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Re: 1982 GL1100 Corpse resurrection...er restoration...

Posted: Tue Mar 01, 2016 1:10 am
by toolbox
robin1731 wrote:Get carb kits from Randakk, don 't skimp. And use OEM head gaskets.

Bright green coolant is probably aftermarket. OEM Honda coolant is more of a blue/darker green.
Thanks for the tip! I've been doing a lot of reading on the GL1100 since I got this one (mostly here and Goldwing Facts), and Randakks kit is all that gets recommended. I might be able to foot the bill on Friday when I get paid. And I'm also getting all OEM gaskets...I already have them in my shopping cart :). Just need to decide if I want to order other stuff now in order to get the free shipping...I've got enough stuff to order, I'll probably hit that hundred dollar mark a few times :oops: .

Interesting on the coolant...it could have been changed in it's first 7 years of life, which wouldn't be a bad thing. The oil was actually very clean when I drained it, so maybe it just had good regular maintenance before it was wrecked.

On a similar note, I did notice one weird thing...the rear tire looks almost new (Metzeller 88), and has a 1988 date code, which makes perfect sense. The front tire is a Dunlop, which were OEM in 1982 I think...but the date code was from sometime in early 1970s IIRC. I remember looking at it and wondering if Honda would really be using 10 year old stock tires on a brand new bike... It had very little tread left. Who knows...maybe the front tire was destroyed in the wreck, and the guy put a used tire on it to make it into a roller. Strange anyway.

Re: 1982 GL1100 Corpse resurrection...er restoration...

Posted: Tue Mar 01, 2016 1:32 am
by toolbox
ericheath wrote:You jumped right into the deep end, but it looks like you're a pretty good swimmer to get that much done. Hook your throttle cables up when the carbs are half-way in to save on swearin'.

They are 'spensive carbs to rebuild. Advice is usually go with OEM float valves. If you get bored waiting for parts, you could pull the other head and replace that gasket too so you won't have to do it next year. Seems like sitting weakens gaskets in horizontally opposed cylinders.
Hey, thanks! :). I started wrenching when I was in high school (about the time this bike was wrecked lol), and I've restored a bunch of old cars, and rebuilt all kinds of stuff. My first car was a '71 VW Super Beetle, and that 1600 was the first engine I ever rebuilt. The little boxer in the GW kind of reminds me of it :). Though, honestly I'd much rather work on the Honda :) . Anymore, I'm not afraid to jump in with both feet...the internet makes it possible to learn pretty much everything you need to know before hand, so there aren't any huge surprises. Compared to a lot of stuff, the GL seems like a very mechanic-friendly machine.

Appreciate the tip on the throttle cables...I'm picturing them needing a few four letter words in order to get them hooked up again :). I might do the other head, but I've got quite a few little projects to complete in the mean time...

Speaking of, this will probably make you guys laugh. I'm still cleaning the last little bits of junk off the block mating surface, and so I decided to pull the oil control orifice in order to get that spot really well (you can probably guess where this is headed). I was wearing nitrile gloves that were kind of oily and slick. I grabbed it and gave it a tug, and in one graceful motion I managed to pull it out, squeeze it, and have it SHOOT FROM MY FINGERS LIKE PIT LAUNCHED FROM A CHERRY BY HITTING IT WITH A HAMMER! And as anyone who's done any kind of mechanical work knows, there's a force in the universe that makes all lost parts automatically go to the least accessible spot possible. In this case, that would be...the waiting mouth of the exhaust headers. :IDTS: . Yep, I'm dumb.

I started my rescue effort with one of those extend-a-magnet things. Wouldn't bend into the curve far enough to reach it apparently. Sooo...that means I have two options. Buy a new one, or remove the exhaust and dump it out. Well, my Scottish ancestors would be disappointed if I spent $20 on one, so I tried to pull the left side pipe off. Predictably, the crossover pipe won't come apart. So, I guess I'll be dropping the entire system. I've got a cherry picker, and I'm going to try to just drop the exhaust in one piece, and then just pick up the bike and pull it out from under... It's one of those things that seems like a brilliant idea in my head, but I may find the realty doesn't work so well. I guess if all else fails, I"ll spend the $20 to get a new (used) one. Oh well, nobody every said being dumb was going to be easy... :oops:

Re: 1982 GL1100 Corpse resurrection...er restoration...

