WaltZembriski
New member
Hi all. I recently decided that my custom 5 cylinder car (in that 1/6 doesn't really fire very often) and it's 16mpg average was killing my budget, so I decided to snoop around and find myself another bike. A few years back, I had a little '04 Shadow 750, but being a bigger guy, it wouldn't really get me down the road like I wanted. After about 6 months of lots of in-town fun, I had to pass her along as I got ready to move to Little Rock. Since then, I've had to put up with that little nagging voice in the back of my head reminding me how much I wanted to get another bike. After spending a few days talking with a guy on CL about an '83 GL1100I with an estimated 70k miles, I decided I just couldn't part with $1 000 for a bike that needed a new starter motor, had some minor electrical problems, and had been sitting up for ~8 months; I knew it was a good price, but as a professional intern, my budget is limited.
Fast forward a couple of days, and the guy sends me a text asking if a $600 price tag would get me out to look at the bike; I said sure thing and headed down that night. The ad seemed pretty honest, describing the bike as a good runner, but far from showroom quality, and the guy was a mechanic at a local dealership. However, despite three people and around 1 000 calories of effort, we couldn't get it push started, and, having driven the car, I had no way to get it back to Little Rock without it running. The previous owner offered a price of $500, but I just couldn't get it home. The next day, I asked if he'd be willing to deliver on his way in to work for the $500; an hour later, I was the proud new owner of a less than new 1983 Honda Goldwing GL1100I.
I wasn't sure what I'd gotten myself into, but I knew I could move the parts for the price of the bike, so I wasn't worried about taking a bath on it. So far, this is a rundown of the issues I've found on her. I'll try to list them as most critical to address to least, but I'm way out of my depth here, so any suggestions on order of operations or particulars of any individual job are greatly appreciated.
Oil - The oil light comes on and off as it rides. The dipstick (or what I'm assuming is the dipstick) doesn't show any oil on it at all, and, since it's a used vehicle to begin with, I figure I ought to change the oil. From what I can find around the internet, I'm going to try and get 10W-40.
Speedometer/Odometer - In AR, a bike this old doesn't have to register an odometer reading for paperwork, but it would be nice to get a feel for what kind of gas mileage I'm getting. Also, knowing how fast you're going is probably a good thing. I'm going to disconnect the cable at the wheel and give it a spin to try and see if it's just the cable.
Starter Motor - The previous owner said he'd run down the list and decided that the starter motor is the reason pushing the ignition button doesn't have the desired effect. I can confirm that the fuse on the relay is good as well as that the motor is getting ~11.7V off the battery when the button is pressed. My dad recently rebuilt an electric motor for his Ford Think, so I think we can probably rebuild the starter for about half the price of replacing it with an aftermarket one. She pushes off like a dream now (I can duck walk it on level ground for about 10-12 paces and it kicks off pretty much every time), so I'm calling this an end-of-the-week or maybe even next week project.
Rear Brake - The rear brake is squealing, so I think I need to replace the rotor?
Headlight - The headlight was completely non-functioning when I got it, and, as you're required to run with a light in AR, regardless of time of day, I got on this one first; all three of the leads in the middle of the 3x3 plug going into the left side of the fairing were cold. I had continuity from the wires as they ran into the headlight, so I'm thinking the problem is somewhere on the bike side of that connection. For now, I've found a 'spare' hot wire and run it into the high beam part of the plug; short story - I rigged it up and have a high beam only, but I don't intend to run at night right now, so I'm pushing this one down the list.
Carburetors - She has a bit of a miss when she first starts up, but it's mostly if not completely gone after a few minutes of running up and down the street. I'm hoping this is just due to a dirty carb somewhere. I'm going to run some fuel cleaner through first, then try some carb cleaner, and finally just tear them down and give them a good cleaning; I'm really hoping the first one will do the trick well enough to get me through the heat of the summer, and I can do a good thorough cleaning once the weather gets better.
Engine Guard - I'm missing a bolt on my right side engine guard, so it rattles against the frame when I'm going at highway speeds. I'm expecting this to be a pretty simple fix.
Turn signal release - I saw in the service manual a lot of mentions of an automatic turn signal release that works based on the tilt of the bike. Mine occasionally switches itself off, but I'm not sure if the Interstate model had the feature, so my problem could be that it happens at all instead of that it doesn't happen when I turn. I'm not terribly worried about getting this fixed, so it's very low priority.
Cigarette Lighter - Worked when the bike arrived, doesn't work now; I suspect that this is the original use of the 'spare' hot wire I found. Honestly, this probably won't get fixed anytime soon, as I plan to remove the fairing pretty soon for the rest of the summer.
