Its an old bike, sooner or later you are going to have to fix something on it……
18th July 2005. I’m on the road again….
Well, the short of the long is that Freddy got sick of tripping over the bike bits that were piling up at the back door while I worked on the thing…..so, the order came down….”Fix it, NOW!” I did not wait for the “or else”, secretly I don’t think there was an or else, but I don’t generally need to be told to do things twice.
Forks.
Well, the main points are highlighted above, so we wont repeat them here. What we need most is a step by step guide on how to replace the fork seals. Sadly, I was in a rush and did not get all the photos I wanted, so a thousand words will have to do (I will try and take some photos after the fact soon).
1. Decide if you are going to leave the forks on the bike or not and if you are going to leave the springs in or not.
There are some good reasons for leaving them on. Its actually easier (IMHO) because the top fork tube is held firmly and you have the weight of the bike to press against. Not having the proper fork seal driver (or any pipe to make one out of) and or a vice to hold everything in makes it pointless to take the top tubes out. The springs do not need to be taken out since you can drain the fork oil from the bottom of the legs and refill them from the air joints on the top of the fork. But having said all that, I will describe removing the springs, because if you have not done it before, you need to do it at least once so you can see what sort of springs you have.
2. Remove the front wheel.
Think about where you are going to do this job, once the wheel is off, the bike is not going to be easy to move until its all back together! If you have all the parts, then its only going to take 1-2 hours at the most (2nd time round, 3-5 hours for the first time). Put the bike on the center stand (heh, good luck!). Put a jack or block of wood under the motor to hold the front wheel off the ground. Make sure this is pretty solid, you are going to be rocking the bike a fair bit, you do NOT want it falling over!
Undo and remove the 4x19mm silver bolts that hold the two brake calipers on. Undo and remove the philips head screw that holds on the speedo cable (you may have some fun doing this, try an impact driver). Remove the brake calipers. Use some string or ocky strap to hold the calipers up so they don’t hang on the hose. Remove the 4 axle holder bolts and the 2 axle holders. remove the front wheel. Undo and remove the 4 bolts that hold on the front mud guard. Slide the guard out the way and clear of the forks. Tie it back.
3. Disassemble the front forks.
Bleed off all air pressure in the forks. Put a bucket under the forks and remove the alan key from the very bottom of each fork leg. Let the forks drain while you do some more work. Undo the 3 air hose connections on the top of the fork caps. Remove the two fork caps. (I used a larger shifter, be very careful, they are under a fair bit of spring pressure!) Remove the springs, noting what way they come out. It shouldn’t matter which leg, but if you have original springs, they should go back the same way. If you have progressive springs fitted, it matters not which way up they are. Now pump the lower legs up and down a bit to get some more oil out.
Use your hands or gentle use of a fine flat blade screwdriver to prize up the dust seal. Slide it up the fork leg so its out the way. Use proper “C” clip pliers or needle nose pliers to remove the “C” clip. Make sure you really squeeze it together, that’s the only way its going to come out. Now, here comes the fun part. What we have to do now is force the old oil seal out of its seat and get the bottom leg separated from the upper leg. We do this by taking hold of the bottom leg, sliding it as far up the top leg as it will go and then with all your might sliding (slamming!) it down! The first time I did this, it took me about 20-30 goes before I got it to shift, the second it only took about 10-20 slams. Guess I did the first 20 slams too soft! Of course it goes with out saying make sure the “C” clip is all the way out before you start doing this!
Quick photo to show how to NOT remove the back wheel on an ’82 Goldwing.
Now that I have done it a few more times, I can highly recommend the ‘strip the rear end’ method. Its a lot faster and cleaner than it may first appear……..
- Put the bike on the center stand (heh heh, good luck!)
- If doing a fair bit of work on the back end, undo the 4x10mm bolts that hold each pannier on.
- If you are doing more than just changing the tier, then take the time to undo the 3 philips screws that hold each indicator on, life is a lot easier with the panniers well out the way. (if its a road side tire change, the panniers and indicators can stay on)
- Slacken off the 4x10mm bolts that hold the back pannier rack on, remove the “U” shape from behind the back wheel.
- Lift the number plate and remove the 3x8mm screws that hold the small section of the back mud guard.
- Remove the split pin and large 24mm bolt that holds the rear axle.
- Slacken the 12mm bolt that clamps the rear axle (on the left hand side).
- Remove the 3x14mm nuts that hold the rear shaft drive (Diff housing) on.
- Drive the axle out.
- Wiggle the back wheel out. (You may have to coax the rear disk brake pads apart to clear the disk).
- Keep the rear diff on and up the right way so no dirt gets into it and so the oil does not leak out the over flow.
Putting the wheel back on is pretty much the same in reverse, just make sure you drive the axle all the way in before you tighten the 3 nuts on the drive shaft housing!
