1976 Honda GL1000

My Nephews covers looked identical.
Glass beaded them then powder-coated them ourselves.
It was a fun little project to learn PC on.
Polishing them will take a LOT of time unless your shop has the right tools.
Painting will be much quicker.
THe challenge is that you will need to get ALL the chrome off of them, not just the flakey bits.
THe glass bead will help speed that process up significantly.


Getting There!

If it proves to be too much of a pain to get them cleaned up let me know. I have a few packed away in my spares I'd sell ya cheap.

The weekend was fairly productive. Got the headlight to work, turned out to be a loose fuse. Also checked the valve clearances, only had to adjust a couple of them. Now I'm waiting on carburetor parts. When I get paid again ill have to order some more stuff, I think the front calipers need rebuilt and the throttle cables are pretty trashed.

HD, I'll PM you about the covers. I might spend more buying stuff to strip the chrome than I would on new covers.

GAR-UN-TEED!
(trying to raise money for the Beeza build )

Seriously, have you access to glass beads at the aircraft shop? I would try that first as mentioned earlier. If not maybe send them to me and I can have a go at it or send you mine (just sayin)

I glanced at the blast machine today and noticed that the bucket of media under it said 'beads' on it and the machine had a label that said 'do not use sand' so perhaps it's what I need. I meant to ask my instructor today but got busy. I'll ask tomorrow.

My carb parts came in today I'm gonna get going on that pretty soon.

If not, hit me up I have a cabinet full of glass bead

It runs! Great Scott, it runs. Been working in 20 minute snatches when I got the chance. Finally got the carbs fixed up and back on. Fired it up and it seems to be ideling pretty good. More details later.

Whoot. Nice work

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Thumbs up

Righteous.

CONGRATS!

I didn't take many pictures along the way but here's what went down. Once my Randakk kit came in and the emulsion tubes from a NGW member I got to work. Cleaned everything and replaced o-rings. I didn't boil the crabs or anything extreme, just hosed all the orifices with spray carb cleaner and some brake cleaner on the outsides. I almost had everything back together and found that one of my float needles was damaged. Luckily the same NGW member with the emulsion tubes sent me a float needle.

I did "cheat" in one respect; I didn't separate individual carbs or split the plenum. Wasn't planing on separating individual carbs anyways but I was gonna replace the plenum gasket. The screws holding it together would not budge. I smacked them with my impact screw driver and even tried drilling one and using an easy out. Didn't work. I got frustrated, said fuck it and put 'em back together. I'll deal with that down the road.

Once I got the carbs back on I tried firing it up. It took a few tries to get fuel up into the carbs and a shot of ether because I'm impatient but it fired up. Let it run a few minutes, shut it off and it cranked right back up and idled pretty evenly. There's a local, small time bike shop around the corner that I will probably let synch the carbs for me. The owner has an all original 76 GL1000 LTD sitting in the shop, me probably knows what he's doing.

Next stop is the front brakes. They stop the wheel but don't release. I'll try bleeding them first, hopefully I don't have to rebuild the calipers.

Caliper rebuid is cheap and easy.

Bled the brakes a bit, think I've got some better action at the lever. I'll have to get it out of the shed to be able to roll it enough to tell.

So when I went to the shed I tried cranking it up just for shits and giggles. At first the engine wouldn't turn, I had a pretty good idea what the problem was. I pulled the spark plugs out of the low side of the engine and hit the starter. One of them spewed gas. Put it back together and it cranks up. When I have the petcock in the "ON" position and the bike running I see gas in the air plenum(don't have the air box back on yet) and the engine wants to die. Is this a float height problem? There was also still a good bit of white smoke from the exhaust, another symptom of running rich?

Never leave the fuel "on" on these things. If you have a sticky float and you fill a cylinder with gas and it does turn over you hydroloc and break expensive stuff. the white smoke, if it is from the left/kickstand side it is normal. the bike sits with a valve open and oil gets past the valve seals and burns off and it will smoke for a few minutes then goes away. If it keeps smoking or it is both sides it is something else. These bikes have a certian set of quirks that once you learn, you just let be and enjoy riding. The hard start after a long sit is because the pump needs to prime and fill the float bowls. If you ride every few days it is a non-issue, over a week, and it will be a bit cranky until the bowls fill.

john83 said:

... When I have the petcock in the "ON" position and the bike running I see gas in the air plenum(don't have the air box back on yet) and the engine wants to die. Is this a float height problem? There was also still a good bit of white smoke from the exhaust, another symptom of running rich?

Click to expand...

Either float height or a float valve not seating properly can cause raw fuel to gather in the plenum....
With these early GL's it's not a good idea to store it with the petcock on. Also, learn to use the center stand.
A sticking fuel valve will fill the cylinder with fuel just like you experianced...Then,when the engine tries to compress the liquid it hydro-locks and can bend a valve or rod.

*EDIT* Dang Maritime, sure can tell the GL owners, huh!

LOL, yep!

Hmmm...I reckon the carbs need to come back off to check float height then.

How in gods name do you use the center stand, I've been wondering myself. Haven't quite worked the leverage out.

How in gods name do you use the center stand, I've been wondering myself. Haven't quite worked the leverage out.