Mr.H: How a motorcycle evolves over time

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Sidecar Bob
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Re: Mr.H: How a motorcycle evolves over time

#16

Post by Sidecar Bob »

In the spring of 2011 Eccles was running well so there was no urgency to get Mr.H on the road so it was time to take things apart and get ready for paint.
While it was apart I replaced the rear tire with a 500-16 Avon Safety Mileage II (it handled OK but I don't know how they can call a tire that grips so poorly on wet roads "Safety").
By this point I had re-sprayed the engine with Duplocolor Cast Iron Engine Enamel (in the frame - I'd be touching up the frame with Gloss Black RustCoat so that would cover any engine paint that ended up on the frame). The valve covers were going to be a different colour so I didn't worry about getting them covered with the Cast Iron either.
Naked GoldWing 2011.JPG
Naked GoldWing 2011.JPG (165.73 KiB) Viewed 1042 times

The chrome on the bag rails and rack was pretty rusty so I dropped them at the sand blasting place near work one morning and picked them up on my way home
Sandblasted chrome.JPG
Sandblasted chrome.JPG (124.48 KiB) Viewed 1042 times

After contacting Rustoleum about how much heat their Hammered Black paint would withstand I used it on the belt covers and valve covers
Hammered Black belt cover.JPG
Hammered Black belt cover.JPG (122.31 KiB) Viewed 1042 times

Before I went much farther I needed to decide how to paint it. I wanted it to match the sidecar but I didn't want plain black. My buddy that runs the local auto body shop said if I only wanted a bit of colour I would be better off to buy enough black to do everything and then use a couple of spray cans of touch up paint for the trim the colour. I decided on Honda Electron Blue Pearl.
I couldn't find a line drawing of a bike anywhere close to mine so I pasted the rear end of brochure pic of the GL1100I and the front end of the brochure pic of the GL1100 standard together and turned the result black & white to simulate the mostly black paint, then started experimenting with paint patterns and emailing them to Matt for a second opinion.
Here's what we came up with
GL1100 Bagger black+blue 1000.JPG
GL1100 Bagger black+blue 1000.JPG (80.27 KiB) Viewed 1042 times

Canada Day fell on a Monday that year so the long weekend gave me lots of time to paint. Friday morning I set up for painting and primed the metal parts (glove box doors, rear fender). After that had dried for a couple of hours I got out the undercoating gun and laid a light layer of Rubberized Undercoating on everything. Saturday I primed everything over the Rubberized and when that had dried I got out the spray bomb and painted 2 coats of Electron Blue. Sunday I masked the blue and painted 2 coats of gloss black on everything.

While the paint was curing for a few days I worked on the exhaust system. When I put Mr.H together the headers weren't pretty but I had no money so I picked the best of the chromed header covers I had and put them on to cover up the rust I modified some automotive exhaust adaptors to mate the Harley mufflers with them but the adaptors always leaked and I was always "going to fix it properly one day". I decided this needed to be done at the same time as the paint but when I took the covers off the headers were even less pretty than they were 14 years before so I posted on Naked GoldWings and a few days later a "better" set arrived.

They weren't much better (when I stripped off the covers there was deep pitting wherever the edges of the covers or their clamps touched them) but, being from a 1000, they had never been welded to the collector box. This time I used an angle grinder to remove all of the tabs for the covers and cleaned out the pitted areas with a wire wheel in an angle grinder, then found some exhaust pipe that fit over their ends nicely also fit inside the ends of the Harley mufflers. I have a wire welder at home but this was something that needed to be brazed so I arranged to stay after work and use the torch.
The closer one is the way they looked after I spent about an hour each brazing up pitting &c. The farther one is ready for painting after a couple of hours chipping slag, grinding, filing, sanding & wire brushing. This was a lot of work for headers that I am not sure will last more than a few years, but new ones were out of my price range (vintage bike parts, you know).
(Note the side cover on the left; I didn't really work on the headers right next to the parts I had just painted.)
New(er) Headers.jpg
New(er) Headers.jpg (121.27 KiB) Viewed 1042 times
Mr. Honda ('83 GL1100/Dnepr) summer How a motorcycle evolves thread
The Famous Eccles ('84 CX650EI/VeloUral) winter Never Ending Build (CX500forum)
Click: Colour schematics for all GL1000 & GL1100 and GL1200 standard models plus instructions on how to download the full size version
"A guy with two sidecars can't be all bad." - Cookie
Another guy with two sidecars..... Hmmmm... must be something to that....
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Sidecar Bob
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Re: Mr.H: How a motorcycle evolves over time

#17

Post by Sidecar Bob »

I spent the next few weeks putting everything back together and finishing details like adding pinstriping, logos &c (all stickers) and getting the rear brake to work (rebuild master cylinder, clean &re-assemble caliper). It was on the road just in time for the CURD rally at the end of July (it's the black one at the far end of the row in this pic)
0319.JPG
0319.JPG (147.06 KiB) Viewed 1029 times

I didn't get a chance to take pics of it until mid August (& remembered to post them here a week later)

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By then Eccles was apart for its annual "restoration" session (winter is hard on bikes, especially when you drive them to work every day no matter what the weather). I won't go into a lot of detail here but after using the Velorex sidecar for 10 winters and scraping off the rust on the front of the frame so I could slap another coat of paint on every summer I started wondering just how much steel was left. And what the Czechs were using for steel in '82. After investigating a bunch of options I bought a brand new Ural sidecar frame and spent the rest of the summer and fall taking Eccles apart, re-assembling it with a completely different sidecar frame and making a few other changes along the way.

A couple of unexpected problems came up and getting Eccles back together dragged on to the point where I was still driving Mr.H in November when it suddenly started running really badly and consuming a lot more fuel. While trying to figure out what was wrong with it I pulled the spark plugs to look at them and this happened https://www.ngwclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=37651
Since then I have made it an absolute requirement on both bikes to remove the plugs, examine them visually and re-install with fresh anti seize when putting it back into service after storage.

