Well I've had a busy day. I bought an 18 inch rear wheel on EBay for my "Hog" (Honda CX500) to replace the OEM 16 inch skateboard wheel, as I want to raise the gearing a tad, 6000 RPM at 60 MPH is a bit high for me, plus the larger wheel will fill the gap under the seat some.
I drove over to Ace Motorcycle Wreckers to order some new tires (Pirelli Sport Demons on Dave's advice) for it and to borrow their "Trade Plate" for the weekend so I could take the little V twin for a ride. The tires that are currently on it (Bridgestones of the era) are very worn, it was no wonder to me that the PO dropped it one day on a wet road.
While I was there, I spotted a beautiful (but slightly tired) Honda GL1200 Aspencade "Full Dresser" parked off to one side.
This thing is huge, it's got the big fairing with a stereo and CD player, panniers, massive top box, lounge suite for a seat with a big padded backrest etc etc. It turns out that it came in with a "rumbling sound" (but not a good one) and Jeff quoted the owner a lot to rebuild the engine, so the owner decided to cut his losses and told Jeff to keep it. Jeff doesn't wreck bikes anymore, so I asked the fatal question, "How much mate?" And now............. I own a Goldwing! I'll pick it up next week, and park it in the back of my garage until I've got some money to spend on it.
Jeff thinks it just needs new main bearings, but if I'm gonna go to the trouble of stripping the engine down, I may as well give it a birthday and replace all the "usual suspects" while I'm at it. Apart from that, the bike just needs tidying up, and it'll be fit for full touring duty. I might have to sell my
Bavarian
Murder
Weapon though, I've run out of space in my garage and the BMW needs a new home. I did take a pic of the 'wing with my phone camera, but for some reason Photobucket won't recognise it?
Anyway, I got home and attached the trade plate to the little "Hog", and fired it up. It's uncanny how this little beast is running so well after sleeping for the last 14 years with no carb cleaning, and the same spark plugs that were fitted in the last century, but anyway, I rode around to the gas station and filled up the tiny 13 litre tank with 98 RON unleaded.
I was going to use 91 RON, but these engines run 10:1 compression pistons and redline at 9750 RPM, so I figured it'd like the "Good Stuff", and it did seem to run a little smoother, or that might have just been because it was allowed to run for more than just a few minutes, as it has since I got it running last weekend.
My front brakes don't work. The OEM MC was clagged, so I quickly fitted a CB750F2 MC that I had laying around last weekend without bleeding it, left it in my garage all week, and when I came home last night, the lever was hard, so I assumed that it had bled itself, which it probably had, but I think the caliper pistons have frozen into the caliper bodies. No biggie, except I rode it for 40 miles today with no front brakes, which was fine except when I forgot about it and almost rear ended a car on the freeway at warp speed. (thank God for the Emergency Lane!)
All in all, a great day. I bought some parts, ordered some new tires, bought a Goldwing and went for a ride on my little "Hog". If I'd died and gone to Heaven yesterday, I'd have been pissed off to have missed out on such a great day today! Cheers, Terry.
