Maritime's new GL - 2UP Distance eater
- Thread starter Maritime
- Start date
JustinLonghorn
No Purple Hearts, No Blue Ribbons
Rad. Keep on truckin. Take care of that foot.
JustinLonghorn
No Purple Hearts, No Blue Ribbons
Hell yeah, man.
Love it, Mike.
Maritime
Over 10,000 Posts
JustinLonghorn
No Purple Hearts, No Blue Ribbons
One step at a time, my man.
SoyBoySigh
Been Around the Block
Got a solution for your foot problem! Something you don't even need to wear around all day, that you won't risk getting arrested as some funky kick-stabbing DIY Ninja, felony weapon possession charge type of bullshit.
I messed up my back in '99, had some surgery go badly, wound up with my left leg pretty much NUMB all of the time, used to give out from under me a lot of the time. Meanwhile, I had just jumped up from my old C70 Passport and recent acquisition of a year or less KZ440LTD - to a very hot tweaked rebuilt '82 CB750F! Pretty wild stuff 'cause spending so many years on the little bike, my habits were all about throttle position wrapped all the way tight, to chopping it back full, clutchless upshift wheelies & some crazy ENDO stoppies with just that lil' drum - which only worked so good 'cause I put the WORK into maintaining the thing at top notch spec - a lot of cat-walks several blocks long, basically rode that little bike on one wheel or the other but seldom both at once. Kinda like the youtube vids of young Thai kids ripping around on their C70's - VERY fun bikes I highly recommend 'em, and yeah I kept it going for several years alongside the CB750F - But damn, if it didn't translate to some ridiculous antics with the bigger bike, if for no other reason but never having to learn how to modulate the twist grip! Ha-ha.
Anyway, being that my '82 CB750F (first of three, the 3rd one's my "CB900K0 Bol Bomber", but likely going into the frame from #2 750 type ASAP) was the North American variety with the forward foot controls (not what cruiser twits call forward controls, more like what Harley people would call "Mid-Position Controls") as opposed to the "Sport-Kit" or "rear-set" controls - or what the Europeans and Japanese call "NORMAL" - long story short, the gear-shifter lever was direct on the engine shaft. No linkage rod & Heim/Rose-Joints.
SO - I was able to snag a spare C70 PASSPORT shifter, which is a heel-toe type one-piece chromed-steel shifter with the same rubber sleeved toe shifter you're used to - AND a brake-pedal styled armature flowing rearward a little bit longer than the front arm. You can find the same part on a lot of early CUB models, it's just that the Passport was made the same vintage as your Goldwing which is just ... "appropriate" somehow. Like, it could've been a factory mod or something. Interestingly enough, some of the earliest CUB models had a right-hand shift, meaning it's the same lever only it's a mirror image - semantics would say that the later version which we're lookin' fer here is what you call the "SINISTER" version of the two. Maybe that'll sit better with some of ya'll heavy-metal style choppa heads? Don't think of it as a piece of a dinky lil' scooter - which it AIN'T, 'cause the CUB/PASSPORT is one hell of a stunt-bike!
Right about now, I'm looking for something much the same but suitable for a linkage rod etc, older Italian small-displacement models are a good bet but not cheap! If I can't find it, I might just try & whip something up from a buncha scrap alloy 3/8" - 1/2" plate, to suit these Tarozzi pegs which I've been so keen to get rid of....
The CUB/PASSPORT shifter is perfectly oriented, distance-wise, and it fits direct to the shaft same splines as other Honda shifters, it even had a good angle of "attack" or action or whatever, in the one & only position that it'll FIT onto the shaft with stock pegs etc.
THAT way, you don't need to pick at the lever with your toe. Just stomp down in front to shift down, stomp down in BACK to shift UP. I'm guessing your 'Wing might not shift in the same pattern as my CB900K0 Bol Bomber? Actually thinking of reversing the rod on my rear-sets, so that the shift follows a "race pattern" - then again, am also thinking of reversing the lever itself, to move the peg a lot further back, but then for that I'd prefer a shorter lever so it's not quite THAT far of a rear-set, am checking out some of the newer levers & the newer CBR250 seems to have a much shorter lever arm - but yeah, combine the two, and a "Race-Shift" type pedal would operate in the normal order of 1 down, Neutral, 2-6 up etc. But meanwhile, the "KZ440LOL", I'm thinking about putting rear-sets with passenger pegs on IT as well, not just the Tarozzi pegs that came with the 900 stuck on the passenger peg brackets - but yeah if I get the pegs right where I want 'em, I'd really like to set up the shifter with a reversed pedal, reverse order, "race shift" - being that the rear brake is a drum and IT'S rear-sets are so much simpler to set up - If only because it's the Kid's first "real" bike, up from her scooters ie 125cc Yamaha "VINO" - Not a bad scoot, for the type. But yeah, since it's her first PROPER bike vis-à-vis shifting gears etc, I was thinking maybe she could get used to the RACE shift pattern right off the bat. For no other reason but that it would keep it all as simple as possible for HERSELF to repair etc, but also - 'cause it'd LOOK SO RAD!!! (Rad being sprecken sie Deutsche for "BIKE" ha-ha.... No really though. It'd look pretty damn cool.)