I figured out that the main problem was the points (I'd been planning to replace them in the spring anyway). Between needing to drive it to work every day and still scrambling to get Eccles back together I didn't have time to replace them then so I filed some of the pitting out and it and made do like that for another week until I was ready to change bikes.

I think I set a record for the latest I ever changed from the summer bike to the winter one that year. Here are a couple of pics from Nov. 25th, right before I moved Mr.H into the shed for the winter and Eccles into my regular parking space (after that I still had to clean out the big space in the garage before Kay could start parking the car in there)
Eccles & Mr.H Nov. 2011-1.JPG
Eccles & Mr.H Nov. 2011-1.JPG (164.49 KiB) Viewed 1029 times
Every garage should look like this
Every garage should look like this.JPG
Every garage should look like this.JPG (136.6 KiB) Viewed 1029 times
Mr. Honda ('83 GL1100/Dnepr) summer How a motorcycle evolves thread
The Famous Eccles ('84 CX650EI/VeloUral) winter Never Ending Build (CX500forum)
Click: Colour schematics for all GL1000 & GL1100 and GL1200 standard models plus instructions on how to download the full size version
"A guy with two sidecars can't be all bad." - Cookie
Another guy with two sidecars..... Hmmmm... must be something to that....
User avatar
Sidecar Bob
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Re: Mr.H: How a motorcycle evolves over time

#18

Post by Sidecar Bob »

In the spring of 2012 I had Mr.H apart to replace the swingarm bearings when Eccles' 3rd gear decided to fall apart. I had to rush to get Mr.H back together so I could drive it to work and all of the other jobs I had intended to do before I put it back on the road in would have to wait for weekends & evenings.

I don't think I talked about the seat. The vinyl on Mr.H's original seat was pretty brittle after sitting outside for years so after a couple of years of use the seams started to split. I had bought another GL1100 seat for the trike (by now scrapped) and used it for a year or so but its seams started to split too. I couldn't afford to have one reupholstered professionally and this was long before you could buy replacement covers online so I bought some vinyl from a place that did furniture, cut up the original cover from the seat that was in worse shape to use as a pattern and sewed it together by hand (saddle stitch - I used to do leather work).
After about a dozen years of use (including sitting in the parking lot at work all day in the warm half of the year) it was starting to look pretty tired. We were a bit better off by then so I took the other seat to the guy who did the top for the sidecar to have it done. I asked him to try to move the bump back as far as possible to give me a bit more leg room while he was at it. (I'm not sure why the on I upholstered looks bigger in this pic as they are both the same length & width)
New seat.jpg
New seat.jpg (197.96 KiB) Viewed 1015 times

A week later I installed a Dyna S ignition, as well as a set of new spark plug wires & caps someone gave me.
A couple of weeks later the right head gasket failed so instead of adding some sort of insert to fix the threads in the original head I swapped in the one from the parts engine (with the cam from the original head)
Installing the head.JPG
Installing the head.JPG (121.76 KiB) Viewed 1015 times
If you look carefully at the pic of the partly disassembled bike in the last post you can see a handlebar mount "stereo" (it was really mono) and a pair of speakers (more like tweeters) hanging from the handlebars. It had stopped working in the fall (turns out it wasn't waterproof either) so I removed it. I ordered another and when it came I mounted it in the sidecar (with a switch on the handlebars to turn it on & off), not an ideal solution but better than nothing.
It was pretty hot in the sidecar with the cover on so I added some vents to the windshield. I'd been thinking that the windshield looked too tall so I also painted the bottom few inches with Black Appliance Epoxy Enamel and added a single silver stripe (tape).
Sidecar windshield - vents & black paint.JPG
Sidecar windshield - vents & black paint.JPG (136.75 KiB) Viewed 1015 times

I was almost at work one morning when it suddenly started to run badly. When I got there I looked down and one of the nickles on the carbs was missing, along with part of the plastic button it was glued to. I covered the opening with duct tape to get me home and epoxied on another nickle but I knew that was only a temporary solution. A couple of months before Keddano had posted about replacing the buttons with automotive freeze plugs so I decided I'd do the same but I didn't trust just epoxying them in place
https://www.ngwclub.com/forum/viewtopic ... 68#p431968
Carb top parts & tools.JPG
Carb top parts & tools.JPG (194.08 KiB) Viewed 1015 times
Carb tops - installed.JPG
Carb tops - installed.JPG (159.4 KiB) Viewed 1015 times

I also added a circuit that pulsed the garage door opener remote whenever I switched to the high beam so that I didn't have to fumble with a remote in my pocket (if anyone is interested let me know and I'll post details).
Mr. Honda ('83 GL1100/Dnepr) summer How a motorcycle evolves thread
The Famous Eccles ('84 CX650EI/VeloUral) winter Never Ending Build (CX500forum)
Click: Colour schematics for all GL1000 & GL1100 and GL1200 standard models plus instructions on how to download the full size version
"A guy with two sidecars can't be all bad." - Cookie
Another guy with two sidecars..... Hmmmm... must be something to that....
User avatar
Sidecar Bob
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Re: Mr.H: How a motorcycle evolves over time

#19

Post by Sidecar Bob »

After 3 years with the sidecar I still wasn't happy with the setup. It seemed that every time I adjusted something it would be OK for a while and then deteriorate a bit. I eventually figured out that the subframe was moving where it attached to the bike frame's down tube at the front and I decided the best fix would be to extend the subframe to reach the left side of the bike so that it couldn't move. At first I thought that would require disassembling the outfit to gt the subframe out to braze the new part on but I told my friend Richard what I want to do and he said if I get everything else done he could bring his welder and join the new part onto the old part without taking the subframe off of the bike and if we did it that way the new part would be guaranteed to align with the bike properly too.
So I cut the parts for the extension, took them to work to braze together and painted just the end that would attach to the left side of the bike. On Saturday morning I was just loosening everything up & removing the front strut so I could jack the subframe back to level when Richard arrived with his arc welder. Once I got everything lined up, with a jack under the original subframe, another jack under the new part and a C-clamp where they met, he welded it up for me. When it had cooled down I put a level against the back wheel to see what adjustments were needed and then we tightened everything back up.
After dinner I cleaned up the welds with the grinder and painted it.
Subframe mod - left side.JPG
Subframe mod - left side.JPG (181.57 KiB) Viewed 1010 times
Subframe mod - right side.JPG
Subframe mod - right side.JPG (173.03 KiB) Viewed 1010 times

I test drove it on Sunday, reduced the leanout a couple of turns and tried again and it felt like what I was aiming for but every time I got it close the subframe moved. I don't recall adjusting the sidecar setup since so that solved the problem.


