

Here it is at the shop.

Home stretch

2014-04-12T14:07:00.000-07:00

Soon...Very soon.

I've been looking everywhere for these. I should have started at my favorite bike shop in the first place. The Ottawa Goodtime Center hasn't let me down yet.

Now I have a good battery terminal, nice and permanent.

I've oiled up the pod filters.

I've got a question for you. Does anyone know what these nipples, tee hee, are on my carbs? Larry's, ptouie, bible of carbs doesn't mention them at all.

Here are the goodies I've been waiting for. I bought a set of bars and a brake master from Dime City Cycles and a custom Spiegler brake line from Moto Madness.

Sorry about the tuft of hair in the bottom of the last picture, I haven't had the time to shave my toes in a while. Anyhow, cool stuff right.

I took the old bars off and man are those grips hard to take off. I tried it dry and broke a sweat. Once I added a specially formulated ancient recipe lubricant it came off easy.

Ok, so the lubricant you see on the end of the grip is actually butter. Shut up, it worked great.

Here it is with the new bars.

I don't know how comfortable they'll be but they sure look dope. They fit the bike better aesthetically.

I lost the little thingamajig that holds the cables near the fender. I've seen it at least a dozen times during the winter but now that I want it I can't find it. No problem, made my own.

I'll paint it black and you won't notice it unless you really look.

Soon Mr. Double J will help me get this thing out of my house and bring it to work. There we'll fire it up and hopefully safety it.

I hope it runs Ok, fingers and furry toes crossed.

Bad brakes

2014-03-30T14:30:00.002-07:00

You've got to be kidding me, more snow. It's almost April and we just got dumped on.

The top of that shelter was clear last night.

My brake master is not pumping fluid. I tried to bleed them this week and got nowhere.

No problem, I have some goodies coming...

Enough winter allready

2014-03-23T11:16:00.001-07:00

Still waiting...

It was -14 Celsius with a wind chill of -24, that's 7 Fahrenheit with a chill of -11 F. We just got about 10cm of snow. No mater haw many cans of hair spray I go through I still can't get this global warming thing to happen fast enough.

I changed the final drive fluid with some of the purple stuff. I haven't used it before, I'm more of an Amsoil guy, but the stuff was sitting on the shelves at work for years so I grabbed a bottle and gave myself an awesome deal.

I've bought a pair of Icon Elsinore boots,

I'll let you know what I think of them.

2014-03-12T15:56:00.001-07:00

It's now a waiting game...

Details

2013-11-17T17:23:00.000-08:00

Now that it's too late for this season I don't have much to do but tinker with the details. I've painted the Honda emblem black, a nice dark touch.

I've used some copper wire instead of zip ties to hold some of the wiring.

I made a conduit for the wires going to the license out of copper tubing. It has to be bent just so. It will probably be strapped to the drive shaft tunnel with copper wire as well.

I'll have to figure out how to Finnish that last bit nicely

The fancy fuel filter I bought is too big, I'll ditch it for a smaller not as nice one.

And here's the bike mostly done, like I said, just details.

Nice photobomb Chico.

2013-10-27T08:57:00.001-07:00

Finally the paint is done. After lashing the tank down to an inch of its life, the last tank I buffed ended up flying across the room, I gave it a good buff. It turned out nice.

I also polished the gas cap and cover.

You can see the lace pattern better when I use the flash, the colour is off though, it's more like the other photos.

I played with the seat so that it would latch correctly, now it snaps on like a dream.

I slapped the new petcock on, nice and shinny. The old one was a mess.

A couple more shots just for the hell of it.

Superdog's a blur, I hope he leaves my drapes alone.

I gave brazing a shot, it might come in handy latter. I like the contrast of the metals.

No more electrical issues

2013-10-14T11:38:00.000-07:00

I don't know why the last stretch of a project is always the longest. Maybe you get lazy, maybe frustrated. Maybe you kept for last the stuff you dislike the most. Either way winter is coming and this bike still isn't done.

I had assumed things about this project that got me into trouble.

Firstly, I assumed that I had amber running lights at the front of this thing. I was very sure and this is why we kept blowing fuses left right and center. It turns out that the stock front ambers had only two wires. That means no running lights. *^%#@ me.

And B, I assumed that a white wire is hot and a black wire is ground. Apparently Chinese LEDs use whatever wires they feel like so the opposite was true.

Mr. G paid me a visit and his methodical ipso facto approach to this was more fruitful than my swear, yell and plead approach was.

Once these two facts where known the rest fell into place. We did have a "what the @#$" moment when I connected only one wire to a stock lamp I was using for troubleshooting and the damn thing lit up. I looked at Mr. G with the other wire in hand and once again swore. The look on his face was worth it. After a second or two of what the @#$^% we figured out the body of the lamp was grounding on the rad support. Freaking vintage stuff made of metal.

