Please welcome in our newest forum for the SilverWing called Mini-Wings!

Classic Goldwings

Help Support Classic Goldwings:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Thanks, I do believe that the bike has an identity issue. While it has the wiring harness for the fairing, (and I don't see any evidence of hacking on the harness) the tank, which is pristine inside, has the emblems on both sides which would not be there if it came off the line as an Interstate. So either it was a Standard and the fairing and the bags were added at the dealer or the gas tank was switched out at some point. Unfortunately, I don't have the side bags as the PO sold them as he was parting the bike out. Luckily for me he lost interest and decided to put the bike up for sale before selling too many parts off it. The PO bought an '83 GL500i and started swapping parts. Luckily for me he swapped the straight pipes from this bike to his new bike (as a deer deterrent) and kept the original exhaust pipes. All I did was clean them up and reinstall them on this bike. There was a box with 2 master cylinders and 4 front calipers, horn (1), mirrors and the fairing lowers. I rebuilt on of the Master Cylinders and one of the calipers, new pads, oil change, anything rubber replaced. I will have the tires mounted and a new Nautilus air horn mounted next weekend and it will be time for a real road trip.
 
Always liked the turbo sport model.
honda-cx650-turbo-2_zps43dc7646.jpg
 
[url=https://www.forum.classicgoldwings.com/viewtopic.php?p=115473#p115473:35v4zaxp said:
SteveA-wing » Sun Apr 20, 2014 2:07 pm[/url]":35v4zaxp]
Well, well, well......Due to some leg issues, I started looking around for a lighter alternative for my GL-1100i as my daily rider. I happened on a low mileage '81 GL-500i on Ebay not too far from me that needed some love. Bike hadn't been on the road for 4 years, brakes were shot, tires were shot and had started to be used as a donor bike, but luckily only plastic parts. The bike had no fairing, front turn signals but had the wiring harness for the fairing. Long story short $280 later and a tank of gas for the truck, I had bike number six to join its brothers and sisters. Picked it up on a Saturday and had her purring on Sunday. I picked up most of the parts to put her back into shape. After an oil change and a carb rebuild, I bought new tires but I still have to mount them. I have had her ot on some short shakedown rides and fixing little things as I find them. I must say that she seems quite nimble and very smooth. I'll post some decent pictures once I get it the rest of the way together.View attachment 2View attachment 1
file.php

file.php

file.php


Very Nice!!

Great price,
When i lived in Calif. and had my 83' CX500 was my only transportation at that time, they are a good commuter, and fun to ride. Now with S.S. brake lines the single brake can provide good stopping power, the Old rubber brake lines may be past their prime.

Enjoy it, you got a nice bike there.
 
Here are my Wings.......notice the Silverwing is in front....LOL. I do ride the Silverwing more, cause I ride it to work every chance i get! She is getting ridden less and less however, to the point I am considering selling her. It's either that or a full on restoration this coming winter!
untitled.png
 
joe,shipping container..Evansville,ind they deliver..some nice bikes .your right,but there great in a corner.for a first bike it would.work,fer sure.. :music: :moped:
 

Attachments

  • 003.jpg
    003.jpg
    61.2 KB · Views: 620
Tom, have a look at the gallery tutorials on how to link a gallery image in your posts.
It will save you having to upload an attachment every time and save on server space.
:thanks:
 
I'll have to keep an eye on this section for later research. . . slabghost recommended a Sliverwing to me in my bike searches. :cool:
 
I purchased my first CX500 (a '79) at 6300 miles. With '79 being second year of production, it had the factory COMSTAR wheels, and the mechanically-driven (camshaft mounted) cooling fan. it DID already have the cam-timing chain slack adjuster correction. It also had a plexi-fairing, and after having used it well, and having it crack in several places for several unrelated incidences, I came upon a Pacifico Aero fairing with no brackets, for a pretty darned 'low' price. I fabricated brackets, added a Blaupunkt stereo and a pair of 5" speakers, and headed down the road. A month later, I found a pair of very volumnous black ABS saddlebags with brackets to fit who-knows-what, and again, I fabricated brackets to fit. Then I found a very similar trunk (in a totally different state), with SAME KEY... bought it for $20, and made a new rear rack (the factory rack was not gonna work). I stuffed some Conti Blitzes on the wheels and promptly rotated them 'till they were worn out... and repeated twice more. I found some floorboards, nix'd the heel-toe, and re-shaped the shifter to work as-is.

