Blood Sweat and Gears (BSG) 76/78/83

[Motowalt]

Over the years, I had accumulated various extra parts during the build of Patience, my 1976 GL1000 Café bike.

My inventory included a solid 1978 frame, complete with title, a 76 spare motor of unknown history and numerous other parts.

I’ve always been partial to the styling and higher revving motor of the First Generation 1975-1977 GL1000’s over the 1978-1979 Second Generation bikes which have a bit more of their grunt at the lower end of the rev range.

I had the frame up for sale as well as a 16” rear Lester mag wheel for a quite a while with no interest, so decided to see what I could build with them.

Then I started searching for an 83 front end, because I liked the mag wheel and thought it would match up well with the rear Lester I already had.

While attending the Harvest Classic in Luckenbach, I happened to meet fellow NGW’r Jeremy, aka Phaserburn from Houston who put me in touch with Bob, aka Kwixdraw from Dallas who just happened to have a complete front end for sale from his 83…
Dallas is about 250 miles from San Antonio, but it just so happened my friend Moose, aka Moose (lol) from Indiana who was passing through Dallas agreed to pick up the front end for me and bring it down on his trailer. Things were looking up.

As soon as I got the front end, I really liked the looks of it. Kind of butch, robust and raw.

It was unknown if the motor would turn over or was hopelessly locked up for eternity. But I went forward and installed the motor in the frame and put the Lester mag on the rear so I could roll it around the garage.

With liberal amounts of PB Blaster soaking in the spark plug holes, a new oil filter and fresh mix of 10W40 and Marvel Mystery Oil (MMO) in the crankcase, I snicked the transmission into 5th gear and using the rear wheel, rocked the pistons bit by bit over several days to free the rings from their static positions (who knows how long they’d been still…). Hooray, she turns over and is not locked up!

Just then the phone began ringing and I got two inquiries from two different guys who now wanted to buy the ‘78 frame for their own builds!

So, I had to decide either to dismantle the rolling bike and sell all the parts or go forward with the project. Easy to guess which way I went!

[Roady]

Looks just like the model kit I did a while back.

[77Wing]

You already started...can't turn back now!

[Motowalt]

Hey Roady,
Thanks for that little blast from the past! I always liked the BS&T sound...

77wing,
More pics to come shortly as much progress has been made...just have to organize the pics and write up the narrative in some sort of logical sequence...

[Motowalt]

Found a decent set of ‘76 carbs and rebuilt them using Barracuda (Chinese) carb kits that a previous owner had given to me and never used. These are no where near the quality of Randakk’s kits, but I had them in hand and was anxious to see if the motor would run so I put them in.

I installed a shelter frame from a 76 along with the coils/plugs and wiring harness and bought a new battery. The starter solenoid I had was old and when I opened it up, I found it was rusted solid inside, so had to find another.

The timing belts said Honda on them so may have been the 37 year old originals and I didn’t want to take a chance on them letting go at just the wrong time so replaced them and adjusted the valves while I was at it.

The tank I had was rusty so I set up an IV bottle for fuel along with a new filter.
Hooked up to the fuel pump and watched it squirt clean fuel out the outlet before hooking up that end to my clean carbs…

To my amazement, she started up quickly and sounded good. After the PB blaster burned off, she didn’t smoke at all and sounded strong. Looks like she’s a keeper…
(didn't even need to use the fire extinguisher... )

The Barracuda kits don’t included carb-to-plenum o rings or a plenum gasket, and there was raw gas flooding the plenum so I ordered those parts in ethanol-resistant Viton from Randakk’s. (I’ll never use anything other than OEM or Randakk’s carb parts from now on)…

[Roady]

Great that she's a runner!

Please tell us that you didn't use any brass from those cheepo kits.

[Motowalt]

Luckily, I was able to clean the OEM jets using a sonic cleaner with Yamaha carb dip and several heat cycles...those Chinese brass jets are brittle junk...

[Easter]

Glad to see you busy on another wing. Do you still own Patience?

[Motowalt]

Yup,
Still have Patience...sadly, don't ride her as much lately...been riding the Super Tenere alot though.

[Motowalt]

Got the bike running up and down the block, but it kept popping out of first gear….

With advice from several of the good guys at NGW, I pulled the front engine cover and everything looked ok in there, so the problem appeared to be internal, which meant splitting the cases…uh oh…that was more than I bargained for…

]

Not wanting to go there, I started searching for a good used engine…then figured while I was looking, I had nothing to lose and pulled the motor back out of the frame and began to go deep into the belly of the beast…here goes nothing...





Found the gear dogs and forks worn and a chip missing from the shift drum channel and needing replacement.







I had replacement forks and dogs in my stock of spares, and bought a used drum (even polished the grooves with steel wool on the advice of Robin since I was waiting on gaskets, good tip by the way-thanks for that Robin!)…then put it all together and buttoned it back up.

Reinstalled the motor only to find she still was hard to shift and hard to find neutral…

Then ALwing advised the possibility of a bad oil scavenging pump, located beneath the clutch pack…seems that too high an oil level causes hard shifting and makes it hard to find neutral…the oil scavenging pump can be damaged when the B Clutch Plate looses its tiny brass rivets and they get sucked into the scavenging pump and it explodes…yikes…that in turn causes hard shifting, which can cause accelerated wear on the gears and dogs…one thing affects another, and so on…This most likely was the original problem with my 76 motor and maybe why it had been pulled from its frame and set aside so many years ago…

DANG, wish I would’ve know that when I had the motor out and apart!

I let the bike sit for a few weeks, trying to get motivated to pull the motor that I just re-installed…ugh…

[Gowing]

That's a tremendous amount of work. I applaud your effort, that's not easy.
But when you do the last fix. (Big fix). I think it will be worth it, I'd like to
ride that bike with the better front end, it should be good.

[Motowalt]

Finally got motivated again and pulled the motor (again) and the rear cover and front covers (again) and then the oil pump…



sure enough the internal rotor on the scavenge side was scored and shattered to pieces…





Also, something I should've checked the first time -the Oil Pump Spring -
SHATTERED!!! Not sure how that could've happened, but its something that should always be checked when inspecting the oil pump..



Got a replacement oil pump from Doug, aka Cyborg and new pump o rings and seal from Mother Honda. Replaced the clutch basket while I was in there as it had severe wear on the basket fingers, probably from the PO hammering on the shift lever because the bike wouldn’t shift well against the malfunctioning oil pump…

New water pump, new neutral switch and cleaned the oil pickup screen while the motor was out again to check for any metal bits….chaching $$$!!! Hey, no one ever told me this was going to be a cheap project...

Put her all back together and she would only run on two cylinders….dang…must’ve bothered the coil wires when installing the heat shield…sure enough, a couple got disconnected…hooked em back up and she runs great…shifts through all the gears…

[RAT]

WOW, impressive work ..... gotta love the way you 'just button her up' !

Hope she's good for A million miles now.

Gord

[alwing17]

Motowalt...Can't tell you how long I rode mine with that problem,until I discovered the problem,and shared it on the forum. I went to put a new clutch in,and when I took the clutch cover off,oil poured out,which was odd. After I put the new clutch in,it shifted fine for about 5 mins. on the center stand,then hard shifting and couldnt find neutral. I took off the clutch cover again,and sure enough,oil came pouring out again. The motor came out to put a 1200 clutch in,and thats when I found the broken scavenging pump. Glad its all sorted out now!

[Easter]

Congratulations.-- "Hey, no one ever told me this was going to be a cheap project..."--Just think how much more you know about the bike now than you did before. Education is never cheap, even when it doesn't cost much money!