Some crappy wiring had to be fixed. I'm nor comfortable with stuff like this:

The wires to the battery box got lengthened.

Now everything works like it should.

I'm still at it

2013-09-08T17:39:00.001-07:00

I know it's the end of the summer and I had it in my head that this thing would be out but earlier this spring. No excuses, I got frustrated, lazy, sidetracked, so on, so forth.

Remember that scrape on the headlamp ring,

just like that, gone.

It turns out that the CX500D and the CX500C have slightly different front fenders, so after unsuccessfully trying to put my finished fender on I realized I had to start over again.

The brake lamp is now permanently mounted to the bracket thing and that is permanently affixed to what's left of the back of the frame.

I hid the wiring for the brake light using a little black thing and some precisely bent copper tubing. I'm not kidding when I say precise, I must have frigged up that thing half a dozen times with a little hand bender fighting me all the way. It worked out well though.

A little magic stuff called Shoe Goo and it's stuck in place plus I'm sure the wires won't chafe on the copper.

With the help of Mr. G the pipes where wrapped. Nice job if i do say so myself.

I got some Kuriakin Switchblade pegs for the VStar, I like.

My friend Mr Double J dived into the world of body work. He fixed some issues on his wife's bike, hell yeah she rides too, and took the opportunity of changing the looks a little.

Hang to paint...

and put together. Not bad, lots of swearing went into that.

Good night.

Getting close

2013-05-20T13:48:00.001-07:00

We are nearing the home stretch on this puppy.

As I've said before, my front wheel was a little wobbly. Not straight enough to pass a safety. Luckily I have a spare one on the other bike. I got the gents at the Honda dealership test it and it proved fine.

Here it is getting painted.

Put the new rubber on it and there you have it.

I've mounted the solenoid with its bracket in the battery box.

With the fender liner gone I made a little shield to keep stuff off of the wiring.

I am also missing the rubber bit of the shifter, perfect opportunity to make something different.

You can see from this photo all I have as a little metal nub.

I used an old wrench, some very small copper pipe and some Shoe Goo for that non slip rubber coating. Not bad.

The rectifier is going under the seat pan so I fabed up a bracket for it. I bought a reciprocating saw to do the job. Jeez that was too easy, I should have bought one of these a long time ago.

The paint has been set sanded and now I'm carefully buffing it.

About half way there.

Looks like a Cafe Racer

2013-04-14T14:08:00.001-07:00

The boys where over yesterday to help me make some headway on this project.

We got the rear signals installed and partially wired. I used some brass fittings to clean up the look at the back, a little Shoe Goo held that in place. Awesome stuff, thanks for the tip Mr.G.

Mr. G confirmed my issue with the battery box. Here is my redesigned box.

Sorry Mr. G, no more anonymity.

The handlebars went on along with the levers and grips. The cables got connected correctly the first time, that's 'cause I didn't do it.

Mr. G showed up in an official pit shirt... close enough. We later wondered why Ski-Doo pit crews wear short sleeved shirts?

Mr. Double J and Mr. G tackled the electrical. I have no clue or patience when it comes to that stuff. Thankfully these two have plenty of both.

Some of the wiring is custom made.

At one point we managed to release a little Japanese smoke, Mr. G was ready though, just in case.

Remember the spaghetti I had in the headlamp bucket? It's back with a vengeance. Mr. Double J was happy I labeled all the connectors. He'd have been happier had I labeled them all correctly. I had a couple labels that didn't make sense.

But...

... in the end, tee hee, the bike had front signals and the headlamp works.

We still have to figure the running lights and the LED blinkers.

The cooling system is back in,

and the exhaust is mounted. It will come off again to get wrapped but the dry fit confirms all is well.

We test fitted the tank and seat to see what room we had underneath and it looked good.

Hey, that's starting to look like a custom motorcycle.

I swing a leg over to check out the riding position.

It feels good.

Mr. G approves.

Overall a very productive day. We are that much closer to finishing our first custom Cafe Racer.

Thanks gentlemen.

Exhaust

2013-04-07T14:28:00.001-07:00

I test fitted the exhaust today. I'm not a happy camper. The pipes fit well but join underneath the engine where my battery box is going.

This means I have to alter my battery box. That's too bad, it was going to hold most of the electrical, now I have to figure something out.

I started converting my headlamp from a sealed unit to a halogen h4 setup. I'm not sure how you're supposed to do this at the side of the road, it's complicated enough on a workbench.

There is a little scrape that needs to be fixed where the bike went down in a previous life. I hadn't noticed this before. Another nice surprise.

A little bit of my secret weapon, JB Weld, and it should be good. Now I have to paint that too.

Right then, on to something else. I want to cover the wiring for the license plate lights with copper. That means I have to cover the long bit of bolt that comes out of the back. I also have to join them to a main tube. I flared the pipe to go over the bolts. This is what I come up with.

Now I just need to solder that. Guess what I don't have, solder.