We started going to the local cruise night and someone we met there told us about a group that was having bike nights the same day not far away so we tried that. The people there seemed to be interested in us but they all parked in the parking lot and socialized on the patio and I got the impression that they were outlaw style biker wannabes (one woman insisted that we look at pics of the "painted ladies" contest at a charity event they had recently hosted, featuring several of their group, which really didn't impress church lady Kay).
We both agreed that the more family oriented group at the cruise night were more our kind of people and that we liked their format of everyone taking their food to where their vehicles are (a lot of them bring folding chairs) and hanging around to talk to people about them much better so we didn't go back to the bike night again.
Below: Kay tries to remember some of the details of how I restored/modified the sidecar. I really need to put together a photo album that we can take to these things like some of the others (like the fellow showing his album to people on the left side of the pic) have. This turned out to be our last cruise night or bike night for a while because Kay started a new job that kept her from getting home in time to go (not to mention having enough energy for it).
Lindsay A&W Cruise Sept.5 2012.JPG
Lindsay A&W Cruise Sept.5 2012.JPG (132.19 KiB) Viewed 1010 times

I changed to Eccles on Nov.1 that year, just in time to drive through the first light snow flurry of the year on the way home the next day. Mr.H went to the shed about a week later.
Mr. Honda ('83 GL1100/Dnepr) summer How a motorcycle evolves thread
The Famous Eccles ('84 CX650EI/VeloUral) winter Never Ending Build (CX500forum)
Click: Colour schematics for all GL1000 & GL1100 and GL1200 standard models plus instructions on how to download the full size version
"A guy with two sidecars can't be all bad." - Cookie
Another guy with two sidecars..... Hmmmm... must be something to that....
User avatar
Sidecar Bob
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Re: Mr.H: How a motorcycle evolves over time

#20

Post by Sidecar Bob »

Mr.H was back in the garage by the end of March 2013 and after going over it I spent a day online ordering parts for it, then tidied & re-organized the shop while I waited for them to arrive. New tires (front & rear - sidecar tires last much longer), a new master cylinder (the sight glass in CX650 on I rebuilt for it in '07 had started to develop cracks), one of the "New2u" kits CharlieP used to sell, switches made for a Royal Enfield Bullet, a replacement for the Caltric starter motor that failed, an electronic instrument panel like the one I had on Eccles 2 years before and a few other odds & ends.
MR.H's new parts April 2013.JPG
MR.H's new parts April 2013.JPG (132.45 KiB) Viewed 1000 times

The first project was rebuilding the timing belt tensioners as described by sandiegobrass
https://www.ngwclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=14186
Rebuilt belt tensioner.JPG
Rebuilt belt tensioner.JPG (135.48 KiB) Viewed 1000 times

By the end of May had the new timing belts & rollers installed & everything that needed to come apart for that back together, including replacing the rear timing belt cover gaskets, adjusting the valve clearances, replacing the thermostat & rad hoses, re-painting the timing belt covers, rocker covers, rad, grille, thermostat cover, parts of the frame behind the rad and a few other bits & pieces, and a few other odd jobs.
With that done I started working on the front end. Even without the longer forks increasing it the 'Wing's stock 135mm/5.3" of trail would have been way too much for sidecar use and the steering was very heavy. I couldn't convince myself to spend $1500 or more for a leading link setup so I had been investigating cheaper ways of reducing the trail for a few years. I had decided leading axle forks would probably be the most economical way to do what I needed so when I went to Cycle Salvage to get parts for what I was doing to Eccles in the summer of 2012 I bought a set of forks from an '84 CB650SC that matched the originals in all important measurements but had the axle in front of the leg instead of centred, which should reduce the trail by at least an inch.
I had some health problems so everything took longer until that was sorted out (who knew that low B12 levels had similar symptoms to chronic fatigue?) I also decided if I was going to have the forks apart I was going to make the "new" sliders look as good as possible, which involved grinding off the thick ribs that ran most of their length. While I was working at that I decided it was time I learned how ti make them really shiny so I bought a buffing kit and converted the old arbour stand & washing machine motor grinder (that I hadn't used since I got an angle grinder anyway) into a buffer. And learned how to use it
Buffing.JPG
Buffing.JPG (133.93 KiB) Viewed 1000 times

Once they were shiny I decided which parts to use (the CB750SC stanchions were in the best shape but I needed the dampers from the CB650SC forks because of TRAC in one slider). I went through the Calsci fork spring preload spacer calculation again but this time I wanted to have them support the weight of the sidecar and not require air pressure so I ended up assembling the forks, installing them, bouncing the front end, taking measurements and taking it all apart to change the spacers a bunch of times before I was happy with them. In the end I felt the whole process was worth it because the steering is not significantly heavier than on Eccles (105mm trail) and it handles bumps at least as well as the original suspension.
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I also replaced the Avon SMII on the rear with a Shinko E240, which is based on the old Goodyear Speed Grip tires that were used on Harleys & Indians decades ago but with modern rubber compounds. It lasted about the same as the Avon but cost a lot less and had much better grip in the wet.
Mr. Honda ('83 GL1100/Dnepr) summer How a motorcycle evolves thread
The Famous Eccles ('84 CX650EI/VeloUral) winter Never Ending Build (CX500forum)
Click: Colour schematics for all GL1000 & GL1100 and GL1200 standard models plus instructions on how to download the full size version
"A guy with two sidecars can't be all bad." - Cookie
Another guy with two sidecars..... Hmmmm... must be something to that....
User avatar
Sidecar Bob
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Re: Mr.H: How a motorcycle evolves over time