As for your KOSO gauges solution? Far better to keep the OEM clock GUTS, and just stick 'em into an alternative housing. IMHO the best looking stuff would be say, a CB160 Baby-Hawk or CB450K0 Black Bomber oval dual-clock housing, ideally not to look too much like a KATANA cockpit, if you know what I mean. But yeah, clock guts are pretty damn compact so if you got creative with it, there's a lot of cool stuff can be done. Seen some old's-cool Brit-bike rebuilds where folks rebuilt their Smiths Chronometer housings with shit like CAT FOOD TINS - I have no idea how they glassed 'em in waterproof, but they figured it out somehow.
For my Kid's "Laugh Out Loud" KZ, the odd change of rim & tire diameter combined with a different hub & fork etc, it just makes sense to run a modern electronic speedo, with the pick-up down through the empty sheath of an old speedo cable, with the empty speedo housing in the 4LS drum being there whether you like it or not, like - how else are you gonna plug it up type of deal, then yeah - an electronic speedo makes sense. Gotta do the same thing on the Honda, being that it's another wire-spoke wheel swap & all that. Sadly, NOT 4LS drum hub, 'cause they've never MADE a drum hub to handle the DOHC 900 - okay, yeah - young AGO had his MV 500's and many a Brit 750 TWIN rider used 250mm Fontana, the Yam too-smokes with their 260mm versions. But none of 'em added up to all of the power AND weight of a DOHC 900, with an overweight rider no less. Ha-ha. No really though, I figure that drum hub had better be around 310mm - 330mm and twice as wide as anything previously built, like shoes of 2" width per side just like 2LS drums had, rather than narrower shoes. Like this KZ's lil' 200mm drum - 25mm shoes per side, whereas the 2LS T500 Titan version was something like 40mm wide - a "DOUBLE" brake would imply that them shoes should EACH have been 40-50mm, at least, IMHO. Pretty damn heavy that way, and smarter to go up in diameter anyhow. WHATEVER - my point being, I WANT another drum up there, maybe then I'd have the excuse of keeping the old speedometer housing. But WTF I mean, even a disc-brake model looks better with all of the OEM street-bike gear on it, at least - IMHO - I guess the fake race-bike thing doesn't appeal to me nearly as much as the "Street-Bike that should've been but never was...." sorta design exercise. Ergo, all of those little details which you DON'T see on a period-correct ENDURANCE RACER- like a speedometer drive on it's axle spacers, a cable with sheath running up to some proper CLOCKS with a nice glass & bezel for a readable cockpit, chrome trim around the seat base, badges on the tank or side-covers, nice old's-cool indicator lights, and their ancillary "Idiot-Lights" on the dash panel - ooh and the little decal near the gas tank filler cap, "RESPECT NATURE" - I'm gonna ask 'em to ship a pile of messed up decals just so long as I can cut out the "RESPECT NATURE" line, I wanna repeat that one line over & over again on the cap. Plus, well maybe some of the other tank decals which had instructions for appropriate air pressure on gas-assist forks which DIDN'T use the inter-link tube, IIRC it was either CB750C or CB750K-zabc, or perhaps it was VF750S Sabre, I know it was a Honda concurrent with the CB900F anyhow....
But the one thing which might bug you about the heel-toe shifter, is you'd better have some distance between the heel-stomp UP-SHIFT, and your passenger's TOES. Heh-heh. Not so great for the DOHC-4 Sport-Kit rear-sets or Tarozzi, RAASK etc (let alone "Tarozzi + RAASK!) rear-sets peg positions, AND a passenger back there - Not unless you've rigged up some sort of rear-set pegs for the passenger as well? Perhaps with some hard-luggage bracketry or the indicator light mounts or some such. Nevertheless, they're a great fix for a messed-up foot, leg, what 'ere AILS ye.