Fuck it. I'm out of patience.

Paint

2013-03-31T16:36:00.000-07:00

I'm at the point where a lot of things have to get painted. I've painted the handlebars, the battery box, the fuse cover, the crash bars, and the tail lamp bracket.

Here is the finished battery box.

Instead of watching those dry I installed the gauges...

and the keeper of the magic smoke.

The engine had to come out, AGAIN, to get the carbs on. Now put the engine back in, probably not for the last time.

Flip the painted parts over and paint the under bits.

While that is drying I clean the radiator grille.
You can see the difference. The bottom is clean and the top is not.

Painting the tins on the motorcycle is turning out to be a little harder than I thought. I've painted my other bike every year with great success. I don't clean my bikes I just repaint them. But this time it seems harder than I'm used to. Maybe it's just that I'm trying something different.

Anyhow, this is what I have so far. Primer, a coat of red, a stripe, and some lace. Not bad but we'll see once the clear is on.

CB125s

2013-03-29T15:57:00.005-07:00

Mr. G and I put together his CB125s

An afternoon of work, good fun.

Battery box

2013-03-24T10:49:00.000-07:00

I've spent an inordinate amount of time making this battery box. I'm not sure why.

I realized the ammo can was a bit too long so I had to take some out.

Whack it with a hammer a couple times and voila.

Tack weld the sides and she's good. The metal is so thin I can only tack it, but that's fine.

Next I go to work making the brackets. A bolt and a couple of nuts make a perfect jig.

So far this is the only thing I've figured out on my own that wasn't over thought. Weld it to a plate and I have a bracket.

Cut some slits in the side of the box and tack the sucker in.

You can see I had to reenforce the side of the box otherwise I'd have blown through with the welder.

I the repeat the process for the other two tabs on the other side.

Pop that sucker under the motorcycle and bolt it in. Fits nicely. A little black paint and it will be less noticeable.

Sounds simple but it took me a whole weekend, on and off, to make this thing.

I also cleaned some of the gummed gas off the starter.

Plenty of ventilation and no source of ignition and all went well with this too.

Here is the other ammo can, I used it as a test surface for my custom paint job. Using lace that Mr. G found for me I gave it a go to see what it would look like.

I like it!

2013-03-17T15:26:00.000-07:00

I put the engine back in only to forget some parts, so it will have to come off again. Not a big deal, it's only 5 bolts.

I'm having issues with my tail lamp. I had it figured out, so I thought, and test fitted everything with success. Now for some reason it doesn't fit that well. It isn't secure. It keeps flopping down onto the fender. I don't understand. I thought maybe I'd reversed the brackets but after taking it apart and switching them numerous times it just doesn't go.

Note in the picture above how much of a gap is between the two pieces.

I really like the look of it out there though, but at this time I'm debating just drilling into the fender. It would be much simpler.

As for the battery box, it's going under the bike where the H pipe used to be.
I have ammo cans I've used as hard cases on my cruiser. One of them will become my battery box.

It's the right size but it's too tall. A dozen Dremel cutting disks later and this is what I have.

Because I have no attention span I installed the headlamp bucket with the turn signals.

Squirrel!

Filter pods an a carb

2013-03-10T09:13:00.000-07:00

It's time to put stuff back on the engine.

This is my thermostat housing, a bit of a mess. I take it apart to clean it but one of the tubes is seized in there.

You can see in the top picture that corrosion has fused this together. I give it a shot of penetrant and give it time to work. No luck. I clean the stuff off with brake clean over my kitchen sink. Maybe some vice grips. I give it a good twist and almost pooped myself forcing so hard. Still no luck. Maybe some heat. Get my little torch out and give that a try. Remember the brake clean? Well I forgot. As soon as I get close to the housing with the torch everything catches fire. HOLY CRAP! I turn on the faucet and douse the flames. Jeez buddy, that was stupid. At least nothing got burnt.

Wait, what's that smell, aw man. I've burnt my eyelashes and some of my beard and mustache. At least I wont have to trim those for a little while.

Next day at work it takes Mr. G and I to get the pieces apart.

I prep the headlamp brackets for paint and give them a nice black coat.

Now I put the water pump back on with the proper gasket.

Next I take the valve covers off and prep them for paint. I'll go with a grey for them.

I don't know why but I really like the looks of the valves. I wish I could get those in lexan or something.

Now I put the thermostat housing back together and back on the engine.

I used all new o ring, I don't want to chase any leaks.

Next the painted valve covers go back on.

In go the forks.

Note I've lowered the front end by an inch or so.

Finally, I had the front wheel balanced but they told me it was too bent to safety. I'll have to address this somehow. I have another wheel buried in the snow on the other bike but I don't know what shape it's in. I could also send this one out to be fixed.

Anyhow here is what that wheel looks like turning.

It doesn't seem that bad but I imagine it gets nasty at speeds.