'76 CP1000 Copper Wing

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Bug

Bug

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 20, 2014
Messages
75
Reaction score
29
Location
West Jordan, UT
My Bike Models
'76 GL1000
So, last summer, I was halfway thru my usual 56 mile commute home from work in my red 1975 beetle, when it started smoking something crazy. It lost all umph and I coasted to the shoulder of the freeway. When it had cooled, It started but didn't seem to have full power. It seems I had damaged at least one of the cylinders, and the blow-by coming out of the crank case was spraying oil everywhere. Looks like it needed a full rebuild to be anywhere near dependable. That job, although easy since you can replace the cylinder and piston with pre-assembled units, was beyond my skills/tools/confidence/budget.
So I stole the family vehicle until we could figure out what to do with the old bug. My dad heard about my troubles and did something completely unexpected, unusual, and shocking. He's just never been the type to help me out so I didn't know how to react when he gave me his 2001 oldsmobile aurora. It was somewhat of a troublesome car with way too many sensors and needed a little TLC, but it ran good and was dependable.
I still didn't want to worry with the beetle, so I put it up on craigslist for trade. I wanted a >750cc bike in semi working condition that I could tinker with and this old wing is what I ended up with.
New (to me) Wing!

New (to me) Wing!

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This is my wing shortly after bringing it home. Fairing was the first thing to go!
Now, I'm not a big fan of the stereo-typical goldwing. I think it's an "old Man's bike" (sorry, no offense intended). I like cafe/bobber style bikes and when I found this guy, I considered it a challenge to make it more my style, so here we go!
 
Welcome to the fun. Old men can be found riding just about any bike really. These old wings are much more comfortable than most on long rides.
 
So, I got it home in the rain and parked it in the garage. I had to get it started, if only for a few seconds. There on the trailer, I jumped the dead battery and she started up. posting.php?mode=reply&f=9&t=9880# A little rough, but she was running - then i saw the water leaking out of the head and steaming on the exhaust manifold... I freaked out thinking I was going to have to replace the head gaskets when I traded the beetle, with full disclosure of it's state, to avoid having to get that deep in the motor. I shut it down and went inside, ready to make some calls to the guy who traded it to me.
I don't like talking when I'm upset, so I decided to sit over night and call him after work. He didn't answer when I called (oh Great!). The curious tinkerer in me had me back in the garage looking at it. I started her up and she was dry! I checked the radiator and overflow, both were full... It turns out that sitting for 20 years, the spark plug well drains had plugged. The vibrations of the motor must have helped the water work its way out.
So, first, off came the fairing, and second, I had to clean the rust out of the gas tank. Using a piece of rebar and an old laptop power supply she slowly came clean.
Sacrificial anode

Sacrificial anode

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Second thing, de-rust-ifing the gas tank. I had to clean this off many times over several days...
 
Replacing head gaskets on these old wings is not difficult.. Glad you dodged the job this time though. Regardless what your bike needs. You can fix it with tools and help from the members here.
 
Thank you for your welcomes! I've been lurking on several of these sites since I got the bike and have learned alot! I found this community more to my liking than the others so I decided to detail my work here. I'll get this thread up to where I currently am with the bike, and I'll have a few questions for where I want to go with it's design. This community seems quite supportive of single carbs, and that's where i'm headed.
 
Thanks again for the welcomes!

Ok, continuing with the story. I did a "quick" run thru the carbs and fuel pump, and replaced the fuel lines and filter as they all were full of rust. I got a couple hex cap screws and drilled a hole down the middle with my cordless. Two out of four ain't too bad for free handing that kinda job right? I used the drilled screws with a long length of clear tubing pressed over the heads of the screws, slung over the mirrors and with about 3 feet of water in the middle of it to balance the carbs. Oh! and a pair of vise-grips in the middle almost pinching it closed to even the pulses out and give me more time to kill the engine if something went wrong!
That had the engine running fairly smooth. I changed the timing belts, coolant, and oil. checked the water pump (old brown, but the bearings felt tight).

I went to work on some cosmetics, namely the old seat:
Comfy couch?

Comfy couch?

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Na, let's fix that.
Foam and vinyl gone, ugly rustyness underneath:
Ug... More Rust

Ug... More Rust

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With the foam removed, rusty seat pan exposed.
After fair bit of time with the wire wheel, Shiney!:
Oooo Shiny!!!

Oooo Shiny!!!

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After some time with the wire brush grinder...
A quick coat of paint to help protect the metal:
Ooooo Red!

Ooooo Red!

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A quick coat of rustoleum to protect the shiny underneath.
I kinda like the red with the yellow...
Hmm...

Hmm...

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I kinda like the red on there...
I used some foam scraps from a temp job I had at a mattress factory and some vinyl seat covering from Hobby Lobby to make this:
New seat!

New seat!

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New foam and vinyl.
So there's one thing to make it look a little cafe'd
New Seat! (2)

New Seat! (2)

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I think I like it!
 
So here's where the copper starts. I had been debating what color to paint it and was leaning towards copper when I tried to move the headlight from the old Vetter fairing back into the original bowl on the bike and it was the wrong size. Ok, get a different lightbulb right? Well, I still wouldn't have anything to hold it in place as the empty bowl on the bike didn't have any hardware. So I started playing around with this idea:
Headlight idea...

Headlight idea...

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I thought it would be intresting to support it with springs... Way too big though.
I wanted to suspend the light with springs, kind of like those old microphones you would see in a recording studio. That made it way too big in my opinion, so I cut it smaller and ended up with this:
Copper Headlight Mount

Copper Headlight Mount

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Ah, Much better for size.

Now, how to attach the bulb to the frame? I made a sort of chain link wire mesh thingy and used bailing wire to hold it in place.
Copper Screen

Copper Screen

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...A woven copper wire mesh to hold the light in the frame, and good old fashioned stainless...

I used grounding lugs to mount the frame to the stock hangers. Notice the bailing wire going over the back center of the light? this shorted against one of the bulb leads blowing a few fuzes before I was able to trace it out. I have since woven some wire to make a sort of cradle, much like the front, and keep clear of the terminals.
Headlight mount attachment

Headlight mount attachment

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...Using brass grounding lugs to keep it in place.

Close up mounted:
Mounted...

Mounted...

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And lit up, a bit further back:
...And Shining...

...And Shining...

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Okay now THAT! Is a unique way to make it your own! Whether you polish it or let it turn green over time it will certainly attract attention.
 
After I made the headlight, I started thinking how to add more plumbing to the bike. I wanted to figure out some copper down-tubes for the carbs, and add a 2' piece to the exhaust headers with some sort of packing. I like louder exhaust but straight pipes are too much for me.

I'm getting frustrated with the carbs, and was looking into the single carb manifolds, with the copper in mind when I found your thread Canuckxxxx. That was another factor in me posting my build on this sight. Yours is exactly what I want. I wonder if it would fit...
 

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