Posted: Tue Mar 01, 2016 1:37 am
by toolbox
Oh, and my replacement cylinder head arrived today...it's going to need more cleanup than I was hoping, but I filed the combustion chambers with denatured alcohol and nothing leaked out, so at least it should have good compression. Valves all open and close smoothly. I'm going to see how much stem seals are, and maybe replace those too. As long as the guides aren't too worn, it should work fine...it's just going to require a lot more elbow grease than I was thinking.

Re: 1982 GL1100 Corpse resurrection...er restoration...

Posted: Tue Mar 01, 2016 7:02 am
by robin1731
Yeah, take the head apart, lap the valves, put in new valve guide seals, check the valve springs, then put it back together. For valve seals I do use aftermarket. Find them on ebay. And like Eric said, I always do both heads. ;)

The valve guides on these are pretty good. I have replaced them on a couple heads but not on some engines where it is almost a given. Do check valve stem wear too while you have the heads apart.

Re: 1982 GL1100 Corpse resurrection...er restoration...

Posted: Tue Mar 01, 2016 9:40 am
by ericheath
Hate to say it, but look in the water jacket and oil galley for your oil orifice. Another cheater tool for throttle cables others have posted is an L-shaped piece of wire. I think stem seals are the same as on 750's so quite plentiful and cheap.

Re: 1982 GL1100 Corpse resurrection...er restoration...

Posted: Tue Mar 01, 2016 11:34 am
by Gowing
Enjoying your good work toolbox! Just glad it's you and not me. so far so good.

Re: 1982 GL1100 Corpse resurrection...er restoration...

Posted: Tue Mar 01, 2016 3:36 pm
by 5speed
Welcome to the site.
83 Shadow eh?? We must talk. lol
This is my wife's bike..the previous owner fancied himself a youtube bike mechanic.. :shock:
He rebuilt the carbs and set the valves. it runs..if you can get it to start!!!

Re: 1982 GL1100 Corpse resurrection...er restoration...

Posted: Tue Mar 01, 2016 11:33 pm
by toolbox
robin1731 wrote:Yeah, take the head apart, lap the valves, put in new valve guide seals, check the valve springs, then put it back together. For valve seals I do use aftermarket. Find them on ebay. And like Eric said, I always do both heads. ;)

The valve guides on these are pretty good. I have replaced them on a couple heads but not on some engines where it is almost a given. Do check valve stem wear too while you have the heads apart.
Sounds like a plan...I'll just do the seals then :). Maybe I'll take the damaged head apart too, and mic all the springs and take the longest 4. I've resurrected quite a few cars (and a bike) that have been sitting for years, and I always wonder how much that affects the valve springs. There's always going to be a few that are compressed for years on end, and that can't be good for them...though how much of a problem it is, I don't really know. I order some valve compound today (medium and fine)...they seal well enough I think the fine will work just to clean up the valves and seats. I can mic the valve stems, but I don't have an inside micrometer...guess I'll just give them all a wiggle :) .

Re: 1982 GL1100 Corpse resurrection...er restoration...

Posted: Tue Mar 01, 2016 11:36 pm
by toolbox
ericheath wrote:Hate to say it, but look in the water jacket and oil galley for your oil orifice. Another cheater tool for throttle cables others have posted is an L-shaped piece of wire. I think stem seals are the same as on 750's so quite plentiful and cheap.
Going on memory (you know how that can be), I had a rag stuffed in the oil return to keep gasket crud out of it while I was scraping...I was pretty sure I saw it shoot into the #1 exhaust tube. Guess I'll find out when I pull the exhaust :oops: .
And thanks for the tip, I'll have to search for the cheater tool...after getting the things off, I'll gladly take anything that makes it easier to get them on lol. And I looked up the stem seals...looks like Honda used the same ones on a ton of different bikes, so they're pretty easy to find.

Re: 1982 GL1100 Corpse resurrection...er restoration...

Posted: Tue Mar 01, 2016 11:41 pm
by toolbox
Gowing wrote:Enjoying your good work toolbox! Just glad it's you and not me. so far so good.
Thanks! I'm having a ball doing this stuff...though at some point I always start to get really itchy to stop wrenching and start riding, and just kind of wish it was done so I could use it lol. It's still too cold to really ride anyway, so it doesn't really matter, but come July if I'm still turning wrenches I'm going to start losing patience :mrgreen: .

Re: 1982 GL1100 Corpse resurrection...er restoration...