#21

Post by Sidecar Bob »

I just noticed something in my maintenance log that I want to mention: When I changed the tire I replaced the o-ring in the rear wheel's splines and the dust seal that protects the bearing on the disc side of the wheel.
This may seem insignificant, and in fact I didn't think about replacing those parts for many years. Until I went to change the back tire on Eccles in 2013 and discovered that one of the o-rings in it had broken and over the winter enough dirt/grit from the road had gotten into the splines to turn the grease into something more like valve grinding compound. The splines on the spline flange (at least 80% of full size when I changed the tire the year before) were worn down to about about 25% of full size.
Note that Eccles' CX500 rear wheel & final drive has an o-rings inside the spline flange and another on the final drive's splines but the GL1100 only has one o-ring in the spline flange, the other end being protected by the wheel bearing and dust seal and other models could have either arrangement.
Yes, Eccles does see a lot more of the sort of stuff that got into the spline grease than most bikes do, especially back then when I drove to work on it every day in the cold half of the year and wore out a rear tire every year BUT if you haven't already done so I highly recommend replacing the (probably 4 decade old) o-ring(s) the next time you have the back wheel out.
FWIW, I bought lots of 10 of the correct sizes of o-rings for my bikes on eBay. They might not be up to Honda's standards but they were cheap enough that I don't mind replacing them every time I change the tire.

The next project was the electrical upgrades so that had to wait until my vacation when I could take it off the road to pull the wiring apart.
The first part of the project was replacing the original instrument panel & finding a place for better speakers. I had lots of time to figure out what to do but the project had grown to include replacing the windshield and the headlight bucket and ears (you actually had a preview of that above because I didn't take the pics of the new forks until September). The story is too long to tell again (details here) but the end result was that I turned the bottom part of an old tool box into the speaker box with another box below to make room for all of the wires (no room in the headlight with the more modern reflector/lens and the HID bulb) and the new instrument mounted on that.
Note the knob and switch: The knob is an L pad that controls the speaker volume and the switch cuts power to the player/radio inside the sidecar. There are also various LEDs for turn signal indicators, headlight indicators &c and a button for the oogah horn (previously I had to flip a switch and push the regular horn button).
Image
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I have never gotten around to taking pics of how I mounted the sender for the electronic speedometer on Mr.H but here are a couple of pics of Eccles with basically the same setup. I drilled and tapped a the bracket for the caliper at the appropriate location , screwed the sender into that and used the nut to lock it in place.
sensor in caliper carrier July 2014.JPG
sensor in caliper carrier July 2014.JPG (119.09 KiB) Viewed 989 times

It was simple to mount the magnet in one of the slots in Eccles' disc but I had to drill a hole for Mr.H's magnet (one of these days I'll think of taking pics of that when it isn't in the shed for the winter :roll:)
sensor on fork July 2014.JPG
sensor on fork July 2014.JPG (125.13 KiB) Viewed 989 times

The switches on Eccles came from the GL500 I had before it so they had been through 11 winters (that I know of - the 500's PO had a sidecar and I always suspected it had been used in the winter at least a bit) by the fall of 2012 and had started to have problems that couldn't be fixed with contact cleaner so early in 2013 I started shopping for replacements. Mr.H's original switches (which were on it when it sat outside for 6 years before I got it) weren't giving me any trouble but the left side was the big, clunky looking one with the solenoid for the turn signal cancelling system, which always shut the signals off way too early before I disconnected it by simply unplugging the cancelling unit (under the left side of the shelter) and the right side's plastic housing was cracked when I got it so I "fixed" it with a zip tie but it always bothered me a bit.
So I decided I didn't want to mess around with 30+ year old switches anymore and in January I started shopping for something newer and a few weeks later I ordered the ones for the Enfield Bullet (for those that don't know, Enfield India still makes them, based on the original British design but with modern electrics, handlebars, wheels &c).
Full details are in this thread but the project began with removing the wires from the new switches and figuring out which solder points on each switch did what, then removing the wires from the old switches, figuring out which ones I wouldn't need and which new wires I wanted, applying new heat shrink to cover the modified wire bundles and soldering the wires to the new switches, as well as figuring out how to make the Honda throttle cable (pull only - I'm a firm believer that the "push" cable causes more problems than it could ever prevent) work with it.
Note that the (UK spec) switches have a passing light switch, which I used to trigger the garage door opener (much better than flashing the high beam) and a headlight switch, which I set up as (right to left) Off/Bike headlight only/Bike and Sidecar headlights.
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The new windshield is an Memphis Shades Alley Cat, an eBay deal I got without hardware so I modified the hardware from the Slipstreamer (& enlarged some of the holes in the windshield to suit). Here's the pic from 2013 that best shows it
Mr.H Aug 2013 windshield.jpg
Mr.H Aug 2013 windshield.jpg (91.96 KiB) Viewed 989 times
Mr.H went into storage in early November, just about the time that the docs figured out that the reason my right shoulder had been aching all spring & summer was that I had a full thickness partial width rotator cuff tear and I had to go on light duty until the surgery, which didn't happen until July 2014.
Mr. Honda ('83 GL1100/Dnepr) summer How a motorcycle evolves thread
The Famous Eccles ('84 CX650EI/VeloUral) winter Never Ending Build (CX500forum)
Click: Colour schematics for all GL1000 & GL1100 and GL1200 standard models plus instructions on how to download the full size version
"A guy with two sidecars can't be all bad." - Cookie
Another guy with two sidecars..... Hmmmm... must be something to that....
User avatar
Sidecar Bob
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Re: Mr.H: How a motorcycle evolves over time

#22

Post by Sidecar Bob »

Matt helped me move Mr.H back to the garage in April 2014. I still wasn't supposed to be doing anything that would strain my shoulder unduly ( like pushing a heavy outfit over bumpy ground) so we put fuel and the battery in it and so for the first time I drove it instead of pushing it.