Fuel system
20th March 2006
One day after our first anniversary together, I pull her apart again! (Will she ever forgive me?)
For some months now she has been on and off running rough, to the point where I have had to stop riding and start fixing.
I have replaced the plugs, replaced the fuel filter, replaced the spark plug leads, cleaned all the electrical connections I possibly can, changed the battery (its intermittent and hard to tell if its fuel or electrical) and a bunch of other things. Someone on the Goldwing forum I hang out a little on suggested it might be the advance and or the vacuum actuator for it. The only way to get to it and check it properly is to remove the motor or remove the fuel tank. I wanted to check the tank properly, so I chose this route. As it happens, I chose right (Even though at the time of writing this, I don’t know if the problem is fixed, but check out the photos!)
Before I replaced the plugs, this is what they looked like? Why are they red? Duno, I hope you can tell me, drop me a line, beno.id.au at gmail.com. To get the fuel tank out, remove the seat, may as well pull the 3 panniers off first….
Take a look in the tank from time to time, you might see something scary (like I did), or it might look good, either way you will know a bit more about your bike, not a bad thing. Go ahead and pull the dummy tank off, and pull the battery and battery box out.
Pull the back mud guard off, pull the back wheel off by removing it with the final drive. Then unbolt the rear brake master cylinder and drop off the rear brake lever from the cylinder by removing the pin. Remove the fuel tap (yes, it really is that much of a close fit!).
Ok, just juggle it around till you have it out. Its not easy to do, I had to also drop off the rear disk brake arm to get it out. If your swing arm can clear your exhaust, you may not have to do this, but the point is, you have gone this far, don’t give up, its gota come out. Why gota, well, just take a look at what was in the bottom!
Yeah! Now, that’s just gota do great things for the smooth running of the bike, honestly, I don’t know why all bikes don’t come with it as a standard accessory! eeeerrrrryyyyuuuuuccckkkkkk, yeah, enough jokes aside, some of it is the last 4 or so inches of the reserve pick up tube. The rest of it, well, lets just say, the tank is a little thinner than when it was new. Of course, seeing this, and even though there has been a fuel filter fitted, I just had to pull the carbies, and in the bottom of all 4 bowels, was this muck. Let the record show that I had drained all 4 bowls about a week before in trying to solve the problem, only a little red came out, so clearly just undoing the screw in the bottom of the bowl does not clean the gunk out, it just drains the bowl.
20th March 2006
Well, she (wish ‘she’ would tell me her name!) is back together (mostly). I went for a ride yesterday with Terry, just out and about and of course I rode to work today. Its really hard to explain, but its a different bike, its like we changed the motor over. Its WAY quieter, I mean way, way, WAY quieter, wind noise is more noticeable than motor noise now, and there is NO vibration in the foot pegs or handle bars any more. There never was any, but now what was there is totally gone, its noticeable just how much was there.
Here are the final sequence of photos.
At some stage, some one had routed the push pull throttle cables under this cross member. It caused a lot of friction on the cables and thus the throttle never really snapped shut the whole time I have owned the thing. Its been on my to do list for a while, and while the tank and carbies were out, now was the time to do it. Sadly, I ordered new cables before I realized that you could buy just the inner and ends and make up your own new inner cable. Never mind, the cables had worn though the plastic inner and were rubbing on the steel coil, so they need replacing at some stage. 80 bucks for the new cable set (on back order for 4 weeks and counting) and 6 bucks for the inner parts. I will put the new cables on at some stage in the future, for now, I have replaced the iners and routed the cables over the cross member. The throttle control now is amazing, slick.
Look, No carbies! Its not that hard to get them out once you are this far into it….
On the left we have the stuff I used to knock the ‘last’ of the rust off the tank walls and the rust that came out. In the middle is the main tank pickup. On the left we have the reserve pick up tube and where the rest of the tube is supposed to go (down through the clamp and around the corner of the tank!). Im pleased to say that the missing length really does not make me ‘miss’ out on any fuel. It still sucks the full 20 liters out of the tank.
Here is the poor old girl, this is about as striped as she got. But it was all worth it. Loads of super smooth miles aft she went back together.
some month in 2006……..
Always wanting to go further, and further into the back roads at obscure times, I finallly did what mother Honda should have done…..put a realistic sized fuel tank on the bike……..
Because of my past adventures into the orignal 20L tank, I knew I would not be able to tweak that, so I added another, ‘long range tank’ in the right hand panier.
Ten point 5 liters and I have never had a single regret. I now have a range of 470kms. Yeah!
There is fuel tap on the right hand side of the frame, sorry, no photo. The deal is, you have the main tank tap turned off and the LRT turned on. This drains the LRT, getting 170kms. When its dry, switch the tap off and the main tank on. You really need to make sure that you keep the main tank switched off, other wise its possible to drain some of the fuel from the main tank to the LRT, if its full, things could get ugly.
