New improved floats that make the GL1000 much better

[dontwantapickle]

In my life,
there has been only a couple of times that floats have ever needed replacement.
Those were always the full brass floats with leaking solder joints.

Never had an issue with the goldwing ones.

I just cleaned a set of old Amal carbs off of a 1970 BSA that came with all plastic non adjustable floats like the Valks.

[dontwantapickle]

double post

[cfairweather]

There have been many thousands of GL1000s taken out of service because of carb issues. Just think of all the low milage GL1000s you have seen over the years. In my opinion, the carbs are the main reason the owner gave up on the bike and stored it away. I had a brand new 1975 GL1000 and it had carb issues that started within the first 5000 miles. I tried to figure them out and I took the bike to two dealers to try and solve the problem, but nobody could solve it. Today, I understand them and would be able to solve the problems, but back then, I just couldn't figure it out. I finally gave up and traded it for a new 1978 CB750. The point is, these carbs caused all kinds of problems and the floats were part of the problems. I have found they must be perfectly adjusted to work reliably. They bend way too easily and the geometry gets out of whack. This makes them impossible to open and close the float valve at just the right time. The brass is too soft and all of them will develop a dimple where the pin touches the tab. This dimple will cause the float to stick. Yes, you can polish it out; however, the metal becomes even thinner when you do this. Almost all of the floats I remove from old carb sets have less than perfect geometry and the reason is the thin brass frame.
Back to the original reason I started this post, the new floats made out of steel. I think the material is stainless, but they could be plated, I am not sure. Either way, they are a major improvement over the thin brass. Had these been installed from the factory in the 70s, fewer GL1000s would have been prematurely stored away.

[Sidecar Bob]

Not disputing that the steel would be better, I wonder if the dimple in the brass could be filled with silver solder?

[dontwantapickle]

Exactly how much better are the steel float tangs than brass?
What benefits did you experience?
How did you measure the results?

I can't imagine that the float level would be significantly changed by just the rub marks.

[cfairweather]

The steel doesn't bend as easy as the brass. I have only installed one set so far, but they impressed me. I found them easier to set the level and that was probably because I didn't first have to bend them to get the geometry correct. Made a minor adjustment to the tab and I was done. The dimple won't change the float level, but it causes the float to stick.
It would be difficult to "measure" the results, but to me, they are a big improvement over the originals. Take my recommendation or continue to use the brass ones, your choice and it makes no difference to me.

[redglbx]

Cedric, Sounds like you and I had similar experiences when we bought our new wings back in 75 and 76 ! I just didn’t sell mine because I got lucky and had a former Honda mechanic friend that I worked with that had bought a new 77 because he loved my 76. He had me come over to his house after work to help figure out why my bike was such a POS. My bike was about 2yrs old at the time.

What we found was that apparently when Honda prepped the bikes for the ride on the boat to the US they cosmolened the slides and caps to prevent them from corroding on the ride over. The dealer was supposed to clean this out as part of the setup before selling the bikes, mine didn’t ! But once cleaned out it was a different bike, just magical to ride ! Plus he balanced the carbs.

Part of the problem back then was there was a stigma about these bikes that they were soooo complicated and exotic that they required special mechanics to work on them which we now know just wasn’t true,, just some un-addressed issues & corrupt dealers/mechanics. My 76 also had the T2 timing mark mismarked on the flywheel by about 6degrees causing my bike to be a real thrashing machine,,,, only took about 40yrs to figure that out.

So on the floats,, Cedric I think you’re onto something but I think steel is not the material of choice, it should be stainless steel, a heavier/harder brass or a much better coating on the steel to keep it from rusting. I can see the rust being a really big issue with time with the rust creeping down into the float material,, strictly my opinion at this point. On all of this the plastic floats really offer a possible solution, wondering if some like the Valkyrie floats could be used ?

I will add though that I have seen several old 1000’s with 300k miles on them that had never been touched and just ran fine,,, I’m never that lucky ! Bob, I’m wondering if silver soldering the tag would damage the floats from the heat,,,,,just spitballing here.

And one last interesting thing here is that my friend that found the cosmolene in my carbs only charged me a 6 pack of beer to fix my carbs and balance them,,,,,(truly a good friend),, think how busy Robin could be if he only charged a 6 pack of beer

One last thought that comes to mind on all this,,, over the many years I’ve been fooling around with these bikes some of the most knowledgeable people I know on these bikes have told me that 90% of all the perceived carb problems on these bikes is actually an electrical problem ! But this has been a great discussion anyway….

