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I was doing some half hearted research and it looks as if someone fitted later model 1200 Aspencade fork caps that should be linked to an on board compressor. No compressor on the early GL, so he cut off the hoses and tried to blank them off with screws.
if you remove a cap it should have a hole drilled up the middle which could easily be blanked off with JB weld (after it's clean)
That may be what ends up happening for now, just to get him back on the road. There's a whole front end on ebay right now for a decent price, wish someone was just selling the fork caps.
I went out this morning and took a closer look at the damage. The headlight didn't shatter, just the bucket, that's good. The speedo cable broke right where it connects to the gauge so that'll have to be replaced. The gauge bracket is pretty bent and the plastic idiot light panel is cracked. Not really a ton of damage, shouldn't cost too much to fix. Rear turn signal broke off but that's pretty easy.
Hoosier Daddy said:
DAMN! That blows!
You've had good feedback on the caps, they did have air fittings on them and it appears those were broken off. My GL1100 has a splittler hose that connect the two and equalizes the pressure. The fill port is a schrader valve on the top of the right cap. Thought the 1000's were the same way.
Hey John, late to the party here but the PO must have retro fitted the air to the forks as the GL1000 did not have them, the original fork plug bolts are recessed. I would just put in some bolts with o-rings and not try to air them up. Good seals and proper oil and the forks work fine. Glad you got it running better with the stock exhaust as to re-jett these things with the 4 carbs etc is a lot of work and the factory power for the bike is really ok. If you hop up these old girls you will immediately need to upgrade suspension and bracing etc. or the handling will not match the engine at all.
Hey John, late to the party here but the PO must have retro fitted the air to the forks as the GL1000 did not have them, the original fork plug bolts are recessed. I would just put in some bolts with o-rings and not try to air them up. Good seals and proper oil and the forks work fine. Glad you got it running better with the stock exhaust as to re-jett these things with the 4 carbs etc is a lot of work and the factory power for the bike is really ok. If you hop up these old girls you will immediately need to upgrade suspension and bracing etc. or the handling will not match the engine at all.
Yeah, since the bike is down I was thinking of removing one of the fork caps, see if I can get that fitting out of there and run down to the hardware store to see if I can find a bolt to fit in there. Especially since he can't ride right now anyways. Luckily that accident doesn't seem to have done anything but cosmetic damage.
Has anyone else run lower bars on a GL? If so what's the easiest way to deal with the length of the clutch cable? Get MotionPro to build one the right length?
I run lower bars, Superbike bars would be the model I think, just a slightly higher rise than drag bars. I just routed my clutch cable in a nice smooth arc out and around and same for throttle cables, both are motion pro for GL1000. If I can get my camera working I will get a pic. It takes some playing around to prevent binding but it can be done. Shorter cables would look better but I am too cheap to have custom cables made and not vain enough to care if my bike looks that cool. I ride the crap out of it, it is dirty right now from 3600 miles and won't get cleaned likely until I change the oil in a few days.
Cool, the bars he had were pretty much super bike shaped but I have no idea what they came off of. They look like the used to be red but have faded to pink. At best they came from a dirt bike, at worst a bicycle.
The clutch cable was run behind the headlight but it had a pretty sharp bend after that going into the body work on it's way back to the engine. It was binding pretty bad and I wasn't sure if there was any way to route it that it wouldn't and I was cringing at the cost of a custom cable. I'll play with it before we get him back on the road though.
I put straight drag bars (Broomsticks) on my GL because of the reported angle of standard drag bars hitting the faux tank when turned lock to lock. I can believe it as close as mine come to hitting.
my controls just touch the console with the temp, fuel, and volt guages on full lock, so they are the height of that. I put my clutch cable in a arc out over top of the headlight around the forks and into the body work and my throttle arcs out frontwards and then back into the bodywork. It is quite picky but there is one route that makes them free from binding up at full lock side to side etc.
my controls just touch the console with the temp, fuel, and volt guages on full lock, so they are the height of that. I put my clutch cable in a arc out over top of the headlight around the forks and into the body work and my throttle arcs out frontwards and then back into the bodywork. It is quite picky but there is one route that makes them free from binding up at full lock side to side etc.
Thanks! The bars on it were about the same shape as yours so I'll run the cables in the same manner. They'll have to be replace now, the crash bent them. He was wanting something more along the lines of clubmans or clip ons. I may try to convince him that something like what he has is probably the best option.
Supposed to hear something from the insurance in the next few days so then we'll start ordering parts.
Well, we finally got the insurance stuff sorted out and got the parts in. I removed the fork caps to see what I could do about those air valves spewing oil. I couldn't get the fittings out myself and the local motorcycle shop advised me to take them over to the machine shop. I did and when they got them out it turns out that the air fittings were pressed into the fork caps not threaded. The local Honda shop can't even get the parts. Drag.
Guess we're in the market for some GL1000 or 1100 fork caps.
Or tap a thread in them to take a valve or a bolts and use teflon tape to seal the threads. Has to be cheaper than getting new ones, or thread them from below and slip a bolt in the lower face and just plug teh top with JB weld - or just clean them out and fill the holes with JB weld
The machine shop was hesitant to thread them because of the size of the holes. They said they were a little too big for one size and a little too small for the next one up. Since I can't do shit else with them the thought of filling them with JB Weld until we find some sort of replacement is pretty tempting.
My question is will it handle alright with no air in the fork? It was pretty damn soft before but that could have something to do with the oil spraying out of them. There might not be a whole lot of oil left in there at all.
There is a local bike shop that has a used set of 1100 forks but they are missing some of the air fittings. The caps on those are threaded though so I could probably procure the necessary pieces.
Well, as some of you saw I got the Wing fixed up and my brother rode it to Barber. Unfortunately, he had a little get off while riding there. No injury to him and (we thought) very little to the bike. He rode it back to the front gate of Barber where I fixed a crimped front brake hose. After I got that fixed he tried to test ride it and now it has a new problem.
With the bike in gear you and the clutch lever released the bike just sits there. If the engine is revved it moves forward a little but not much. When we got it back to Kileys garage that night I found that with the bike on the center stand things seem to work normally. With the clutch lever pulled in the rear wheel stops turning. With the lever released the rear wheel spins. When we put the rear wheel back on the ground it just doesn't move.
I figure this means that the clutch is slipping and I'm probably going to pull the plates to check them out.
After your brothers "mishap" I wounder if the clutch linkage / lever / cable got tweeked. I'd loosen the adjuster both at the handle and down at the clutch arm and try re-adjusting and see if that helps before tearing into the clutch plates... Not to say they don't need it, just a hell of a coincidence.
Think I may have found the problem. It's hard to see in the crappy cell phone photos (sorry) but there are at least two friction disks in there with no friction material left on them. I guess it's time for a new clutch pack.
What a pain in the ass to get this thing out by the way!
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