1982 GL1100 Corpse resurrection...er restoration...

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wingrider
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Re: 1982 GL1100 Corpse resurrection...er restoration...

#466

Post by wingrider »

Very cool on what you are doing here!
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toolbox
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Re: 1982 GL1100 Corpse resurrection...er restoration...

#467

Post by toolbox »

Continuing with the shelter, I took the lids out of it...

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The big one is going to get the holes cut in it, and I needed to make a template...so I traced the lid onto a piece of cardboard and cut it out. Putting it onto the tank, I tried to kind of feel around underneath to see where this stuff would fit. Here I was tracing the spot for the altimeter...

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Did the same for the AI. Took a razor blade and cut out the holes, and fit the instruments into it...

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Turned out that where I eyeballed it was close...but a little off. The whole thing needed to be shifted 1/2" south in order to clear the fuse box.

Went ahead and sanded the paint off the lid, so I'd have a clean slate...it's easier (for me anyway) to do layout on something that is completely blank.

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When I traced my cutouts onto the metal (1/2" down) I discovered that if I shifted them that way, there wouldn't actually be enough room for the switch panel :oops: . Soooo...that wouldn't work, since that's kinda gotta be there.

On to Plan B...if the instruments are too long to fit, make them shorter :mrgreen: . The AI was already cut down about as far as it would go, but the outside housing was still full size...

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Actually had some trouble locating the thing...I took this apart last year, and had to kind of hunt around for it. Found it sitting under my toolbox :-? . Oh well. After a lot of measuring, I took a cutoff disk and carefully sliced the bottom of it off. Also used epoxy to stick the cover back on the bottom...

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Result was pretty good...a very stubby instrument :)

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I put the ball in it, and test fit it...should have plenty of room to clear the air box lid, which was a concern.

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I really like how three dimensional it looks...

Finally, I mixed up some PC-7 to permanently attach the ball to the frame.

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That's where she sits as of last night...the epoxy takes 24 hours to cure, so I just set it aside for re-assembly later.

Moving on to the altimeter... This was also fun to take apart :). Inside is basically a very sensitive barometer...sensing changes in pressure, it pushes and pulls on a clockwork mechanism that moves the hands around on the face to indicate your altitude. Pretty cool!

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Unfortunately, in order to clear the fuse box, this one was going to get really short... I used a cutoff disk to cut up the housing. It's like a bakelite material, and cuts really easy.

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I cut the bottom off to use as a "lid", and then cut out chunks of the middle until it was short enough to clear...

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That's better :). Test fitting...

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The mechanism itself got stripped down to just the clockwork mechanism and the face... The stuff in front is a little complicated, but not bad.

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The finished unit...

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And a test fit...

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So, those are mostly ready to go until they get mounted in the lid...
Last edited by toolbox on Mon Jun 11, 2018 1:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: 1982 GL1100 Corpse resurrection...er restoration...

#468

Post by Sagebrush »

Its too bad you couldn't find the room to make the altimeter functional. That would have been really cool.
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Re: 1982 GL1100 Corpse resurrection...er restoration...

#469

Post by toolbox »

wingrider wrote:Very cool on what you are doing here!
Thanks! If nothing else, I'm definitely having fun with it :).
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Re: 1982 GL1100 Corpse resurrection...er restoration...

#470

Post by toolbox »

Sagebrush wrote:Its too bad you couldn't find the room to make the altimeter functional. That would have been really cool.
Yea, I was a little disappointed at that one...when I got the idea for it, I was thinking that there would be enough room under there so I could have it working, which would have been super cool. But yea...it's one of those things that once you start measuring and cutting plans have to change unfortunately. OTOH, you can still turn the calibration knob, and move those numbers around...and because the mechanism that controls the hands is now gone, they're free to kind of do their own thing...they'll move around a little bit, but obviously what it says is completely meaningless. As a general rule, if I'm going to have something like this, I really want it to work and not just sit there looking pretty...but it just didn't work out this time. Should look pretty cool though :).
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Re: 1982 GL1100 Corpse resurrection...er restoration...

