I have been lurking for a couple months on here and and have posted once but learned plenty. The one thing I disliked was all the convolution in the area of the gl1000 front end swap so I thought I'd give a overview of what has worked for me along with all the other little things to consider when people on here who have never attempted this will shout that its a bolt on with out knowing all the little p.i.t.a. things that come up.
Bike is a all stock 1976 cb750k6. I decided I was going to do the front end conversion so I read every thread I could find and then started buying crap of ebay.
This is what i all purchased along with the price shipped as i remember.
1. '76 gl1000 triple tree. $27 (important that its a 75-76 since it uses the same all balls neck bearing kit as the cb)
2. '77 gl1000 forks, not the air ones. $60
3. '75 gl1000 disks. $17
4. '75 gl1000 calipers, hoses (trashed), t-connector, master. $23
5. all balls tapered neck bearing kit 2011-something, $38
6. gl1000 ss braided front line kit, $78
7. New seals for both calipers, $23
8. '76 gl1000 speedo-box and cable, $17
9. '76 gl1000 axle (with spacer), $9
10. universal up to 40mm forks headlight holder, $28
I basically started stripping all the old stuff off the front end (which is all for sale if anyone needs anything) and laying it in neat piles in case i needed certain hardware that wasn't included.
Got down to the neck tube and knocked the old races out. Took the gl stem and put it in my deep freeze down stairs for a couple hours along with the new races. Then i put the new neck bearing over the toaster slots and cycled that about 3 times the get it hotter than you want to touch with your fingers. At 2 min warning speed I pulled the stem out, dropped on the spacer then dust cover thing, and slid the hot bearing on and tapped it the rest of the way down with a wood block and hammer. Then I took the cold races out of the freezer and placed them in the neck tube with said block and hammer. Greased the bearings and installed trees. Slid in forks and tightened.
Took factory wheel and loosened axle (again this is a factory 76 spoke single disk rim). Now this part confused me later but I'm pretty sure i slid the axle out the right side of the bike (as you sit on it) and the axle nut was on the left. Then i unbolted the factory disk, placed both new disks on and just used 6 5/16x4-1/2 bolts with nylock nuts and a small washer on the nut side. Make sure you put the bolt heads on the speedo side for clearance.
This is where it got tricky. the gl1000 used tabs in the hub for the speedo retainer plate to catch, the cb used an external bowl shaped plate that bolted to the disk lugs but now that the disk is there there is now no chance of fitting, i did notice that after bolting the disks up that there was a area, 60mm circular x 4mm, where the hub was sunk below the level of the main center hole in the disk.
what i did was take my bowl shaped retaining plate and use a angle grinder to cut most of the bowl portion so that there was just a small lip, i then used the bench grinder to take the lip that was left down to even across the bottom.
(i was about half way done here but tried to simulate what it looked like before i touched it.)
Then i threw it in my lathe (could easily be done on bench grinder with a little patience) and turned the outside diameter down to 60mm. Then i drilled a hole through the edge just big enough for a needle bearing to fit about half way through with it tapering down as it points at the wheel (the needle bearings were actually out of the bearing that i took off the gl1000 stem).
I took the bearing out and put the retainer in the hole on the disk and used the hole already in the retainer to drill a hole the same size into the hub, i got a little close to the bearing but there's still wall between them and dont think its a real big deal anyway.
I then pressed the needle bearing back in and tapped it with a hammer, checked fitment on the hub.
I then used the old bench grinder to take the larger side of the needle bearing down to level with retainer disk, then i just tack welded it a couple times (i suck at welding, don't deserve to own a decent one), then just ground it back flat, whoola.
Then i checked fitment again and scoffed at the motorcycle.
After bolting the wheel back on and the disks didn't line up to where they should be, i realized that the axle goes in from the left, through the spacer (used the cb750 spacer) through the wheel, plate, speedo gear, axle nut, then tightened everything down. Test fitted the calipers and looks like everything is going to line up real nice.
Now i just have to figure out how to mount my cluster on the gl1000 triple and the size of the bolts that hold the caliper bracket to the forks.
Thanks for your time and i hope this can help people in the future as i would have loved to have this resource.
I'll try to update this as i do the hoses and caliper rebuild as well. Its been a little more tricky since im going with all new hand controls and handle bars as well that have necessitated this.
