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what I have found is once cleaned, the original coating is also gone. Might even try phosphoric acid as it coats sort of like anodizing Aluminum

I've read about phosphoric acid leaving a coating. Perhaps that's a path.

I've shifted attention back to the motor while I sort out my way forward on the tank. My son and I found a little time together, and he helped me get the motor off the bench and into the frame.
I'm a bit further along than the photos show, but she's a good ways off from putting in fluids and seeing if she'll fire up. Carbs need to go on, as does the radiator.

Get busy with work, and a month goes by with no update on a bike project.

Here goes:

• I slid the carbs in, bolted them down, and bolted up the radiator a couple weekends ago. No fluids at that point, so no effort at starting the bike.

• Last weekend I dropped in some inexpensive 10w40 conventional oil and a bit of ATF for the "start after a long layup" procedure. I didn't have distilled water handy, so the bike sat until this weekend.

• I sourced distilled water on Saturday morning - btw, our local stores always seem to be out of it, and Ace had just 2 gallons on the shelf. I only needed one.

• As the bottoms of the mufflers are rotted out (so badly, I couldn't weld mig weld them up), I removed them from the headers (which are good, thankfully) and bolted them to the heads.

• As soon as I filled the radiator with water, problems started. I was leaking water from on top of the motor AND down by the water pump area. Quick, drain the water and wipe up the mess!

• I had to move the carbs back and unbolt the shroud behind the radiator to sort out one of the leaks- thankfully, there's no gas tank to prevent that move.

• Damn me! I forgot to swap out the little rubber o-ring when I bolted the coolant lines down to the motor. (My Vesrah kit had it waiting for me, so I slapped in a freshie.

• Damn me - again! I failed to swap out the rubber gasket on the bottom of the motor, where the radiator connects up to the water pump. Again, Vesrah had it.

• I reassembled all the bits and put the water back in. No leaks! But by then it was a bit late in the day for motorcycle play, as I had other chores in store.

• This morning, though, I got back on it.

I hooked up our IV drip fuel reservoir to the fuel pump, pulled back the choke, and crossed my fingers - all while holding the throttle and reaching around to connect my ignition wires.

I'll be damned! After a few quick cranks, she fired right up and started running like a champ. But then fuel started dripping off the pump. Shut her down, mop it up.

I tightened down the outlet hose clamp and tried again. No fuel leak. Whew!

I restarted and didn't have to play with the throttle, tweak the choke, or fuss at all to keep her running.

I needed to do was make sure my tiny pint-sized IV reservoir didn't run dry.

She smoked a bit at first, but not really that much. And with just the headers, everyone in the neighborhood could tell that another bike had come to life at my house.

The fan kicked on after a while. I knew it worked, but I didn't really know if the fan switch worked. It's nice that it does. Here's one photo, with a blurry fan running.
There's not really anything to see when the motor is running - if it's a photo or if there's no sound.

No leaks or drips - oil, water, whatever. So that's good.

I ran her up around 3-4k a bit, working the oil around and hopefully cleaning some old gunk hanging out in there, and I shut her down and did a little happy dance. This bike is alive again.

A couple hours later, I drained the oil and the distilled water, refilled with good motor oil and coolant, and started her up again. Maybe 2 cranks and she's off to the races.

I can now comfortably begin putting more of the bike back together. I'll solder up the 3 yellow wires and see how the charging system is working. I think my next moves involve closer work on the electrical, perhaps followed by a rebuild of the rear brake system.

And I'll feel good about throwing $ at parts I need, which has been a bit of an issue without a running motor.

And I managed to source a GL1000 gas tank in vastly better shape than the one I had, which is a blessing. I nabbed it for about $125, which was not bad given the condition. It didn't come with a cap, but I have a serviceable one. I can pop that in when I'm ready.

I can now see my way a path to riding this bike come next May.

Good news

Another month goes by with nothing but crickets on this slow build. I've been delinquent in updates.

My excuses: Work and a 10-day trip to Argentina, where 125cc Suzukis are everywhere in Buenos Aires and the riders are nuts. I mean nuts.

I've been assembling bits I'll need for this project now that the motor fires to life.

• Picked up some NOS Sportster mufflers, as my original mufflers are too far gone for me to patch. They're not really mounted, but they're on well enough to muffle the headers. The good news there is that I no longer need hearing protection when running the bike in the shed. Protection is still a great idea, of course.

• Nabbed a right throttle control unit to replace my broken one.

• Scored a rear rotor to replace the horribly pitted one that came with the bike.

'

• I even found an old left side cover to match the right one that came with the bike. It's not the 78/79 style, but neither is the one on the bike. I'm pretty comfortable sporting the earlier look and have a plan for securing them.