#471

Post by 5speed »

toolbox wrote:
Small world...I've got a 99 that my Grandpa gave me (also never used) :). I've also got a couple of Swedes...one I used a fair amount, the other never used. Milsurp 6.5 was always pretty scarce, and that was mostly what I used to use...what it lacked in precision, it more than made up for in the price :lol: . That was a long time ago though...none of it's cheap any more seems like.
And maybe the second trick for the GL is going to be a HUD :mrgreen: . It's actually something else, but don't think I wasn't trying to figure out how to make one work...I had a few possibilities that I considered, that reality ultimately kyboshed for me haha.
I have my grandfathers model 94 in .32 special. It is my never ever sell rifle which will go to my son.
the 6.5 is an extremely accurate round if you roll your own. A friend of mine has been building loads for his and to date..a 3" group at 800 yards is his best.
Granted the action is pillar bedded and the barrel is like a piece of sewer pipe! lol It's an inch in dia at the muzzle.

Edited to add I wish I had thought of this sooner...could you have made a pod like this and mounted the full gauge in it facing you?
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Re: 1982 GL1100 Corpse resurrection...er restoration...

#472

Post by toolbox »

5speed wrote:
toolbox wrote:
Small world...I've got a 99 that my Grandpa gave me (also never used) :). I've also got a couple of Swedes...one I used a fair amount, the other never used. Milsurp 6.5 was always pretty scarce, and that was mostly what I used to use...what it lacked in precision, it more than made up for in the price :lol: . That was a long time ago though...none of it's cheap any more seems like.
And maybe the second trick for the GL is going to be a HUD :mrgreen: . It's actually something else, but don't think I wasn't trying to figure out how to make one work...I had a few possibilities that I considered, that reality ultimately kyboshed for me haha.
I have my grandfathers model 94 in .32 special. It is my never ever sell rifle which will go to my son.
the 6.5 is an extremely accurate round if you roll your own. A friend of mine has been building loads for his and to date..a 3" group at 800 yards is his best.
Granted the action is pillar bedded and the barrel is like a piece of sewer pipe! lol It's an inch in dia at the muzzle.

Edited to add I wish I had thought of this sooner...could you have made a pod like this and mounted the full gauge in it facing you?
Yea, the 6.5 is a great round...even in my old Swede, it's still pretty accurate. Not sub MOA, but pretty decent for old rattle battle :).

I actually thought about something like a pod for it, but couldn't really think of a practical way to make it work and look right...someone with more creativity than me probably could though. It'll be pretty cool as-is I think, just not as cool as it would have been :).
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Re: 1982 GL1100 Corpse resurrection...er restoration...

#473

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Also made some headway on my switch panel...this is where control for the side lights will be. This is what I started with :

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This one is also going to lose some weight :lol: . Here's the front of it:

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It was the control panel for a Common Missile Warning System (CMWS). Apparently it's used on a variety of U.S. military fixed and rotary wing aircraft...it has a series of sensor pods that mount on the aircraft that detect an incoming missile, and it will automatically fire countermeasures (flares probably). Pretty sure the "jettison" switch would fire the flares manually. I thought it would look pretty awesome on there, and with several switches would give me some different options for lighting control...

First thing I had to do was lighten (and shorten) up the whole thing...thankfully, like most airplane parts it was designed to be serviced, and therefor relatively easy to disassemble.

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Cut it out so that I was left with only the switch panel...

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Had the issue of being short one switch in that panel, and that's not going to work...luckily in my "collection" I had another panel I could borrow one from...

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This big old thing looked like it would work just dandy...

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Had to make a slight modification in order to get it to fit next to the other switch, but it's shoehorned in there now...

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I figured out exactly how to wire it all up a while back, but of course promptly forgot what I had in mind without writing it down :oops: . Shouldn't be too hard to decipher again anyway. What the switches will do is give a master on/off control, a switch to go between triggering them with the high beam circuit and manual control, and maybe (maybe) a high/low control. I thought it would be nice if I could just hit the high beam switch on the handle bars, and get the high for the headlight, and have both side lights come on all the same time...I strung a wire from the high beam hot back into there to make it work. Not sure if I'll be able to do high or low...you'd really need another relay in order to keep full current off of a switch, but these are really heavy duty so it may not matter. Anyway, should be pretty cool, and will be fun to have the controls right there.
Last edited by toolbox on Mon Jun 11, 2018 1:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: 1982 GL1100 Corpse resurrection...er restoration...