The CB650SC has narrower triple clamps than the GL1100 so the axle that came with the CB650SC forks was a bit too short; I had expected to use Mr.H's original axle but the threads were different. With everything assembled the hex on the end of the CB650SC axle came flush with the hole in the fork leg that has the pinch bolt so if I tightened it up all the way I couldn't to get a wrench on it but it was the only one I had that came close so I found an M8 bolt with a 14mm head, drilled & tapped the head end of the axle to accept it and brazed it in. It seemed to work well and allowed me to easily tighten the axle and remove it several times during the final testing, fitting & assembly.
When I changed to the electronic instrument panel had I left the mechanical speedometer drive in place for the rest of the season but now I wanted to replace it with a spacer (I had ordered a suitable dust seal over the winter) but when I went to remove the axle a tiny amount of oxidation in the threads made it stick and I twisted the head off of the bolt (lesson: always use anti seize).
I managed to get it out but something better had to be done. The cylindrical part of the axle that goes into the pinch bolt part of the fork is 20mm diameter. I cut off the threaded part of a 5/8" bolt so that I had a 15/16" (24mm) head with a straight shaft maybe 15-20mm long, then ground flats on the shaft and a matching slot into the end of the axle and brazed them together. That shouldn't twist off...
(Note: When I changed the tire a few years later it worked perfectly)

Speaking of the electronic instrument panel, when I bought the one for Eccles in 2011 the tach didn't work right and after a lot of correspondence back & forth trying to make it work the seller ended up sending me a replacement. I made the mistake of buying the one for Mr.H from a different seller to save a few $. I didn't have it long before I started to discover problems with it but this seller wasn't interested in helping me at all
- The speedometer and odometer indicated 10% low. (I think the sent me one for a 16" wheel instead of 18")
- The fuel gauge is set for a 510 ohm sender so it will not work with the bike's 67 ohm sender. (maybe intended for a different make too?)
- The turn signal indicators came on steady even though they are triggered by the flashing signal from the bike.

In the meantime, the one on Eccles had started to develop problems and the lens had yellowed enough that it was getting hard to read. But by then I fully appreciated the advantages of modern electronic instruments over antique mechanical ones so I wanted to replace the cheap ones on both bikes with something better. After a bunch of research I ended up ordering a Danmoto "180 cockpit" for Eccles.
By then I had the date for my surgery and knew I'd only have Mr.H would have a short season and I'd be on Eccles when my recovery was done; And I wanted to try one out for a while before buying a second one.
But I really wanted to have a more accurate speedometer/odometer.
Then I remembered that I still had the defective one from 2011 and as far as I knew all that was wrong with it was the tach. So after a bunch of emails with Matt and my old buddy from college Bill, we came up with a way to gut the tach, install a digital voltmeter in the space where the tach was and customize the appearance a bit at very little cost.
Mr.H & Flames EP2 installed x.JPG
Mr.H & Flames EP2 installed x.JPG (131.49 KiB) Viewed 976 times

The only other modification that year was adding leg shields. With winters getting milder I had decided to replace the big homemade handlebar muffs I had installed on winter bikes when it started to get really cold and removed again when it got milder since the first GoldWing (bubble/foil insulation on steel frames - you can see them in the pics of the wreck in post#1 of this thread) with a set of Ural/Dnepr hand guards that I could leave on all the time. I found a set of hand guards and leg shields for not much more than the guards alone and decided it would be nice to have the leg shields on Mr.H on cool &/or damp days.
I had to make my own brackets to work with the wider bike and trim the left one to clear the crashbar.
Did I mention that Mr.H only has a left crashbar and that mostly for a place to hang a highway peg? You can see the right hand peg bolted to the sidecar in this pic too.
I don't think I mentioned the mirror risers either; With the top on the sidecar all I could see in the right hand mirror was the view between me and the side of the top so I added the risers just before the end of the 2013 season. That helped a bit but I didn't really have a good view until I figured out to reverse the stems of the mirrors (higher but not as far apart) and aim them so that the right hand mirror shows what is behind me on the left and the left hand mirror shows what is behind me on the right.
leg shields on 2014.JPG
leg shields on 2014.JPG (121.92 KiB) Viewed 976 times

I'd been having what I thought were starter motor issues (wouldn't re-start when warm) for a couple of years but just before I moved it to storage I had left it overnight with the left exhaust off while working on it and in the morning there was a puddle of fuel on the floor under it. And the starter wouldn't budge it. I pulled the plugs, hit the button and watched gas spray from all 4 holes. At that point it was too close to my surgery to start figuring out what caused that so I put the exhaust back on and drove it to the shed for storage on July 19th. As expected it was October by the time I was allowed to drive again so I was on Eccles.

We moved Mr.H to the garage under its own power on April 3rd 2015 and I started working on why it was flooding. After having the carbs apart to check the float levels a bunch of times, stripping several float bowl screws and helicoiling all of them I eventually noticed that there was fuel in the plenum and figured out that bad carb to plenum seals had been my problem all along (I figure enough fuel was finding its way into at least one cylinder to prevent the starter motor from turning the engine until it had been stopped long enough for some to evaporate). By the time I figured that out and got replacement parts I didn't put Mr.H on the road again until Aug 6. The only visible change that year was replacing the front master cylinder with a China/eBay one (still working fine 6 years later).