And lemme tell ya - compared to all of the Heel-Toe shifters on the market for HardlyAbleson all of that Kuryakyn knock-off "dark custom" type of shite? The "CUB kicker" ("Give 'Er the SPURS!") has gotta be the cheapest mod on the planet!
-S.
I messed up my back in '99, had some surgery go badly, wound up with my left leg pretty much NUMB all of the time, used to give out from under me a lot of the time. Meanwhile, I had just jumped up from my old C70 Passport and recent acquisition of a year or less KZ440LTD - to a very hot tweaked rebuilt '82 CB750F! Pretty wild stuff 'cause spending so many years on the little bike, my habits were all about throttle position wrapped all the way tight, to chopping it back full, clutchless upshift wheelies & some crazy ENDO stoppies with just that lil' drum - which only worked so good 'cause I put the WORK into maintaining the thing at top notch spec - a lot of cat-walks several blocks long, basically rode that little bike on one wheel or the other but seldom both at once. Kinda like the youtube vids of young Thai kids ripping around on their C70's - VERY fun bikes I highly recommend 'em, and yeah I kept it going for several years alongside the CB750F - But damn, if it didn't translate to some ridiculous antics with the bigger bike, if for no other reason but never having to learn how to modulate the twist grip! Ha-ha.
Anyway, being that my '82 CB750F (first of three, the 3rd one's my "CB900K0 Bol Bomber", but likely going into the frame from #2 750 type ASAP) was the North American variety with the forward foot controls (not what cruiser twits call forward controls, more like what Harley people would call "Mid-Position Controls") as opposed to the "Sport-Kit" or "rear-set" controls - or what the Europeans and Japanese call "NORMAL" - long story short, the gear-shifter lever was direct on the engine shaft. No linkage rod & Heim/Rose-Joints.
SO - I was able to snag a spare C70 PASSPORT shifter, which is a heel-toe type one-piece chromed-steel shifter with the same rubber sleeved toe shifter you're used to - AND a brake-pedal styled armature flowing rearward a little bit longer than the front arm. You can find the same part on a lot of early CUB models, it's just that the Passport was made the same vintage as your Goldwing which is just ... "appropriate" somehow. Like, it could've been a factory mod or something. Interestingly enough, some of the earliest CUB models had a right-hand shift, meaning it's the same lever only it's a mirror image - semantics would say that the later version which we're lookin' fer here is what you call the "SINISTER" version of the two. Maybe that'll sit better with some of ya'll heavy-metal style choppa heads? Don't think of it as a piece of a dinky lil' scooter - which it AIN'T, 'cause the CUB/PASSPORT is one hell of a stunt-bike!
Right about now, I'm looking for something much the same but suitable for a linkage rod etc, older Italian small-displacement models are a good bet but not cheap! If I can't find it, I might just try & whip something up from a buncha scrap alloy 3/8" - 1/2" plate, to suit these Tarozzi pegs which I've been so keen to get rid of....
The CUB/PASSPORT shifter is perfectly oriented, distance-wise, and it fits direct to the shaft same splines as other Honda shifters, it even had a good angle of "attack" or action or whatever, in the one & only position that it'll FIT onto the shaft with stock pegs etc.
THAT way, you don't need to pick at the lever with your toe. Just stomp down in front to shift down, stomp down in BACK to shift UP. I'm guessing your 'Wing might not shift in the same pattern as my CB900K0 Bol Bomber? Actually thinking of reversing the rod on my rear-sets, so that the shift follows a "race pattern" - then again, am also thinking of reversing the lever itself, to move the peg a lot further back, but then for that I'd prefer a shorter lever so it's not quite THAT far of a rear-set, am checking out some of the newer levers & the newer CBR250 seems to have a much shorter lever arm - but yeah, combine the two, and a "Race-Shift" type pedal would operate in the normal order of 1 down, Neutral, 2-6 up etc. But meanwhile, the "KZ440LOL", I'm thinking about putting rear-sets with passenger pegs on IT as well, not just the Tarozzi pegs that came with the 900 stuck on the passenger peg brackets - but yeah if I get the pegs right where I want 'em, I'd really like to set up the shifter with a reversed pedal, reverse order, "race shift" - being that the rear brake is a drum and IT'S rear-sets are so much simpler to set up - If only because it's the Kid's first "real" bike, up from her scooters ie 125cc Yamaha "VINO" - Not a bad scoot, for the type. But yeah, since it's her first PROPER bike vis-à-vis shifting gears etc, I was thinking maybe she could get used to the RACE shift pattern right off the bat. For no other reason but that it would keep it all as simple as possible for HERSELF to repair etc, but also - 'cause it'd LOOK SO RAD!!! (Rad being sprecken sie Deutsche for "BIKE" ha-ha.... No really though. It'd look pretty damn cool.)