#474

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One more pic...the epoxy was cured pretty well, so I tossed it all together on the template. So, this is basically what it'll look like:

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There's some room at the top of it that seems like maybe it needs something there...but there's no room under it for anything to poke through I don't think. I think it would be fine just being plain, but I'm stewing on maybe doing something up there...one more thing to think about :lol: .
Last edited by toolbox on Mon Jun 11, 2018 1:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: 1982 GL1100 Corpse resurrection...er restoration...

#475

Post by Patriccio »

A very entertaining read . . .
The turn signals are awesome.
If there is one thing I have learned throughout this process it is this: Check your respirator for spiders before you put it on.
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Re: 1982 GL1100 Corpse resurrection...er restoration...

#476

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Patriccio wrote:A very entertaining read . . .
The turn signals are awesome.
Thanks man! I'm pretty happy with the way they turned out :). Also kind of glad I got them done, since that was kind of a milestone meaning I'm really on the downhill side of it :).
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Re: 1982 GL1100 Corpse resurrection...er restoration...

#477

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Well shoot...I had a post all done, but for some reason my image files included a "[1]" in the name, which is goofing them all up...I'll probably have to rename them all :roll: . Oh well, I've got other stuff, so I'll skip that for now...consider this post a placeholder :lol:
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Re: 1982 GL1100 Corpse resurrection...er restoration...

#478

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Sooooo, anyway...back to the bike. So, moving on to chopping up the shelter lid, I'd been planning on using my dremmel tool to make the cuts, but unfortunately it decided to finally crap out after 20 something years...which set me off on a little mini odyssey to get a replacement. I'd originally thought I'd just go down to the hardware store and get a new one...I was thinking I could probably get into a new unit for about $50. So, I drove down there, and promptly gave myself a case of sticker shock :shock: . Yes, fifty bucks would get you one, but only the most basic (single speed) model. To get roughly the same thing as I already had, it was going to run something north of *cough* $80 *cough*. Um...yea. Not in the budget. They had a set of brushes on the rack for five bucks, so rather than leave empty handed, I thought I'd give that a try.

The brushes didn't work, so I took it apart and traced the problem...it's the speed controller, which is solid state. Some component in there must have finally failed...an impressive run though. It'll probably go into my "Dead Tools Hall Of Fame" for it's impressive service :).

Ok, so I still needed this type of tool...but cheaper. Next time I was in the area of Harbor Freight, I figured I'd just to get one of their $25 dollar ones...they get decent reviews, and even if it died I could still buy like three more before I covered the cost of a Dremmel :lol: . Went there on a Sunday...only to discover that's the one day a week they're not open until 8:00...missed it by half an hour :roll: . Plan C anyone :lol: .

Started searching Amazon, and found a "most popular" or something, and it was this...

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Dremmel type tool, with a flex shaft...for twenty dollars!!!. SOLD! :mrgreen: . So, it arrived a couple of days ago...here's what you get:

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Box of goodies it comes with...

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And how it compares with my old Dremmel...sort of a mega sized version of the same thing.

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My review? Here's the good: Quality is pretty good...way better than I would expect for twenty bucks. Like, a lot better. Has separate on/off and speed switches, which is great. Flex shaft is well made. Case might be handy, but I'll probably have it out too much to use it.

The bad: The collets don't fit the end of the tool :lol: . What the heck? They're so loose, anything you put in the end of it wobbles like a weeble...there's no way you could make a straight cut lol. Maybe you could wrap some e-tape around the collet to fill the gap and make it work, but from the factory...nope.

So, thought I'd give the flex shaft a try...it works great! I would really like to be able to use just the tool, because sometimes having a bigger, heavier tool gives more stability for greater accuracy...but for $20 I don't care. I still think it's a steal... I ran it quite a bit last night, and it had plenty of power. It got kind of warm (more than I was expecting) but didn't have any problems. Anyway, I'm sure it'll work fine for what I need...I do a lot more with the angle grinder than this sort of thing, but it should work great when I need more precision...

Which bring me back to the bike :). Got started cutting up the lid... After lots of measuring, I made a cardboard template to trace.

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Lots of double checking, and I got to cutting... I had to measure and mark the minimum position of the switches based on the where the bracket was underneath, and then make sure the AI would clear. My little metal ruler really came in handy here...
And here it is after cutting out the square:

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Did a lot of hand work with a file to clean it up and get it all square. Here's a test fit of the face...

