Musings on "The Great 4Cyl GWing Bearing Shortage Crisis"

[HotFoot]

Interesting comments.

We have a situation, a shortage getting worse and grinding away to its ultimate end....total non-availability. In order to not have a shortage either new bearings would have to be made, old ones salvaged/rebuilt or (really dreaming) possibly some existing and available bearing(s) altered to fit. What if there were some bearing shell out there with the right ID's, thickness etc that could just be cut down in width? OK.... everyone, let's all google "bearing, plain, journal, 43mm, etc etc".

Hoppy

(Howard Hughes, Never met you but I kinda miss you, you'd have had GWing bearings made just for something to do on a boring day, da-n the cost)

[duke182]

Peehaps this is another item that will be available when the cost of 3d printing comes down.
Of course mother honda will have to get their cut of the pie or lawsuits will surely follow

[82aspy]

true-parts-support-superiority
http://justacarguy.blogspot.ca/2013/12/ ... is-is.html

http://thekneeslider.com/vincent-black- ... new-parts/

[SnoBrdr]

BMW still makes every part for every bike, last I knew.

[JSBail]

What I find troubling is the rumors I'm reading that Honda is buying up as much NOS parts especially from long time dealerships as they can, for what ever reason I guess they don't like seeing those parts being sold on ebay but nobody seems to know what Honda intends to do with all the NOS parts they're purchasing so places like David Silver Spares is buying up as much as they can before Honda gets their hands on it. I don't know how much fact there is if any to the rumor but I have a nephew who is the shop manager for a Honda motorcycle dealer in Illinois that happens to be one the oldest Honda dealers in the US and they of course have all kinds of NOS parts going back to the 60's (unfortunately nothing I need), I'm going to have to ask the question to him to see if any of the rumors are true.

[joedrum]

sheeesh kudos for bmw .... no way the honda policy has any good in it what so ever to buy up parts ...todays policies of were to big to judge and your to small to care about ...is the number one thing wrong in the world today ...

[HotFoot]

Perhaps this is another item that will be available when the cost of 3d printing comes down.

Someday maybe all it would take is entering the command "Make bearings Now" or even better, "Make New Engine Now"

I've been leisurely googling/poking around for tech info and images of Honda engines of any type, especially early to mid 1970"s. There are hundreds. One in particular was interested in that it was supposedly a 2 cylinder designed based on half of a GL1000 engine, used in a small utility truck. Can't remember much more than that as it was late last nite and I did not save the page or link. Type EH or EB or something like that. Maybe a fruitless search but ya never know.

Hoppy

[HotFoot]

From Wikipedia:

"The water-cooled SOHC two-cylinder EH was first seen installed in the first generation Honda Acty truck introduced in July 1977, and later in the 1985 Honda Today. It was based on one bank of cylinders from the horizontally opposed four used on the Honda Gold Wing GL1000 motorcycle, with which it shared the 72.0 mm bore. The horsepower rating of the 545 cc (72.0 x 67.0 mm) engine was 28 PS at 5,500 rpm, and 4.2 kg-m at 4,000 rpm. When installed in the Today, max power was raised to 31 PS (23 kW) at the same revs, and torque at 4.4 kg-m, with a compression ratio of 9.5.[3]"

Hmmmmm....

Hoppy

[duke182]

If hondas plan is to eliminate older bikes from the market place in order to drive up new sales, I believe it is a bad plan.
The most logical result is a loss of customers.
But hinda is not really in the parts business so they will not be affected by the loss of our business. They might actually benifit by not having to spend money on production of parts and their dealers will be able to reduce their inventory costs.
Win for them, loss for us.

[82aspy]

http://japanminitruckparts.com/honda/acty-engine

these are for the 2 cyl engine, need some #s now
http://minitruck.ca/mini-truck-parts/ho ... gs-eh-0.00
EH

The water-cooled SOHC two-cylinder EH was first seen installed in the first generation Honda Acty truck introduced in July 1977, and later in the 1985 Honda Today. It was based on one bank of cylinders from the horizontally opposed four used on the Honda Gold Wing GL1000 motorcycle, with which it shared the 72.0 mm bore. The horsepower rating of the 545 cc (72.0 x 67.0 mm) engine was 28 PS at 5,500 rpm, and 4.2 kg-m at 4,000 rpm. When installed in the Today, max power was raised to 31 PS (23 kW) at the same revs, and torque at 4.4 kg-m, with a compression ratio of 9.5.[3]

Applications:

1977.07-1988.05 Honda Acty
1985.09-1988.02 Honda Today

[fish]

part of the problem is most machinists lack of ingenuity and creativity.
They all just want to do "the easy stuff" and concentrate on making money.
I like making money
BUT
it is also fun to exercise my brain.
ANOTHER problem is
Those crazy color codes for bearing sizes..
All the different I.D. and O.D. dimensions.
I BET a creative experienced machinist could get in a bearing catalog & get something close
THEN
line bore the cases to fit whatever bearing was selected and grind the journals on the crank.
The crank journals could even be built up with metal spray and finished to whatever dimension was needed.

[82aspy]

hey hey, you're the one known to say

~ "if it was easy, everyone would do it"

part of the problem is most machinists lack of ingenuity and creativity.
They all just want to do "the easy stuff" and concentrate on making money.
I like making money
BUT
it is also fun to exercise my brain.
ANOTHER problem is
Those crazy color codes for bearing sizes..
All the different I.D. and O.D. dimensions.
I BET a creative experienced machinist could get in a bearing catalog & get something close
THEN
line bore the cases to fit whatever bearing was selected and grind the journals on the crank.
The crank journals could even be built up with metal spray and finished to whatever dimension was needed.

[SnoBrdr]

http://japanminitruckparts.com/honda/acty-engine

these are for the 2 cyl engine, need some #s now
http://minitruck.ca/mini-truck-parts/ho ... gs-eh-0.00
EH

The water-cooled SOHC two-cylinder EH was first seen installed in the first generation Honda Acty truck introduced in July 1977, and later in the 1985 Honda Today. It was based on one bank of cylinders from the horizontally opposed four used on the Honda Gold Wing GL1000 motorcycle, with which it shared the 72.0 mm bore. The horsepower rating of the 545 cc (72.0 x 67.0 mm) engine was 28 PS at 5,500 rpm, and 4.2 kg-m at 4,000 rpm. When installed in the Today, max power was raised to 31 PS (23 kW) at the same revs, and torque at 4.4 kg-m, with a compression ratio of 9.5.[3]

Applications:

1977.07-1988.05 Honda Acty
1985.09-1988.02 Honda Today

Just a thought. You'd think if these are the same parts that this company would be marketing them to the MC public.

I sent a email to them asking about this.

See what they say, if they respond.

They are in BC BTW.

[Norbert R]

I think Old Fogey and Cyborg looked into the Acty bearings, and it was a dead end (can't remember the details, but nothing came of it, they may shed some light)

I reckon Fish's perspective is the most likely workable solution if any....

[82aspy]

one bank of a gl1000 is not 545cc, dunno what that's about

The horsepower rating of the 545 cc