[cfairweather]

Steve- Nice post and I agree that stainless is the best material and I am pretty sure that is what was used to make these new ones. A lot of other floats I have seen use this material. You mentioned the ones on "burnsYoFace34" carbs, but I am sure this isn't rust on the brass floats. It is gasoline and possibly rust residue from a rusty jet holder clamp. Here are some pictures of the new float.

[Sidecar Bob]

I guess you'd have to use heat sinks and a good temperature controlled soldering iron when soldering the tabs.

"Most carb problems turn out to be electrical and most ignition problems turn out to be fuelling" applies to most bikes, not just GoldWings.

I guess I was lucky or maybe by then people had figured it out a bit better by the early '90s when I got my '77 nobody told me it was exotic or complicated. I just did what the Haynes book said and it ran well enough for me.

[dontwantapickle]

Never really considered the goldwing an exotic,
but the engine was a lot more complicated than the 2 strokes and air cooled twins that I grew up with.

" Water cooling ? don't need that on a motorcycle , just more crap to break! "
Boy was I wrong!

As a youngster... I never saw the need for CV carbs as I was used to round slides.
Now, 50 years later, I'm a big fan of the stock carb racks.

Best thing I've found for these ol' fuel systems is to actually use them.
They don't like to sit and dry out.

On that... Go ride your bike today.

[redglbx]

Yepper Don, best thing you can do for these is to keep them used ! Back in the day when these were new all the magazines and mechanics thought that the Wing was quite exotic (we know better now) with water cooling, shaft drive, gas tank under the seat & a fuel pump, cam belts, over head cams on a flat 4 cyl for a super smooth engine and a counter rotating alternator to offset the dreaded torque lean.

Anybody ever been behind one of the early beemers when they were really on it and seen them leaned over from the engines torque ? Ya gotta remember when these came out it was a huge step forward for a motorcycle, even when compared to the then super advanced cb750’s and Z1’s. The GL’s just felt “other worldly” when compared to them and then being a 600lb bike,,, just over the top ! And a gas gauge & temperature gauge to boot ! Just get on them and just go anywhere your mind wanted, not many bikes would do that back then w/o lots of maintenance.

I’ll never forget when they were doing a promotional tour of all the main Honda dealers because they were so far behind the advertised release date for the wings. My brother on his 75 Super Glide and me on my 75 750 Super Sport rode up to one of the 2 dealers in the area because this new techno wonder was supposed to be there, it was and was a preproduction prototype.

I got to talking to Mr Marv Borr who owned both Honda dealers and the single Toyota dealership which were not common at that time. Mr Borr & I had quite the conversation about the green 75 sitting there and all the technical stuff relavent to it, I had to keep wiping the drool up…..

Anyway he could easily tell I was very enthralled with the wing so he asks me if I’d like to take it for a ride ? The Honda rep nearly swallowed his tongue and was not happy about having some unknown clown get on his extremely rare prototype,, I told Mr Borr I really didn’t have the money to buy a new, very expensive ($3295 suggested retail) GL…. He looked at me and smiled and said “don’t worry, you’ll find the money” and off I went leaving about 20 other guy’s standing there with their jaws on the floor. Once I got back you’d have thought that Elvis had arrived as those 20 some guy’s surrounded me and just pelted me with questions,,, while Mr Borr put my HD riding brother on it for a comparison,,,, hell of a salesman ! The rest as they say is history..

Well it took me until October of 76 to get my Gl, the 77’s had just been put on the floor. I still love my bike even though I really wanted the hand built, blue printed & balanced LTD but just couldn’t swing the extra 2k for one as each dealer got 1 and all in my area were taking bids on them.. By the way I did get a basket case LTD that I put together about 25yrs ago ,,,, wonderful bike ! But that old red bike of mine still calls to me…. Well I’m going back to sleep now have a great day !

[redglbx]

By the way,, Cedric the float hinges do look like stainless ,, maybe.. take a look at the one’s on the burnsyoface34 thread on back firing into the carbs and they are heavily rusted which won’t be a good thing with time. Stainless, heavier brass or plastic are the answer here imho.

Are those one’s in the photo’s magnetic ? Not that it means much as lower quality stainless can be magnetic and rust as well, just all depends on the material. The floats look very well made unlike our oe floats that usually aren’t square or well finished.