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It got all dark and rainy, so it was hard to get a pic, but this will give you an idea of how it looks...

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The bottom lid is cockeyed...the AI is perfectly centered :).

Got a good start on the hole for the altimeter...it's not easy cutting a radius that tight with a disk, but it'll be ok.

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I got it most of the way...there's a really odd shape where the knob is that will take a lot more (and very careful) cutting to get right.

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Mostly just have the weird shape to cut out now.

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The lip on that thing is very small in spots...like 1/16, so I'm going to be spending a lot of time with a file hand fitting it so I don't goof it up. Then, it'll be time for the switches, and puting some plastic in that depression where the badge was...
Last edited by toolbox on Mon Jun 11, 2018 1:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: 1982 GL1100 Corpse resurrection...er restoration...

#479

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Hey guys! So, you may or may not have noticed that I haven't exactly been burning up this thread with new information lately :lol: . Reason is, winter is approaching and I ended up having to kind of radically switch gears away from working on fun projects to cutting wood, getting stuff winterized, etc. But, I wanted to make at least one more "end of season" post before we descend into the deep freeze...

First, this thread itself hit kind of a milestone a little while back...10K views :shock:.

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I usually read this form on my phone where you can't see the little counter, so when I saw that I was more than a little surprised...I just have to figure that about 8000 of those are just me either gawking at my own pictures or going back and looking at things to figure out where I left off :lol: . So, congrats thread...I look at you a lot :lol: .

Next, I thought you guys might like to hear about what ended up being a "season ending event" for my bike...

So, last time I posted I was cutting up the tank lid, and it was going really well. The AI hole was centered up about as perfectly as I was ever going to get it, and I just had to finish carving out the altimeter hole. At this point, I was planning on at least getting the lid done if I really threw my time at it. How'd it turn out? Well...I spent a good couple of hours verrrrrry carefully grinding away just enough metal to make the altimeter fit. There's one edge that's got just a microscopically small lip on it, and going over at all would leave a gap. I got it to fit just about perfectly...check it out:

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Looks pretty good right? Well...look closer. Altimeter look just slightly off center? Yeaaaa...about that. It's 1/8" off center :oops: :roll: :x So, what happened is this--when I was carving out the hole (so very carefully), I kept test fitting the altimeter in the hole, and apparently was only taking material off one side instead of both sides, which basically shifted the hole to one side. Not by much...but enough. Soooooo dumb!!! :lol: . The hole is a perfect fit alright, but in the wrong place. So, I went ahead and painted it black without bothering to do the bodywork on that rectangle that needs to be filled, just so I could see what it would look like. I think it'll look pretty good...well, once I do it all over again anyway :lol: . So, that 1/8 inch basically spelled the end of the season for me...I'm going to have to start over on a new lid, and I knew that with as much time as it would take to cut up, I really had to move on to other things before winter.

If there's good news, I guess it's that instead of rough guestimate cardboard template for the holes, I have very exact ones I can make new templates from, which (at least in theory) should make cutting up the new lid go faster. Also, I'm now free to experiment with how to install the switch plate without worrying about messing it up...no biggie if my first idea doesn't work out.

Finally, I *finally* got my plate in the mail! It seriously took like a month...I was hoping that it would get here with enough time in the season to install it and wire up the lighting on it (which would finish the left side bag up finally). But, noooo...I guess the DMV moves on their schedule not mine haha. Here it is...

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Now you can probably guess what the name of the bike is :P .

Anyway, she's just a hair short of being done...when spring finally rolls around, it should be pretty easy to get 'er done. The hardest part for me stopping and starting projects like this is just trying to figure out where I left off lol. "Sooo...what were these wires for again?" haha. I'll probably post a mid-winter update at some point...but right now the old GL is snuggled under a blanket in my garage patiently waiting for the winter to come and go. It's probably a little jealous of my Shadow...there's only enough room in the garage for one bike, so the Shadow gets parked in my downstairs living room :lol: . Hey, I don't want to leave it out in the weather, and it makes a fantastic conversation starter :lol: .
Last edited by toolbox on Mon Jun 11, 2018 1:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: 1982 GL1100 Corpse resurrection...er restoration...

#480

Post by Sagebrush »

Thought about applying a plate over the existing lid and cut your holes in it? Might be easier to do and you could make it large enough to cover the dent in the lid where the logo once resided.
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