I had an accident at work in September and Mr.H ended up sitting on the parking lot for 3 weeks and 3 weeks after that (Nov.9th) I moved it to the shed for the winter so I guess 2014 and 2015 more or less added up to a little less one season between them.
Mr. Honda ('83 GL1100/Dnepr) summer How a motorcycle evolves thread
The Famous Eccles ('84 CX650EI/VeloUral) winter Never Ending Build (CX500forum)
Click: Colour schematics for all GL1000 & GL1100 and GL1200 standard models plus instructions on how to download the full size version
"A guy with two sidecars can't be all bad." - Cookie
Another guy with two sidecars..... Hmmmm... must be something to that....
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Re: Mr.H: How a motorcycle evolves over time

#23

Post by Sidecar Bob »

2016 was an eventful year.
It's not directly related to Mr.H but in February Matt & I were out in Eccles and happened to have a camera that would take video so I told him to point it out the sidecar windows while I drove


About a month later the narrow window of opportunity between the snow being gone from the yard, the ground still firmly frozen and Kay being willing to start parking outside matched a weekend when Matt was here so he helped me push Mr.H from the shed to the garage.
And then it turned cold again and even snowed so it sat there waiting for a nice sunny Saturday or Sunday afternoon so I could roll it outside, fire it up and pour water over the plug wires & caps to see if I could figure out why it didn't want to start when it was wet last fall. It looked like I would be able to do it on the weekend of April 9/10 (our 40th anniversary) but instead we spent the weekend in shock dealing with Matt's death and planning his memorial service the following Saturday (a really nice day but working on bikes was about the last thing on my mind).
Then we had to deal with his apartment. Matt collected computers the way some people collect stamps; His goal was to have one of every major type of PC, complete with period appropriate monitors &c. And he lived in a 3rd floor walk-up with a very steep & narrow stairway. On Saturday the 16th we assembled a crew of helpers and filled two 4'x8' trailers, one with 2' sides and the other 5' sides and filled everyone's cars & trucks, brought it all here and piled the computers in the garage (so much for working on Mr.H) and the boxes downstairs in Matt's room. By the end of the day 2 of us could barely walk; Did I mention that those stairs are really steep?
Mr.H is in there somewhere
Matt's stuff - garage - 3.JPG
Matt's stuff - garage - 3.JPG (141.08 KiB) Viewed 961 times
And a couple of weeks later I got word that my best friend had passed away. Bill, Matt & I were all electronics guys and whenever one of us was working on a project he would email the other 2 and we would have long 3 way email conversations about how best to do it. When Matt died I knew Bill & I would miss having his input. Now that Bill is gone I have nobody to do that with. Man I miss them.

I did eventually get Mr.H outside and found that I could kill the ignition by spraying the wires & caps with a garden hose so I was already expecting to need at least caps & wires.
We all know that Honda used a ballast resistor on these bikes so they could use coils that could produce good spark while the starter motor is pulling the battery's voltage low but not fry them when the system voltage is over 14V. In the 1000 the Start button shorts the resistor to give the coils full voltage and I had always assumed that the 1100 did too but when I was figuring out what was wrong with the Dyna S I discovered otherwise.
I could have added a couple of wires and a diode to short the resistor but I had read about other coils not requiring the resistor and the original coils were 33 years old by then so I decided it would probably be a good time to replace them too. After consulting with the forum I ordered a good used set of GL1500 coils and by then my retirement date (May 27th) was only a few days away.

Once I had all the parts on hand and didn't have to limit my work time to weekends & evenings I installed the 1500 coils
BTW: I got the XD05F-R caps because red parts always make things go faster :orange :lol:
Image
Image

Once Mr.H was running (& could be trusted in the rain again) I moved Eccles to the shed and Mr.H to my parking space and started sorting through Matt's stuff so we could get rid of most of it (or at last get the garage emptied out). I eventually figured out how to write an add for Kijiji that would bring people who are as interested in old computers as Matt was so it all went to good homes and we donated the proceeds to charity.

I knew the "flames" instrument panel would be temporary when I installed it and I liked the Danmoto on Eccles enough that I had bought one for Mr.H in '15 so installing it was the next project.
Image

I had also installed a new stereo with a slot to accept USB drives on Eccles in '15 and liked it enough that I installed one in Mr.H too
Image

The only other change to Mr.H that year was adding a multi outlet lighter plug in the sidecar. It wasn't great quality (the contacts in one I had installed in Eccles rusted the first winter) but it proved its worth when we drove Mr.H to Ottawa for the Canadian CX Rally.
Here's an artsy shot Kay took of me from the sidecar on the Ottawa rally's group ride
Bob driving.JPG
Bob driving.JPG (88.84 KiB) Viewed 961 times

I loved the 1000 transmission & 1100 final drive's higher gearing when Mr.H was a solo bike but it wasn't so great with the sidecar. That group ride was across the river to Hull and up the mountain to the scenic lookouts and there were a couple of times when I had to stop pointing uphill and had a hard time getting it moving. On the way home from the rally I started contemplating ways to lower the gearing and about halfway home I realized that the best way would be to change to an 1100 engine.
A few weeks later I had decided that if I did I wanted to keep my good '79 Carbs and the Dyna so I asked about that on the forum and started looking for one.

I had a lot of work to do on Eccles that year so I ended up driving Mr.H to the shed through an inch of snow on Nov. 26th. I knew I wouldn't have help pushing it back to the garage so I drained the bike's tank before storage as usual but left the tank on the sidecar full with stabilizer.
Edit Jan 2024: link fixed
Last edited by Sidecar Bob on Wed Jan 24, 2024 2:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Mr. Honda ('83 GL1100/Dnepr) summer How a motorcycle evolves thread
The Famous Eccles ('84 CX650EI/VeloUral) winter Never Ending Build (CX500forum)
Click: Colour schematics for all GL1000 & GL1100 and GL1200 standard models plus instructions on how to download the full size version
"A guy with two sidecars can't be all bad." - Cookie
Another guy with two sidecars..... Hmmmm... must be something to that....
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Re: Mr.H: How a motorcycle evolves over time

#24

Post by Sidecar Bob »

I wasn't able to find an 1100 engine locally and before I started looking farther afield I started getting PMs from Flyin900 about ones he found on Kijiji. I called about a couple of them and ended up getting a parts bike for less than the more promising of the engines and only an hour from home. In Jan. 2017 Terry (the seller) & I disassembled it enough to lift into the back of Kay's car for the trip home.
Image


All I did when we got it home was hoist the engine onto the bench and disassemble the rest of it enough to get the frame out of the garage and put some of the parts away. In May (when things warmed up enough to work in the garage) I started working on it.
https://www.ngwclub.com/forum/viewtopic ... 2&start=60
I used the endoscope/borescope camera to look in the cylinders and saw rust so I pulled the heads off. The bores weren't bad enough to do anything but scrub off the rust with a Scotchbrite but while I was turning the engine by hand to look I noticed that 3 of the pistons are flush with the mating surface at TDC but #4 was about 3mm low. I asked here and the next thing I knew I had the engine apart to look at the rod
Image


I found a rod on eBay and bought it before I read where the manual mentions that they have weight codes and must be matched. I got lucky; Not only was it the right weight but the bearing code matched the old one too so I could use the original bearing.