I thought I was making slow, steady progress, especially when I hooked up the right controls, pushed the button, and the motor turned over.

Alas, somewhere in the time between a sweet-running motor back in September and the last couple weeks, the motor won't run well at all.

I was thinking there was something amiss with my wiring, as I sensed some correlation (or mere coincidence?) between switching the right controls and the horribly running bike. I've also been thinking it has to do with that aftermarket relay through which the old starter wire was running. But I keep looking at it and cannot imagine how/why that could be the issue.

Today I reinstalled the old controls and disconnected the new stuff. It meant hotwiring again to start, but that's fine. Same bad running bike. Not that I thought it'd help, but I put in a new battery as I'm really nursing a battery that needs to be put out to pasture and recycled. No change.

I'm living what I think (hope?) is the hard lesson of what can happen if you don't use a fuel filter even when running off a clear plastic external fuel drip. It's hard to hope for it, but I'm now hoping I've developed clogged idle jets.

The bike won't start without ether - though it tries to - and I've really got to stay on the throttle to keep her above 2k if she's not going to die. It gets a bit better at higher RPMs, I think. It just sounds bad, like it's not running on all cylinders, like the firing order is off, or something else. All 4 pipes are warming up at roughly the same time; no cold intakes.

I pulled the carbs and will clean things out again, throw a filter in to prevent a repeat of what I hope is a simple case of clogged jets, cross my fingers, genuflect, and hope it's just that.

I'm certain many here know of this frustration.

On a super positive note, temps were in the 60s today with gorgeous sunny skies. After an hour futzing with wiring and deciding the carbs needed to come out, I climbed on the Blue Phoenix for a fun 90-minute cruise through the rolling hills and back-road twisties of southern Maine.

OK. I'm back where I thought I was about 5 weeks ago: This project GL1000 starts, runs, revs, and comes off throttle. That's truly good news.

First, I'm really pleased that I did NOT install the fuel tank I found back in September. It's just so much easier to pull the carbs, reinstall, futz with throttle cables, etc. without that piece of metal right where a little wiggle room would be a good thing. I'm filing that away for future projects. Tank removal is easy if you need pull the rear master, wheel, brakes, and battery tray. And removing it makes other things just that much easier.

It took me parts of a couple hours over each of a couple weekends, plus a little evening quality time during the week, but this morning I put the carbs back together - for the second time. OK, the second-and-a-half time because I tried a "quickie" pull the carbs, drop the bowls, clean a couple jets, and reinstall because... Not sure, but I was hoping to take the super shortcut. I did find some crap in #2's bowl and a clogged jet as well. I hoped for "problem solved" and buttoned 'er up. No bueno on that one, and I think the bike was even worse.

So I got more serious, went back out for more carb cleaner, and started in on a more serious cleaning. Not wanting to get overly ambitious, rush, and confuse some things, I set out for a one-week turnaround. I think I succeeded on that timeline.

I set up a filter between my fuel source and pump to reduce the chance I'll add crap to the carbs again.

And with no gas tank to limit elbow room, the rack slid right in nearly as easily as a tray of Tollhouse Cookies going into the oven.
I bolted her down, hooked up the fuel lines, and she started up after a bit of cranking to move fuel into the bowls. I had a few issues with her stalling when giving her lots of throttle - from idle to 3500, or thereabouts. And the carbs really do need to be adjusted and synched for things to be right. I noticed the air mixture screws are all about 1/2 or 3/4 turn out from bottom. I kept them there, not wanting to introduce additional, new reasons for the bike not to run. I'm pretty sure they need to be out about another turn as a starting point for some tuning.

I don't have mufflers securely bolted on, an air cleaner, etc. I'm not going to sync the carbs until those bits are sorted out.

Once warm, though, she seemed to run pretty well. She idled reliably, as before. There wasn't notable hesitation/bogging/lag when pulling the throttle hard from idle, or from idle to 4k. She ran up above 5k just fine. And the temp gently rose, as expected.
I do have a question: There's a vacuum line that runs from the top of the carb. I think it runs down to the #1 carb bowl - or so it would seem. For the life of me, I cannot recall where it was when I first pulled the carbs about a year ago. I've got it plugged with a screw for now.

A little trick that comes in handy is to route the throttle cables on the outside of the frame. that allows the carbs to slide out far enough to remove the cable ends from the bell crank. I'm not thrilled with pulling the tank unless absolutely necessary.

That vacuum line to carb 1 is for the air cutoff valve on the top front of the plenum. All that does (if you're not already aware) is prevent popping through the exhaust during deceleration. I've never had a problem with it personally, but lots of guys block it off to no ill effect. Mostly to eliminate potential vacuum leaks. There's a couple threads floating around here about it.

