Oldboy's 82' Resto Rod... Final

[Cookie]

It's funny but I used to go the wrong way on that, it seems like a bigger piston would give more brakes. It seems to have fooled early brake engineers too though.

[Thrawn]

There are some really nice bikes on this board, Im glad I found a old goldwing. I always thought it would be cool to pick one up and take all the fairings and bags off but I never imagined there was such a following and so many great bikes out there.

And this bike you built is just stunning to say the least.

[morganfrmn]

poor fello goldwings are like lays potato chips you cant have just one.

[Hoosier Daddy]

...I always thought it would be cool to pick one up and take all the fairings and bags off but I never imagined there was such a following and so many great bikes out there...

You're catching on!

[HorseFly]

I want spoke wheels for mine, looks good

[Oldboy]

Well I recieved my GEM final drive, and decided to open it up and do a tooth count and figure out exactly what ratio these are. (nobody was really sure). A tooth count of 10 pinion and 40 ring gear makes it 4.00 to 1. This is the ratio I will need to help break into the 12 second mark at the drag strip. When I finished counting the teeth I noticed the weld that holds the ring gear to the spool was cracked. This I understand is quite common on these diffs because they are aftermarket gears and Honda did not provide a proper bolting surface to hold the gear on. I believe original gears, have the master spline on the spool peened to hold them in place. Note the lousy weld job.


After grinding off the old weld and prep for new.



And the new weld. We used a softer filler rod to help prevent cracking and only stitched it to keep the heat down.




Next I put it in the lathe to check for run out.. .002 I can live with.
Don't worry nothing was cut off.

Here are the markings on the gear set. In the small oval it says ARROW GEAR, must be the manufacturer. On the far right it has B\L .004. This is the clearance you must have between the ring gear and the pinion measured on any tooth of the ring gear. This should be done on several locations on the ring gear with less than .002 variance.

Now assembly.The right side of the spool is shimmed to the right bearing in the housing. Note this a fixed bearing pressed into the housing.The correct shim is how you determine the correct backlash. Next you drop in the spool, lower in the left side bearing plate (no silicone yet) and bolt it down with 3 bolts. Now you turn in the adjuster and tighten down until the spool is snug on the other bearings. At this point you must measure the back lash for that .004 clearance. If it is right, you pull the spool out and silicone it back in. If it's too tight or too loose, you replace the shim as necessary and check again. Checking the clearance is not easy on these units. I got somewhere between .004 & .006. This is a used gear set so that's acceptable.


Now for final assembly. I put a small bead of "Right Stuff' (the only silicone I use) on the surface of the housing. I put a light bead of oil on the "O" ring of the adjuster and grease in the lip seal of the adjuster.
I also put gear marking compound on about 6 teeth off the ring gear. This way after its assembled I can rotate the unit and check the pattern of the mesh to make sure I have proper contact.


And finally a look at the pattern. Sorry for the lousy pic, but the pattern was good. Contact on the full length.

And the last thing...off to the paint shop.
Next I have too see about GL1000 transmission gears fitting and early GL1000 camshafts. I could use ideas, give me what you got! Oldboy

[sodbuster]

Heck of a nice job there Oldboy .... you can give yourself a pat on the back for a project well done .... AWESOME !!

Keep those pics coming .... a lot of us are watching your progress.

[FirstYearDeek]

That original weld looks like I did it! Probably would not have held up long.

Any reason you decided not to close up those stitches once the part had cooled? I would be afraid the torque would twist the ring off the spool.

-Deek

[millerdog]

Great job man! I'm jealous for sure.

[sunnbobb]

Just like sittin around in a race shop. Very entertaining and informative.

[Oldboy]

FirstYearDeek asked

Any reason you decided not to close up those stitches once the part had cooled? I would be afraid the torque would twist the ring off the spool.


Two reasons. First I believe that these ring gears were welded to the spool only to hold the ring gear flush to the surface of the spool in order to allow proper set up of the gears in relation to backlash and pattern. I'll
bet that all these aftermarket gear set, eventually broke the weld.
The large heavy spline actually drives the spool. On acceleration the spline is loaded in one direction and on hard decal the spline is loaded in the opposite direction. This action probably breaks the weld. That's why the original weld is so poor, it really is only important for set up. Note once this weld cracks, the gear just floats there...no big deal.
The second reason we didn't finish the weld, is that the heat produced by welding harden gears will change the temper of the metal. We were worried that to much welding may make the metal fatique before the weld...not good. I hope we didn't weld to much, especially when to fiqure I want to drag race this oldgirl. Hope this helps....

[Neil]

I learn something new every day on this site ... awesome. Problem though, watching all these projects gets me itchin for another one

[Oldboy]

Here's my heads, Before removal, I did a compression test and it was roughly 175 lbs. across the board. Once I removed them I did the old liquid in the ports to see if any valves weeped...none did. So I disassembled them, I carefully marked everything (so valves go back were they came from) and then cleaned everything. Now it's off to the machine shop to remove .030 from the surface, a little more squeeze if you will!


And here's my pistons. None of the rings were broken, a good thing cause if you have a broken ring you must replace the piston. (the groove the ring sits in will be worn and the twisting of the ring going up and down will probably break the new ring on start up.) The skirts are nice as to the bores. I also checked all the oil drain back holes.The reason for the ring change was blue smoke on start up and oil consumption...20W50 slowed it down a bit, but it really bugged me.

[Oldboy]

I did mention I've done some racing,

[cowboybob998]

poor fello goldwings are like lays potato chips you cant have just one.

Yea, ya cant just have one because ya need another one for parts they dont make any more, lol