I believe the only Lester rears for GL1000 applications available are 16 inch as that is what the customer of the day wanted. For me, I used CB 750F rear shocks to restore the stock ride height using the 16 inch rear.

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Proud member of the NGW Cartel
1977 GL1000 BAD DOG - Bring Along Deb, Decades Old Goldwing (April BOTM)
Motorcycle restoration is our hobby and we pay for that. But in the end of wrenching, the bikes are free!

I would have gone up to 18 for the rear but they are as rare as rocking horse droppings! If one crops up at a later date I'll be all over it!
With the larger tyre on the outside diameter difference of the shod 17 and 16 wheels is about 35mm so roughly 17.5mm lower. It feels no different putting it on the centre stand. I think I have a pair of CB750 shocks somewhere so I may try them. Do you happen to know what the eye to eye length is? Both my resto with OEM shocks and the the blower bike with Showas measure 335mm.

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1975 GL1000 Sold!
1976 GL1000 "GL1's evil twin" Supercharged cafe racer. Build thread Here
Now in Florida working for a living Ugh!.....projects on hold mostly!

Latest progress.

Got the rear disc drilled and rear wheel drive spider cleaned ready for the wheel:



Fitted the humungous rear tyre on the rim, new bearings, drilled disc and spider ready for balancing:



The disc had to be marked and removed after balancing in order to get the tyre into the swinging arm. The weld on the inside of the drive side of the swinging arm needed to be removed and the paint made good before the tyre would fit without rubbing. The pads had to be removed from the caliper to get that back on as it wont go into the smaller, wider wheel with them in place. All that is quite easy on this bike with the shortened fender and the 4 into 1 exhaust.

Rear wheel back in place:



As requested a couple of pictures of the complete bike sporting the Lesters.

Left side:



Right side:

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1975 GL1000 Sold!
1976 GL1000 "GL1's evil twin" Supercharged cafe racer. Build thread Here
Now in Florida working for a living Ugh!.....projects on hold mostly!

Awesome in every detail.
Thanks.
Greg.

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75 GL1000

Shocks are tricky to measure, but my best estimate is that the Showas off the CB750F were about 15 mm longer than the stock GL Shocks. But the end result is that the rear tire now will touch the ground while the bike is on the center stand. So maybe that was 5 mm too much. Yet when I sit on the bike, the geometry feels just right.

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Proud member of the NGW Cartel
1977 GL1000 BAD DOG - Bring Along Deb, Decades Old Goldwing (April BOTM)
Motorcycle restoration is our hobby and we pay for that. But in the end of wrenching, the bikes are free!

What is the spec of the rear tyre?

I had to loosen the disc so I could get the caliper to fit onto it when replacing the rear wheel, as the rim and the caliper interfere otherwise.

With the 155/15 tyre I didn't have to shave the welded flange off the right side of the swingarm though, it just fits..

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"The Moving Finger writes, and having writ, moves on,
nor all your Piety nor Wit
can lure it back to cancel half a line...
so....probably best use Tipp-Ex in future?"

1976 GL1000 "Mitzi"
1976 GL1000 and Héchard sidecar "Mitzi 2"
1977 GL1000 'The Parts Bike' now in bits
1976 XT500 'C'
1976 TT500 'C'
1980 Paris-Dakar XT500 (replica)
1992 Grinnall Scorpion SC3 prototype
1993 'Big Valve' BMW R1100RS "Red Sonja"


Hal's Nalbum

Hi. Nice very nice. are you going to run a tacho on the bike, if so where will it be driven from.
P.S. is any one out there tinkering with fuel injection ?.

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5x GL1000S, 1x GL1500, 1x Z1300

Love the whole thing Q, you have done a great job

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82 GL1100 Interstate-Oldewing
77 GL1000 Black and Hacked, Velorex car and a gem set.....
68 CB 350 Wifeys and oh so cool
25 percent stake in 898 project, *beverages consumed.

Sometimes I wrestle with my inner demons..........
Other times we just hug.......

Team 898

Go to the unique carburetion section on this site. There are at least a couple guys working on it right now.

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1976 Goldwing Super Sport
1982 GL1100 Standard Bagger (in progress)
1985 Honda Elite
1976 KZ900 Dragbike
1992 ZX7 Dragbike (KZ900 style motor w/NOS)
and a rotation of various purchases

Thanks for all the comments and encouragement............



I did a bit of searching for data on the CB750 shocks and came up with a couple of sizes. People selling "sandcast model" ones quote a c to c length of 340mm which is only 5mm longer than the standard ones. Other quote a c to c measurement of 350 which I guess is what you have? That would probably make the rear touch the ground when on the stand. I also found these:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/180672243528?it ... 23&vxp=mtr

The CB750 forums give them mixed reviews and I am not sure about the "one spring fits all" approach. Still they are cheap enough and look cool. Chinese I guess!


It's a Bridgestone Spitfire S11 150/80 16. The Lester rim is also wider than the stock one. I had to remove the weld on the inner right hand side of the swinging arm and the disc rotor goes on after the wheel is on the splines. It may be possible to slide the disc into the caliper before mounting the disc, I have not tried that. It was easy to drop the pads out and wiggle it on to the disc rotor. Plenty of room on that side with no exhaust in the way. The Lester wheel looks to be offset to the drive hub side to me so I will do some accurate measurements later. If it is it would be easy enough to move it across the spindle a bit.



The tacho is included in the Acewell 3962 instrument It is electronic so no need for the carbuncle on the end of the right hand cam! . It also does the water temp, fuel gauge and a ton of other stuff. There is some more on it earlier in the thread I believe.



I am also looking at this....efi with a blower....could be my next project!

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1975 GL1000 Sold!
1976 GL1000 "GL1's evil twin" Supercharged cafe racer. Build thread Here
Now in Florida working for a living Ugh!.....projects on hold mostly!

The new 75 gl1000 17" rear tire was a strange tire size/configuration back then with poor tread life. It had a specific bead design and thus, Lester must of designed their 16" mag, with so many 16" tires available back in the day ?

Comments ?

I would imagine another reason Lester went with the 16" rear was because everyone was taking the rear wheel's off and putting on 16" wheels. There are a lot of spoked wheel bikes that did this too. Remember all the 750's and even KZ900's running around with "hog" wheels? A popular mod back in the day.

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1976 Goldwing Super Sport
1982 GL1100 Standard Bagger (in progress)
1985 Honda Elite
1976 KZ900 Dragbike
1992 ZX7 Dragbike (KZ900 style motor w/NOS)
and a rotation of various purchases

Weird when you think that bikes like the cb750 had 18 inch rears? It may have been a way of customising whilst reducing the gearing slightly. I seem to remember you Mercans whinging about tractability in top gear for some reason?

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1975 GL1000 Sold!
1976 GL1000 "GL1's evil twin" Supercharged cafe racer. Build thread Here
Now in Florida working for a living Ugh!.....projects on hold mostly!

LOL, not all of us. I haveto laugh a little at the guys that do talk about the GL getting light in the front end at near triple digit speeds. They should have ridden a stock KZ900 at the same speed. The prase "death grip" comes to mind.

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1976 Goldwing Super Sport
1982 GL1100 Standard Bagger (in progress)
1985 Honda Elite
1976 KZ900 Dragbike
1992 ZX7 Dragbike (KZ900 style motor w/NOS)
and a rotation of various purchases

Nice work. I have enjoyed reading about it, thanks.

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I found the end of the internet

---- Bradshaw Bikes offers polishing and upholstering for your Wing!