I figured if I had it that far apart I should replace all of the seals, gaskets &c so I ordered the parts. I also figured that it made sense to leave Mr.H in storage until until the new engine was ready to install. While the parts were on the way I got sidetracked by household stuff like getting ready to have a bunch new windows installed and painting the ones we didn't replace and the next thing I knew it was August. At that point I had a long list of household maintenance that I had deferred when I was working and the season was almost over so I decided to leave it on the back burner until I could devote more time to it.

The first time I used Eccles' block heater in the winter of '17-18 the heater's thermostat failed and it burned away the ends of the rad hoses and I didn't notice until the engine overheated. That left me with no transportation just before Kay had to go for a surgery that would leave her unable to drive for a few months and require a lot of follow up appointments in the city so she would be staying at her Mum's for her recovery. We stocked up on groceries &c before she left and the neighbours said I could tag along when they went shopping if I ran out.
When the snow all melted unseasonably early the last week in February I moved Mr.H back to the garage and I had it ready to drive in early March with the expectation that I wouldn't use it any more than necessary because there was still salt on the roads. And started working on the new engine again even if it did mean I had to heat the shop (electric heaters aren't cheap to run).

The plastic Enfield choke lever on Eccles had broken one particularly cold winter day and I had replaced it with a bicycle gearshift, which I found I liked much better. Along the way I had also figured that the Enfield lever didn't fully open Mr.H's choke so I always had to lift it by hand the last little bit, not a big deal in summer but it needed more choke in March so I changed it to a bicycle gearshift too (details in the New Engine thread linked above)
Image

On the morning of April 25th I was heading for an appointment on Mr.H. and as I slowed for the stop sign I heard a loud CLICK!!! and the engine stopped and wouldn't re-start. With the help of a neighbour I got it back up the hill and into the garage and discovered this
Image

It turns out the bolt for the alternator rotor/flywheel (the one you turn to rotate the engine and which I had never loosened in the 25 years or so I'd owned the engine) had backed out, broken through the cap and become jammed.
https://www.ngwclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=65163
So until I got the new engine back together I was walking again.

I'll leave you to browse through the rest of the New Engine thread for the details but it was the end of July before it was finally back together
Image.

Along the way I took the time to do a few other projects like adding a "parade switch" (turns on the fan manually so it isn't cycling on & off all the time when you have to go slow in hot weather), replacing the speakers, adding a polished aluminum "garnish" around the speaker/wiring box (all covered in the New Engine thread). I also shortened the horn on the Oogah horn so that it fit next to the sidecar strut better.

Once Mr.H was on the road I turned my attention to replacing the engine in Eccles with one from a GL500. Because I was finding myself on Mr.H later in the year more often I added a set of hand guards to it that fall.
Image

I had Eccles new engine in and started it on Nov.13. On the 17th I moved the snow blower from the shed to the garage, clearing a path along the way and on the 18th I drove Mr.H do the shed for the winter (once again with the bike's tank and the carbs drained and the sidecar tank full & stabilized)
Image
Mr. Honda ('83 GL1100/Dnepr) summer How a motorcycle evolves thread
The Famous Eccles ('84 CX650EI/VeloUral) winter Never Ending Build (CX500forum)
Click: Colour schematics for all GL1000 & GL1100 and GL1200 standard models plus instructions on how to download the full size version
"A guy with two sidecars can't be all bad." - Cookie
Another guy with two sidecars..... Hmmmm... must be something to that....
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Re: Mr.H: How a motorcycle evolves over time

#25

Post by Sidecar Bob »

From my blog on CURD:
April 12th, 2019
It was very nice out today so I started Mr.H in the shed and drove it around to the front of the house under its own power.

That sounds easy, doesn't it? In reality I took the battery (which had been on charge overnight) out to the shed, hooked it up, turned the fuel valve to the tank on the sidecar (that I left full) and gave it a try. It did fire and run for a second after I sprayed some ether into the air cleaner but the battery ran down before the carbs started to fill so I did what I should have done in the first place, removed the fuel line from the filter, connected a funnel and poured in the recommended 180cc of fuel to pre-fill the float bowls. I could have taken the battery out and tried again after it was charged but I decided to bring Eccles around and boost from it.

I could go into excruciating detail but I'll just say that the ground was softer than I thought and Eccles' tires have very aggressive tread. When I eventually got Eccles close enough to the shed for the cables to reach, Mr.H fired almost instantly tumb2

So I left it at fast idle while I drove Eccles back to the garage and walked back to the shed and tried pushing Mr.H out of the shed. And it back wheel sunk into the ground almost to the rim :x So I drove it back into the shed and went back to the garage for a couple of pieces of wood, laid them over the trench and this time I could push it out all the way.