Not messing with the idle mix screws for now to eliminate variables is good, but once you get there here was my experience. The idle mix screws on these bikes don't seem to do a whole lot, honestly. I was told to set them at 3 turns out and leave them. It's what I did, and it's seemed to work just fine. Just some food for thought once you get to that point.

It's looking good!

on my Ltd a PO had set them at closed.... but that is because the floats were so off the bike was sort of flooding all the time. I think someone told me to set them at about 1.5.... on cars we usually started around 3/4

Lucien Harpress wrote: ↑Sun Nov 13, 2022 4:02 pm That vacuum line to carb 1 is for the air cutoff valve on the top front of the plenum. All that does (if you're not already aware) is prevent popping through the exhaust during deceleration. I've never had a problem with it personally, but lots of guys block it off to no ill effect. Mostly to eliminate potential vacuum leaks. There's a couple threads floating around here about it.

OK. I have the hose running to the air cutoff, with it plugged at the other end. I'll hook it up to the bottom of carb 1, where I thought it probably belonged. I'm a long way from worrying about exhaust pops while decelerating.

ritalz wrote: ↑Sat Nov 12, 2022 10:14 pm I'm not thrilled with pulling the tank unless absolutely necessary.

Pulling the tank is a pain, but it had to come out in this situation because it needed a serious cleaning. And then it needed to. be replaced, as some pretty serious holes opened up in the cleaning process. Mainly, I'm liking the idea of keeping it out until I'm closer to ready to button up the rear end, and I'm noticing all the room to manipulate carbs with the tank out.

rcmatt007 wrote: ↑Sun Nov 13, 2022 4:49 pm on my Ltd a PO had set them at closed.... but that is because the floats were so off the bike was sort of flooding all the time. I think someone told me to set them at about 1.5.... on cars we usually started around 3/4

I'll work on the carb adjustments in about 4 months, I imagine. There's a lot to do before I start worrying too much about dialing in the carbs.

Today I made some fun, pretty easy progress separating the Vetter wiring from the OEM. I think I've got the key bits working as expected: power to horn on press, headlight low/hi (and off when starter is engaged), left/right signals. I didn't rip out the two auxiliary power leads that likely went to the radio and lighter on the Vetter.

While I didn't snip it all back to stock, I cut it way back and marked things up. I think I removed about 10-15 feet of wire and 10 feet of electrical tape, all while getting a better sense of what I need and what I don't. I'm calling that part good for now.
Next up, I think: rear brake rebuild. (Fronts will be determined by my success trying to mount GL1100 forks and triple tree on the bike.)

Looking better. May I suggest a not fun exercise of taking a rag and your favorite solvent (I like isopropyl alcohol) and clean those wires of the accumulated goo and dirt? It will make future work nicer and more accurate. The white stripe on some Honda wiring can easily be masked by build-up on the insulator.

Pidjones: Right on. Mostly, I'm trying to get things working, but with more electrical sorted and wires hanging all out now's probably the time. My photos today only confirm that the bike has 40+ years of grime still hanging onto the wiring

I took my eye off the rear caliper for a minute to focus on my long-awaited GL1100 fork swap attempt. The result is perhaps my most interesting post to date on this build, even if it's a pretty basic mod.

Borrowing from Dangeruss' well-documented approach that put a 1200 front end on a 1000, I started in on the mods to a GL1100 triple tree. It's looking like a pretty straightforward swap, with less modification required than a 1200 swap.


The top of the triple for the GL1000 and GL1100 are nearly identical, with some possible minor issues I may encounter that involve the underside and the ignition switch. It's too soon to be sure it'll be a problem - and I think it won't be - but there's a little question mark.
As with the 1200 triple, the 1100 lower has a different set up for the stops. I needed to grind down the stop (at the front center) on the 1100 lower and establish some posts to the sides to make use of the arrangement for the GL1000 frame. Dangeruss had the same basic challenge.

The GL1000 bottom is on the left in the photo below; the GL1100 (modified) is on the right. I've drilled holes to the left/right of the bearings and tapped them for M7 1.0 bolts. Once it's all mocked up and working, I'll weld them at the bottom to ensure they won't back out.
Here's another shot of the modified GL1100 lower. Unfortunately, I did not cut away enough of the GL1100 stop mechanism, so it's rubbing against a bit of excess weld just below the stop mechanism on the GL1000 frame. I could probably grind down that weld just a bit, but I'm going to work the GL1100 lower a bit more.

The photo below shows the issue pretty clearly. I'm probably 2-3mm too high to safely clear things. Obviously, this is a pretty simple modification. I had already tested bolting up the gauges to the GL1100 top, and they'll fit with no mods. (Dangeruss reported needing to mod the GL1200 top a bit to accept the GL1000 bracket.)