Like the man said, she's a pretty good-running bike for her age. The previous owner/s clearly had no intentions of keeping her in mint condition, but since none of the lines looked dry-rotted and it seems to work pretty well (other than the relatively minor issues listed above), I think it has been decently cared for during its life. I've heard they can have alternator problems, but the battery has almost 13V on it, so I think that's all okay. I've never owned a vehicle this old, and I'm not sure what to expect with it. I'm not much of a grease monkey either, but I'm a pretty quick learner if someone has the patience to explain it to me like I'm a moron. Again, any tips or advice are greatly appreciated, and hopefully I'll have a beautiful project album to post up here someday; I might even learn something worth passing on to another new owner who doesn't know what they're doing.
Fast forward a couple of days, and the guy sends me a text asking if a $600 price tag would get me out to look at the bike; I said sure thing and headed down that night. The ad seemed pretty honest, describing the bike as a good runner, but far from showroom quality, and the guy was a mechanic at a local dealership. However, despite three people and around 1 000 calories of effort, we couldn't get it push started, and, having driven the car, I had no way to get it back to Little Rock without it running. The previous owner offered a price of $500, but I just couldn't get it home. The next day, I asked if he'd be willing to deliver on his way in to work for the $500; an hour later, I was the proud new owner of a less than new 1983 Honda Goldwing GL1100I.
I wasn't sure what I'd gotten myself into, but I knew I could move the parts for the price of the bike, so I wasn't worried about taking a bath on it. So far, this is a rundown of the issues I've found on her. I'll try to list them as most critical to address to least, but I'm way out of my depth here, so any suggestions on order of operations or particulars of any individual job are greatly appreciated.
Oil - The oil light comes on and off as it rides. The dipstick (or what I'm assuming is the dipstick) doesn't show any oil on it at all, and, since it's a used vehicle to begin with, I figure I ought to change the oil. From what I can find around the internet, I'm going to try and get 10W-40.
Speedometer/Odometer - In AR, a bike this old doesn't have to register an odometer reading for paperwork, but it would be nice to get a feel for what kind of gas mileage I'm getting. Also, knowing how fast you're going is probably a good thing. I'm going to disconnect the cable at the wheel and give it a spin to try and see if it's just the cable.
Starter Motor - The previous owner said he'd run down the list and decided that the starter motor is the reason pushing the ignition button doesn't have the desired effect. I can confirm that the fuse on the relay is good as well as that the motor is getting ~11.7V off the battery when the button is pressed. My dad recently rebuilt an electric motor for his Ford Think, so I think we can probably rebuild the starter for about half the price of replacing it with an aftermarket one. She pushes off like a dream now (I can duck walk it on level ground for about 10-12 paces and it kicks off pretty much every time), so I'm calling this an end-of-the-week or maybe even next week project.
Rear Brake - The rear brake is squealing, so I think I need to replace the rotor?
Headlight - The headlight was completely non-functioning when I got it, and, as you're required to run with a light in AR, regardless of time of day, I got on this one first; all three of the leads in the middle of the 3x3 plug going into the left side of the fairing were cold. I had continuity from the wires as they ran into the headlight, so I'm thinking the problem is somewhere on the bike side of that connection. For now, I've found a 'spare' hot wire and run it into the high beam part of the plug; short story - I rigged it up and have a high beam only, but I don't intend to run at night right now, so I'm pushing this one down the list.
Carburetors - She has a bit of a miss when she first starts up, but it's mostly if not completely gone after a few minutes of running up and down the street. I'm hoping this is just due to a dirty carb somewhere. I'm going to run some fuel cleaner through first, then try some carb cleaner, and finally just tear them down and give them a good cleaning; I'm really hoping the first one will do the trick well enough to get me through the heat of the summer, and I can do a good thorough cleaning once the weather gets better.
Engine Guard - I'm missing a bolt on my right side engine guard, so it rattles against the frame when I'm going at highway speeds. I'm expecting this to be a pretty simple fix.
Turn signal release - I saw in the service manual a lot of mentions of an automatic turn signal release that works based on the tilt of the bike. Mine occasionally switches itself off, but I'm not sure if the Interstate model had the feature, so my problem could be that it happens at all instead of that it doesn't happen when I turn. I'm not terribly worried about getting this fixed, so it's very low priority.
Cigarette Lighter - Worked when the bike arrived, doesn't work now; I suspect that this is the original use of the 'spare' hot wire I found. Honestly, this probably won't get fixed anytime soon, as I plan to remove the fairing pretty soon for the rest of the summer.
Like the man said, she's a pretty good-running bike for her age. The previous owner/s clearly had no intentions of keeping her in mint condition, but since none of the lines looked dry-rotted and it seems to work pretty well (other than the relatively minor issues listed above), I think it has been decently cared for during its life. I've heard they can have alternator problems, but the battery has almost 13V on it, so I think that's all okay. I've never owned a vehicle this old, and I'm not sure what to expect with it. I'm not much of a grease monkey either, but I'm a pretty quick learner if someone has the patience to explain it to me like I'm a moron. Again, any tips or advice are greatly appreciated, and hopefully I'll have a beautiful project album to post up here someday; I might even learn something worth passing on to another new owner who doesn't know what they're doing.