Making a new windshield for an ’82 Goldwing.
20th November 2005. I’ve been busy…
I dropped the bike, I am thrilled!…..(no really, read on).
I was pushing it back into its spot in the carport when I over balanced and the bike fell away from me. It just clipped the edge of the van and smashed the windshield. YAH! Ever since I have bought the thing, I have been thinking how I could extend the shield, it was just too short (or is it that I am too tall?). None of the ways I could come up with really was viable, so when it smashed, I was wrapped, here was my chance to make a new taller one……. A quick trip to Ballarat Engineering Plastics saw me with a sheet of Plexiglass. They said it was stronger, more flexible and should curve with heat nicely. It cost me $110. So far so good. I then used the old shield to mark out the shape of the new one.
So, there you have it. Not too bad. Of course this one was deliberately made bigger in *all* dimensions. So, that’s all well and good, but the original has this real nice curve to it……well, the Plexiglas also will curve with some heat, and it will stay curved when you remove the heat….thing is, how do you get the curve to stay put while you are doing this? Enter the ocky strap!
Enter lots of ocky straps. They worked a treat. I was a little surprised just how much heat was required to make the stuff bend. Make sure you carefully test your heat gun out on a test bit so you can see what it looks like just before it bubbles. I left the paper coating on as the Plexiglas is a little soft and scratches pretty easy (its only negative).
Once you have the shape all set, its time to get it on the bike.
Leaving the paper on makes it easy to mark and measure things, it also protects things while you handle and cut it with a jig saw. Use a course tooth blade, the fine ones glug up with the hot Plexiglas. How you go about making it symmetrical is up to you, I did the best I could and am fairly happy with the results, as usual when doing this sort of thing, the next one I do will be better….. so, anyway, how does it go?
Its mind numbingly good, no, its better than good, its simply fantastic! Where before I was getting a lot of wind buffet noise and fatigue from the air off the top of the shield, now, its quite, so quite its scary. I hear the motor like never before, the stereo has never sounded better, I can hear my blinker can ticking at 50kph and slower. I am warmer in the winter (yeah, ok, might/will need some vent thing happening in summer, I will see how we go), and just generally am a *lot* more comfortable riding the bike now. It was more than worth the money and about a days work to do it. In fact, I would pay and do it all again myself in a heart beat to make the next one when the time comes…..strength? My brother in law is a shooter, and so we tested the original shield and the new one, the old one split and fractured with a .22 rifle shot, the new one took a solid slug from a shotgun at (very) close range to put a small hole (but no shards!) in it. If a stone flicks up, the safest place on the bike is behind this new shield! Yes, its a little softer, just be careful cleaning the bugs off, use a good quality plastic polish and so far (some 5 months) it still looks like new (and better than the old one!).
February 2007. I managed to drop the Goldwing twice in one day!
Installing a Mud Bug is not with out excitment….that’s right, you might think that installing one of these;
might be really boring and even bordering on a “safe” thing to do…..I mean no one wants their ‘Wings stand to sink into the ground and fall over do they???
So, who would even think that the extra height could lead to this!;
The thing I am REALLY ticked off about the most????……My wife was standing next to me, the camera was sitting on the deck…..and we did not get a movie of me lifting it up! (Argghhh!!!)
(Side issue, in the middle photo, what’s with the oil leak at the front, and what’s with the hole in the motor?? (if you have answers, email me….. beno.id.au [at] gmail dot com))
Ok, so, rewind to the day before….I put the MUDBUG on the side stand, thinking, kewl, the bike wont sink into the ground now….. Ride to work and park the bike, Getting the gear off and locking the panniers, the bike is A LOT more vertical than I thought, and it tips over. One bent antenna and a smashed off RHS mirror (and some minor scratches on the windshield) is the only damage. (heh, at least on the second drop ’round, there was no RHS mirror to damage!)
I think to my self, Hmmm, better go home and grind that MUDBUG down a little to make it a bit lower……so, I get home, put the bike on the side stand and before I can say “Ricky Tick”, its fallen over……..Arnt habits amazing????? ….I have been parking the bike in the same spot for the past 2 years and never thought anything about it, its never fallen over there before……
So, while it was leaning over, I figured it cant go any further, so now was a good time to grind that MUDBUG down a little more……It ended up about an inch thiner. It still seems to work just the same, but now its a lot safer!
My feet slipped a little on the lose gravel, but using the ‘ol butt into the seat lifting trick, this old guy lifted his ‘Wing…..
Yeah, I should have taken a video, yeah, I should have taken a before photo of the mudbug……fact is, I dident…..but then again, I have not seen too many photos of dropped ‘Wings on the web either……..so….well……enough already……. (besides, at the end of the day, I fixed the mirror and replaced the antenna, and there are no marks on the bike (the windshield will get replaced at some stage with version 2), so it was a reasonable way to learn a lesson??)