I've got an '83 front end with beefier forks, an integrated fork brace and the TRAC anti-dive. And I have two-pot calipers from an '82 that I can bolt onto the '83. I should be able to get more stability up front, as well as improved braking over the original. I'll stick with the original rear brake, which is a two-piston rig.

In other news: This past weekend, for some reason I just noticed that the '70s Comstars are bare metal, while the '80s have a black treatment/paint, with bare metal. The easy swap for me is to run the '82 Comstar up front to bolt onto the GL1100 front end. I don't like the idea of wheels that are different colors. But I'm thinking it'd be quite the project to strip the paint (anodized aluminum?) off that Comstar. One snowy day, perhaps I'll pick at one of those wheels and see what might flake off.

If Honda's wheel paint is anything like Yamaha's, you would be well served with vapor or sand blasting the wheels. BTW, take a look at some old Triumph front ends that use similar fork stops. They often have bent studs (and resulting dented tanks). Maybe consider going bigger with yours.

I briefly thought the M7 might be a bit smallish. It's not small, really, but it's also not beefy stout. Easy enough to go bigger now; harder to do later. I think I can get the hole bigger without eating into the side of the lower. I can see that as a possible issue.

Maybe I roll with the black/aluminum front wheel. Maybe I find a sand blaster to strip the wheel. I'll meditate a bit.

And I've gone another month without an update on this build. Where does the time go?

Steps forward and backward.

Accentuating the positive:

• I enlisted my youngest son's help in draining and filling the fork tubes. The old oil wasn't that bad, so that's a good thing. These are forks from an '83 GL1100, with the TRAC system on them.

• I have a nice set of '82 front calipers to mount up.

• She continues to start reliably and run pretty well, even without much effort in the carb tune.

• I sourced a $100 GL1100 parts bike with a range of useful bits here/there - including good fork ears, headlight bucket, calipers, etc. The motor, unfortunately, seems unlikely to come back from the half gallon of water that was sitting in the crankcase. I drained it, refilled, and spent a couple hours over each of a few days to do attempt some sort of recovery. Alas, I fear it was done for well before I pulled it out of the Maine woods. I hoped for a serviceable motor, but no.

• Rear caliper is rebuilt, with new pistons, seals, etc. and a repaint.

And then the bummers:

• I had the bright idea to attempt a chrome vinyl wrap on the side panels and shelter sides. Looks easy on YouTube. I spent several hours trying to handle the side panels - the easy part. Those corners are just darned hard. While my father-in-law tells me they look great - and nobody will notice the wrinkles at the wraparound - he's wrong. They look like a crappy wrap. I'm going with paint.

• And the biggest bummer is a small oil leak coming from the water pump weep hole. (One photo, below.) It wasn't leaking any oil until about 2 weeks ago.

I think the bike's run maybe 10-12 hours over the last 6 months, without a drip/drop. Now this. It's probably due to some error in installing those rubber o-ring gaskets - or that's my thought - but I'm now also paranoid about bigger issues.

Over at GoldWingDocs, the diagnosis is as follows: "There are three things that can cause oil to come from the weep hole and all three are related to the pump. They are: A bad pump seal, a pinched pump O-ring or defective pump crush washers." (And there's also some discussion of disappearing oil leaks from that spot.)

I don't think the oil is milky, but now I'm in a bad place in my head. If it is milky, my head gasket repair has probably also failed. I drained the oil to give it the stink eye. I don't really see the milkshake, but it's a bit darker than I expected. I don't want to use the word creamy, but it might have a creamish sort of tinge. Again, I'm seeing things that may/may not be there. And it's still only the second "fresh" oil since I got her running again, so perhaps I'm working out gunk.

Here's a fun one: deep freeze conditions seem to have coincided with the arrival of that drip. And we had a few warm-ish days during which I saw no oil drip on the little platter I put under the spot to monitor the leakage. When I ran her up to ful operating temp yesterday, I produced about 25 drops or so.

It's probably the pump/gasket, but I'm now pretty paranoid about all this. When I pull the front cover to get at the gasket failure, I'm going to swap out that water pump. It was a used unit that seemed to be fine. It doesn't seem to be leaking coolant. But why not change the darned thing while I'm back in there - again. I guess one bright spot is that I don't see any signs of oil in the coolant - either in the overflow tank or in the neck of the radiator.

Right now, I'm trying to decide whether I loop back and focus on the leak before plowing ahead with the other parts of the build - or whether I get this girl closer to riding condition and use that sense of achievement to motivate me to pull the front cover again. I really go back and forth. It's not that big a job - I've now done it twice - and those screws/bolts were just out last winter.