As for your KOSO gauges solution? Far better to keep the OEM clock GUTS, and just stick 'em into an alternative housing. IMHO the best looking stuff would be say, a CB160 Baby-Hawk or CB450K0 Black Bomber oval dual-clock housing, ideally not to look too much like a KATANA cockpit, if you know what I mean. But yeah, clock guts are pretty damn compact so if you got creative with it, there's a lot of cool stuff can be done. Seen some old's-cool Brit-bike rebuilds where folks rebuilt their Smiths Chronometer housings with shit like CAT FOOD TINS - I have no idea how they glassed 'em in waterproof, but they figured it out somehow.
For my Kid's "Laugh Out Loud" KZ, the odd change of rim & tire diameter combined with a different hub & fork etc, it just makes sense to run a modern electronic speedo, with the pick-up down through the empty sheath of an old speedo cable, with the empty speedo housing in the 4LS drum being there whether you like it or not, like - how else are you gonna plug it up type of deal, then yeah - an electronic speedo makes sense. Gotta do the same thing on the Honda, being that it's another wire-spoke wheel swap & all that. Sadly, NOT 4LS drum hub, 'cause they've never MADE a drum hub to handle the DOHC 900 - okay, yeah - young AGO had his MV 500's and many a Brit 750 TWIN rider used 250mm Fontana, the Yam too-smokes with their 260mm versions. But none of 'em added up to all of the power AND weight of a DOHC 900, with an overweight rider no less. Ha-ha. No really though, I figure that drum hub had better be around 310mm - 330mm and twice as wide as anything previously built, like shoes of 2" width per side just like 2LS drums had, rather than narrower shoes. Like this KZ's lil' 200mm drum - 25mm shoes per side, whereas the 2LS T500 Titan version was something like 40mm wide - a "DOUBLE" brake would imply that them shoes should EACH have been 40-50mm, at least, IMHO. Pretty damn heavy that way, and smarter to go up in diameter anyhow. WHATEVER - my point being, I WANT another drum up there, maybe then I'd have the excuse of keeping the old speedometer housing. But WTF I mean, even a disc-brake model looks better with all of the OEM street-bike gear on it, at least - IMHO - I guess the fake race-bike thing doesn't appeal to me nearly as much as the "Street-Bike that should've been but never was...." sorta design exercise. Ergo, all of those little details which you DON'T see on a period-correct ENDURANCE RACER- like a speedometer drive on it's axle spacers, a cable with sheath running up to some proper CLOCKS with a nice glass & bezel for a readable cockpit, chrome trim around the seat base, badges on the tank or side-covers, nice old's-cool indicator lights, and their ancillary "Idiot-Lights" on the dash panel - ooh and the little decal near the gas tank filler cap, "RESPECT NATURE" - I'm gonna ask 'em to ship a pile of messed up decals just so long as I can cut out the "RESPECT NATURE" line, I wanna repeat that one line over & over again on the cap. Plus, well maybe some of the other tank decals which had instructions for appropriate air pressure on gas-assist forks which DIDN'T use the inter-link tube, IIRC it was either CB750C or CB750K-zabc, or perhaps it was VF750S Sabre, I know it was a Honda concurrent with the CB900F anyhow....
But the one thing which might bug you about the heel-toe shifter, is you'd better have some distance between the heel-stomp UP-SHIFT, and your passenger's TOES. Heh-heh. Not so great for the DOHC-4 Sport-Kit rear-sets or Tarozzi, RAASK etc (let alone "Tarozzi + RAASK!) rear-sets peg positions, AND a passenger back there - Not unless you've rigged up some sort of rear-set pegs for the passenger as well? Perhaps with some hard-luggage bracketry or the indicator light mounts or some such. Nevertheless, they're a great fix for a messed-up foot, leg, what 'ere AILS ye.
And lemme tell ya - compared to all of the Heel-Toe shifters on the market for HardlyAbleson all of that Kuryakyn knock-off "dark custom" type of shite? The "CUB kicker" ("Give 'Er the SPURS!") has gotta be the cheapest mod on the planet!
-S.
