Of course, for it to be in (my) rather limited budget range it had to have "a little" flaw. This one was in parts and it was a GL1200, which is the last of the flat-fours and has got a bit of the ugly duckling stigma to it.
Now the first thing you notice, when working on one of these: It's huge. Everything about the overall dimensions on this bike is somewhat enormous.
Strictly speaking, the bike itself isn't too bad, but once the pannier rack (the huge chromed bit of pipework) is fitted the overall dimensions are incredible.
Fitting the swingarm was the first real challenge in re-assembling the whole lot. Unfortunately when the bike was painted, the swingarm-locator-pins got some paint on the bearing surfaces, so a bit of lathe-polishing-action was necesary.
The locating pin for the right rear-shock needed a bit of modification. In order to make it easier to slide-in, a slight taper was added as the stubborn little thing just didn't want to go into the thread on the final-drive housing.
The other side was comparatively simple, you just have to be aware that the end of the bolt is also the locating pin for the rear brake-caliper holder.
Tank put on to get an idea. My dad wants to strip it from all the fairing bits and I do agree, a naked Goldwing does have some appeal and looks by no means as massive as the fully dressed version.
As a next step it was time to turn to the engine and have a look at the things that I know are amiss on this one. First a quick glimpse under the skirt... Belts (obviously) need replacing, but the water pump still looks good. Also removing the covers allowed me (later) to slip the engine into the frame. (I know the manual says it's not necessary, but it was those extra few millimeters that counted in the end.)
One of the few things I knew that I would have to tackle was the clutch slave-cylinder. It had been leaking for quite a while and is an absolute nightmare to get to when the engine is installed.
This picture was taken AFTER the all the dried up brakefluid was cleaned out. A thorough and long-winded cleaning and polishing session followed.
The piston hadn't fared much better, but after a bit of polishing it came out as good enough. If it really needs to be replaced, I can easily copy it in stainless.
And that's the whole clutch-slave being re-assembled and working again.
With the clutch slave out of the way, the other problem I was reported was that the bike wasn't charging all that well anymore. Didn't matter much to the pre-owner as he mostly rode longer distances. I admit, I was slightly worried about that as the alternator is a rather special item, which is sold for a rather premium price. (To be fair, a belt driven car alternator was on my list as potential fixes!) It was much more simple than that though.
Luckily all the plugs are (relatively) DIN- or Japanese standard these days, so replacing the odd mangled plug isn't all that bad anymore.
What's much more annoying is the fact that over Christmas (most of these pictures were shot on the 23rd of December), I lost all the pictures of the engine re-installation. Which in some way is fine, because it was an absolute b*st*rd job. Should you be in the same situation: Remove the belt cover, this gives you about 10-15mm extra. Also unlike the factory manual states, the short end of the shaft-drive coupler goes towards the rear-wheel or otherwise you're lacking about 5-6mm to couple the splines. And it has to be put into the swingarm first. Don't even bother about installing the engine and then fitting it all up afterwards as I can't see how (again) you're going to fit the coupling. The rest is fairly simple, just hook it up to the frame and that's it. Use a car jack to lift and level out the engine and it's quite doable.
Next stop: electrics and probably a first start.
No comments:
Post a Comment