Posted: Tue Mar 01, 2016 11:51 pm
by toolbox
5speed wrote:Welcome to the site.
83 Shadow eh?? We must talk. lol
This is my wife's bike..the previous owner fancied himself a youtube bike mechanic.. :shock:
He rebuilt the carbs and set the valves. it runs..if you can get it to start!!!
Nice! Looks like the 750, correct? IIRC they got the taller sissy bar. I've got the 500...if you have some spare time, you can grab a cup of coffee and read the entire saga of it here:

http://www.hondashadow.net/forum/72-tec ... vt500.html

I've been very (very) lucky with both of these bikes...I got them in basically bone stock condition, without having them hacked up by people who didn't know what they were doing. The guy I got the Shadow from was going to let his teenage son work on it...all he did to it was disconnect the fuel petcock, and then he gave up (?). So thankful he didn't get any farther lol. Honestly, it would have taken someone very motivated to bring it back...I think more often than not, these sorts of things end up being sold on craigslist a "bike in a basket" after they get it half taken apart and then lose interest :/.

Re: 1982 GL1100 Corpse resurrection...er restoration...

Posted: Wed Mar 02, 2016 12:02 am
by toolbox
So, here's the new (old) head...

Image

I had a bunch of misc. stuff to order from Amazon, so I put some of these plastic "razor blades" in my cart...going to give them a go at removing the old gasket. Never used them, but they got good reviews. That razor scraper sitting there has a plastic "blade" in it, but I'm not very impressed. It only sort of works, so I'm curious to see if these other things work better.

I was a little disappointed when the new head arrived, because the backing plate (or whatever you call it) was bent...that wasn't mentioned in the listing, and I thought maybe it was shipping damage. I went back and looked at the pictures, and if you look closely it looks like maybe it was there already, but it wasn't obvious...and since it wasn't, I would have personally mentioned it. It's not that big of a deal since they're easy to find and not very expensive, but still...one of the reasons I bough this one was that it was "complete". I'll probably bring it up with the seller just to let them know, but I'll still keep the head. I think it's a good core, and I want to get going on it. Also need to pull one of the exhaust studs off my old head and move it over. Won't have time to work on it for a few days, but there's always plenty to do lol.

Also, for you guys that have done these before, do the regular "C" style valve spring compressors work ok on these heads? I've always farmed out head work because I usually get the whole thing rebuilt (new guides/springs/grind/etc), so I've never bothered to buy a compressor...just wondering what I should try and rent/borrow.

Re: 1982 GL1100 Corpse resurrection...er restoration...

Posted: Wed Mar 02, 2016 7:08 am
by robin1731
C-clamp type is perfect.

When I said check the valve springs, I mean check the spring pressure. Both at installed height and at compressed height. The specs are in the manual. I know very few people have a spring tester but you might be able to get them checked at a local machine shop. Just measuring the height of the spring doesn't tell you enough.

Re: 1982 GL1100 Corpse resurrection...er restoration...

Posted: Wed Mar 02, 2016 2:18 pm
by Gowing
I got my spring compressor from oreillys, rented it,
I was not very happy with it, getting those springs compressed is tough job,
Was for me. But I think cause I had an inferior clamp. Can't find a pic of it right now.

Re: 1982 GL1100 Corpse resurrection...er restoration...

Posted: Wed Mar 02, 2016 4:49 pm
by 5speed
toolbox wrote:
5speed wrote:Welcome to the site.
83 Shadow eh?? We must talk. lol
This is my wife's bike..the previous owner fancied himself a youtube bike mechanic.. :shock:
He rebuilt the carbs and set the valves. it runs..if you can get it to start!!!
Nice! Looks like the 750, correct? IIRC they got the taller sissy bar. I've got the 500...if you have some spare time, you can grab a cup of coffee and read the entire saga of it here:

http://www.hondashadow.net/forum/72-tec ... vt500.html

I've been very (very) lucky with both of these bikes...I got them in basically bone stock condition, without having them hacked up by people who didn't know what they were doing. The guy I got the Shadow from was going to let his teenage son work on it...all he did to it was disconnect the fuel petcock, and then he gave up (?). So thankful he didn't get any farther lol. Honestly, it would have taken someone very motivated to bring it back...I think more often than not, these sorts of things end up being sold on craigslist a "bike in a basket" after they get it half taken apart and then lose interest :/.
She is a 500...
I ordered a rebuild kit for the starter as it turns over very slow. Until I get it rebuilt and back in I'm not going to trouble shoot the hard starting problem.
thanks for the link.
ETA..I'm on that forum as well..same username.