The steal of the year: $150 1985 gl1200 aspencade

[extremeodd]

Everyone seems to have a special talent and some have a talent that gets referred to as a "superpower" because of how good it can be. Personally, my superpower seems to be buying dirt cheap vehicles that aren't running for the simplest of reasons.

My latest purchase to prove this theory right is a 1985 Honda Goldwing Aspencade with 80k+ miles that I scooped up for the tidy sum of $150.

The previous owner had the timing belt cover came loose causing the gasket to get sucked into the belt making it jump a few teeth on the left cam. After resetting the timing he was unable to get the bike to start so he figured some valves got bent and parked the bike. A few months go by, he gets a new job working 60+ hrs a week and doesn't want to bother with this bike anymore so he sells it to me for $150 delivered.

He came by about 6 hours ago to drop it off and after about 30 mins of me tinkering it fired right up. Turns out the fuel pump relay went out! Had it running for about 10 seconds before I noticed gas pouring out from one of the carbs and had to shut it off. After taking a closer look, it's just a bad gasket so I ordered a 4 pack of basic rebuild kits from amazon for $29 and they will be here tomorrow. I don't plan on rebuilding the carbs since the one I opened didn't look bad inside, it was the same price for a 4 pack of gaskets as it was for a 4 pack of rebuild kits.

Didn't get a video of it running before I pulled the carbs off so here is a shot after we wheeled it into the garage. (note the 81 virago in the foreground, that kicked off this bike adventure last month. Got it for $70 and a starter + various fluids later it was running. A few hours of tinkering has addressed every single issue and now it's a really solid bike.)

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Pic from the ad

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Not entirely sure what my plan will be for the bike moving forward. Initally I thought about maybe stripping it down to make a bobber but that was before I was able to get it started for $0. I had planned/budgeted for replacing one or both heads so I might instead do a light restoration on it. If it's easy enough to get the air suspension working then I think it'll be worth keeping the massive front fairing and just buy replacement bits for what's missing. If not I might do my best take on a road king goldwing since the bars for the trunk have been cut off.

[5speed]

nice looking bike..super price.
I managed to score a great deal on my 82 standard..which is why I have multiple bikes now. lol

[extremeodd]

Got the gasket in and after a bit of fun got everything hooked back up. It wasn't too shocking that the previous owner had running issues, found at least one disconnected vacuum line. It started up without too much fuss but ran just terrible despite all 4 cylinders firing (fairly certain all 4 were misfiring)

Tried to go down the street but it had no power and would do it's best to stall when letting out the clutch. Manged to go about 100ft and back into the garage. That ended up being a good thing as the coolant system was bone dry, whoops... In my defense, all the digital gauge shows for temp is high or I have no idea how to read it. Anyway, I got that all filled up and probably have most of the bubbles out.

Sadly I wasn't able to get it started again to make sure I got all the air out, the battery voltage was probably too low at 11.8 so I have the float charger hooked up and I'll try again in a few hours.

[Chris in TN]

Awesome score! And I thought I was doing well 2 weeks ago when I got the '76 GL1000 for $1000.

[extremeodd]

Messed with it for a little more last night. With the battery voltage up to the mid 12v range it was able to start up without too much drama. It just needed a little choke and it was able to idle without the choke almost from the get go, which is good because when I reattached the cable I did something wrong and the only way to get the choke to work is by manually manipulating the linkage.

Since the radiator appears to be damaged, all of the water I poured into had leaked out by the time I started it again so I couldn't run it for more than a min or so. Even with only being able to run it for a short time, I discovered the carbs are fairly gummed up and I REALLY should have cleaned them when I had them out.

Basically, it'll idle without any issue but if you try to give it sudden throttle it'll choke out and die. If you slowly roll onto the throttle it'll rev up without much complaint. I've already checked the flow rate and can safely say that it isn't a bad filter or pump.

I've also noticed the right side of the engine gets far hotter far more quickly than the left but I'm currently chalking that up to the bike being on the kickstand and that side still having some water in it because of the tilt. Weirdly though the exhaust on the right got far hotter way more quickly than on the left side despite it running on all 4 cylinders.

After running it for just a min I noticed a fair bit of smoke/steam coming from the right side of the motor. Without a flashlight I couldn't tell if it was coming from where the exhaust bolts to the head or from the bottom side of the valve cover where it seals to the head. I'd think that the crankcase couldn't pressurize with its venting but I've had stranger things happen so I'll need to check to make sure there isn't a blown HG.

Today I plan on emptying all the gas out of it, draining the floats, draining the fuel lines (literally emptying ALL gas) then dumping a full can of seafoam into the tank and letting the pump fill the floats with it before adding just a splash of gas. I'm not holding out much hope of this actually doing all that much but at the very least it'll help remove some varnish from the bottom of the tank, the lines, pump and maybe some out of the carb. Anyone know of something that is stronger than seafoam but won't eat up any soft bits?

When my carb cleaning brushes/wires get here tomorrow, I'll be pulling apart the carbs and cleaning them to hopefully solve the bulk of this running issue.

[Track T 2411]

I like Tecron fuel injector cleaner (made by Chevron). It is quite potent, though, so I wouldn't recommend using it with just a splash of gas...

[extremeodd]

I almost grabbed a bottle of that instead of the seafoam but I couldn't find anyone talking about using it on a gummed carburetor so I went with the 'foam.

Got most of the gas pumped out with a hand pump, unhooked a fuel line and used the fuel pump to get the rest out followed by draining the float bowls of 3/4 of the carbs (4th one wouldn't budge with the terrible angle of attack from the alt being in the way). Hooked the line back up and dumped the can in the tank. It took tipping the bike side to side for the pump to suck it up but after a bit got the carbs good and filled. Finally, I started it up and let it run for 15-20 seconds to help get the seafoam in the nooks and crannies of the carb.

Every hour or two I've been firing it up (which has been shockingly easy) for 15-20 seconds to keep getting some fresh seafoam into the bowls. I'll keep doing that for the rest of the night and some time tomorrow I'll dump a bucket of water into the radiator, a gallon or two of gas in the tank and see if I can't get the bike to run long enough to get some gas into the carbs to see if this brash treatment helped at all. At the very least I can be confident that the pilots aren't plugged, just wish the carb throats were easier to get to so I could try blasting some air down the atomizer tube to possibly clear out the main. I could just pull the top of the carb off to get the slide and needle out and from there I might be able to stick a cleaning wire down to the main jet. Totally going to try this totally halfcocked idea. Anything to not pull those carbs again, that is just tedious on this bike.

I may not be Miss Cleo but I see pulling and deep cleaning carbs in my future...

Here's a quick clip of it starting
https://youtu.be/_qsH94l1YXg

[extremeodd]

Decided to check out the viability of cleaning the main jets from the top and discovered a not so nice issue: torn diaphragm. There is a U shaped tear that is about 1/4in wide. The diaphragm has been repaired before and that repair is still holding up quite well so I'd like to try my hand at doing the same thing.

Any tips or guides on what to use for this? Paying $100 for a 4 pack of diaphragms isn't something I'm really wanting to do...

EDIT: It appears that people have had good success with plastidip, so I'll give that a shot. Worst case, I have to order a diaphragm, best case I save $30.

Double edit: Here are somepictures of the diaphragm

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[Oldmannewwinger]

Most of my experience is in automotive but I've had good results with pure Techron.

[desertrefugee]

Zombie thread alert…