I rode it to about 32,000 miles without any issues, but started hearing rattling coming from down below, and after investigating, found that the composite cooling fan was cracking and delaminating from the aluminum hub. After wandering through my local motorcycle boneyard, and finding CX engines with fans half-gone, and radiators and shrouds all messed up, and no GOOD fans to be found, I decided there must be a good reason...

So I hacksaw'd the camshaft off, polished it smooth, and stuffed an FJ-1200 cooling fan under the shroud. I made a simple electronic circuit that used the temp sensor circuit voltage to trigger a relay that controlled the electric fan.

At the same time, I had the fairing off, I had a fork seal leaking. Rather than rebuilding the forks, I found a front-end all the way to steerer tube, for a '78 GL1000, and a master cylinder from a CB-1000.

I trimmed the steering tube, and mated the GL frontend to my CX, used about four inches of the CX spring with a pair of plugs to 'mate up' with the factory GL springs after shortening them by 2"... settled on 7-wt fork oil, and have been running that ever since. Stiffer tubes, double disk brakes, and oh... an adjustment to the rear shocks, I've got a whole lot more available ground clearance, excellent handling, and stop-on-front-wheel braking.

Somewhere around 78k, I had to replace the shift-shaft seal... it was drippin' on my garage floor. At same time, I replaced the rotten factory exhaust with a pair of Jardine turn-downs intended for a GL500. I replaced a fair amount of brake pads during my work-commuting days just out of college. Mostly, I wore out FIVE speedometers and two tachometers. I then gave up, tired of listening to goblin-howling speed indicators and writing down mileage to keep accurate track... I just count 12 fuel tank fills per oil change, and check the valve clearance and wipe off the spark plugs each change.

At about 112,000, I had the cooling pump seal started weeping. I removed the seal IN the bike... made a special tool to whack the new one in place, put it back together, and it's been fine ever since. I think it currently has 260,000 miles logged... still with original clutch... original stator... NEVER had the engine open. sorry to report that it needs tires, and I've been enjoying the GL 1200...

But my son got a Motorcycle Learner's Permit, so I think he'll be learning to appreciate Shiochiro Irimajari's work... that odd-firing 500CC V-twin lunkin' underneath his butt while sitting at a stoplight.
 
Interesting, one of the first things I noticed when I recently picked up my GL500 was the amount of flex in the front end. Both front calipers were frozen to the rotors and the front tire was flat, a simple twist of the handlebars produced a large amount of twisting flex in the forks, and there is no fork brace. I wondered if there was ever a problem with front end wobble.
 
I didn't particularly have a serious problem with wobble... I could MAKE it wobble by bumping one handlebar with the heel of my hand, but I can do that with my GL1200 too...

What I had biggest issues with, was that the suspension travel went away fast, the tubes exhibited lots of 'sticktion', and they'd twist under hard braking- it'd wanna pull left on account of single disk caliper torque.

Under weight and windload, the fairing created lots of downforce at highway speed... and of course, lots of dive.

I'm a bicyclist... a 2-day 250-mile ride isn't alien to my hide, and I used to do some road and criterium (closed course loop) racing, so I'm particularly comfortable using lots of front brake. Having the front wheel doing 100% of my braking effort (daylight between rear wheel and ground) is not alien to my skillset, I like my machines to be predictable, stable, and solid whilst howling that front wheel. I'm also very willing to navigate over and around obstacles to keep myself safe, so ground clearance is very desireable for clearing curbs and avoiding road obstructions.

Going to a bigger set of tubes, wider tree spacing, and dual disks improved it's nose-down handling attitude substantially. I don't recall how much change in steering geometry occurred... it was minimal, but noticeable. Axle mounts are essentially same (no significant change in trail), and while the triple-tree design is a wee bit different in rake, most of the geometric change in rake/trail a result of the springs being strong enough to actually maintain the bike's elevation with the fairing and my 190lb arse under real road/handing load.

It made an absolute WORLD of difference in my '79 CX. Obviously, later CX an GL 500/600's used different arrangements, as well as dual disk brakes, they had air adjustability (mine not)... and I've never ridden a Silver, so I have no clue how mine compares to those, but if any of you happen to be on two wheels in my vicinity (eastern edge of Iowa) is more than welcome to take it for a whirl!

Nixing the mechanical fan helped smooth out the engine, and basically eliminated need to make adjustments to cam chain tensioner. Never had stator or charging problems. I wore out lots of tires and speedometers...
 
Top