After all that the drive to the garage was uneventful.
Then I put my back out while working on the rec room ceiling and had to take it easy for a couple of weeks and after that it was time to get the garden ready for planting, harden off the seedlings and get them in the ground so there wasn't much time to work on bikes for about a month. And then it was the time of year when I need to cut the grass at least once per week.
I don't think I mentioned it but I needed a new battery for Mr.H in 2018. Since I put it on the road late that year and knew I wasn't going to be using it a huge amount AND the mower takes the same battery I decided they could share one battery so I parked the mower in the garage for the summer and swapped the battery into the mower when I needed it. That was OK for one short season but I didn't want the mower in the garage every summer. I had been thinking about setting up Mr.H to share the U1 battery I used in Eccles for a while so that became the big project for 2019
Image

Details here: https://www.ngwclub.com/forum/viewtopic ... 3&p=801033

It's more maintenance than modification but I also decided it was about time I changed the oil in the forks 6 years after I put them together. I didn't want to remove the caps because putting them in had required the use of a press and a lot of fiddling around so I figured out a way to fill them through the holes that had originally been for the air valves.
I also rebuilt the TRAC anti dive system (left side only on these forks), in the process rendering non-adjustable (I hadn't changed the setting since about a week after I put these forks on the bike anyway)
Image

Details here: https://www.ngwclub.com/forum/viewtopic ... 27#p752166

The running lights were getting a little tired so I shopped around on eBay, found some cheap ones with potential and spent some time improving them
Image

Kay has a bad hip so getting in & out of the sidecar has been getting harder for her every year so she asked me for a handle and I made this one from a piece of plastic pipe and some odds & ends
Kay's handle.JPG
Kay's handle.JPG (157.26 KiB) Viewed 928 times
Edit: Running lights pic fixed
Last edited by Sidecar Bob on Mon Jan 24, 2022 12:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Mr. Honda ('83 GL1100/Dnepr) summer How a motorcycle evolves thread
The Famous Eccles ('84 CX650EI/VeloUral) winter Never Ending Build (CX500forum)
Click: Colour schematics for all GL1000 & GL1100 and GL1200 standard models plus instructions on how to download the full size version
"A guy with two sidecars can't be all bad." - Cookie
Another guy with two sidecars..... Hmmmm... must be something to that....
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Re: Mr.H: How a motorcycle evolves over time

#26

Post by Sidecar Bob »

For some reason I don't seem to have done a write up about the outlet box. Almost as soon as I had the one installed in Mr.H's sidecar I started planning to replace them with something better. I found some really nice plain lighter plugs and ones with USB charger adapters, both with nice covers to keep dirt out and ordered enough for the job
From eBay.jpg
From eBay.jpg (51.93 KiB) Viewed 925 times

But there was always something more important that needed doing. One of the biggest problems was that the new plugs wouldn't fit in the old boxes and I couldn't find any boxes they would fit in. Until my neighbour Lee said he was looking for projects to do on his 3D printer...
Sample boxes.jpg
Sample boxes.jpg (171.02 KiB) Viewed 925 times

He also designed & printed a wrench to fit the special nuts too
Plug, nut, tool.jpg
Plug, nut, tool.jpg (146.33 KiB) Viewed 925 times

To get a finer finish on the final prints he used a plastic that is translucent. With the texture from the printer it is almost like the whole box is a reflector so I knew right away that I would have to install LEDs inside them to shine out through the front. After playing around with a few types (I have over 20 types in stock) I settled on some 5mm 525 nm (green) ones that looked really nice shining through the blue plastic. I started by drilling holes that the LEDs would fit into from the inside and then decided to cut the domed ends off and darken the new ends so that the light would shine sideways into the plastic.
Plug box 4.jpg
Plug box 4.jpg (130.47 KiB) Viewed 925 times


I also figured that a couple of white LEDs in the back of the box aimed into the foot space might be a good idea so I made up a bracket to hold them. I used the same basic circuit for the green LEDs and the white ones but with different resistor values: The LEDs are in series with one diode across both for reverse spike protection and the current limiting resistor in series
Plug box 3.jpg
Plug box 3.jpg (119.47 KiB) Viewed 925 times
Mr. Honda ('83 GL1100/Dnepr) summer How a motorcycle evolves thread
The Famous Eccles ('84 CX650EI/VeloUral) winter Never Ending Build (CX500forum)
Click: Colour schematics for all GL1000 & GL1100 and GL1200 standard models plus instructions on how to download the full size version
"A guy with two sidecars can't be all bad." - Cookie
Another guy with two sidecars..... Hmmmm... must be something to that....
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Re: Mr.H: How a motorcycle evolves over time

#27

Post by Sidecar Bob »

Ready to install with connector so I can easily remove it if I need to service it.
Plug box 5.jpg
Plug box 5.jpg (98.93 KiB) Viewed 924 times
Plug box 1.jpg
Plug box 1.jpg (137.59 KiB) Viewed 924 times
Image

The LEDs are bright enough to help find it in the dark but not bright enough to be distracting. I think it looks good hanging below the stereo (the mounting holes are the same ones that hold the stereo on too).
BTW: The containers bolted on either side of the stereo are for keeping USB drives &c in.
Image


The sidecar windshield is 5mm acrylic but it is 23" wide so it has always been blown inward at the top at 80+ Km/h (& even more so with the cover attached to it and catching wind). I had contemplated adding a bar across the top of it for a decade and finally decided to do something about it so I dug through the pieces of the aluminum bar and found one with no holes and more than long enough. I cut it to length and drilled & tapped holes for bolting it to the bars that support the windshield & top.
The anodizing on this piece of bar was pretty badly scratched & otherwise marred so it would need to be sanded off so I could buff the bar. Sounds easy, doesn't it? :roll: It only took me a few minutes to get it all off with the belt sander (I used the disc to put a 10 degree bevel on the ends while I was at it) but it took another couple of hours of hand sanding to get it smooth enough to buff.
Once it was cleaned up I could hold it against the top's bars and figure out how long the bumper needed to be, after which I spent another hour digging through odds & ends to find an aluminum spacer that I could combine with a rubber foot that is just about the same diameter to make almost the right length (a couple of washers shimmed it to just about perfect). The spacer's bore was larger than a 1/4" bolt but not by a lot and I didn't want to use anything with a head wider than the 1/2" bar so I drilled another hole in the centre and tapped it for 1/4"-20.
After that I buffed, sanded more, buffed again, sanded more, buffed again &c until I decided it was good enough, then went over the bar with metal polish and bolted it in place. I put a dab of Shoe Goo in each end of the spacer to hold it onto the bolt and hold the bump on the back of the rubber foot in.
Windshield support 2.jpg
Windshield support 2.jpg (160.34 KiB) Viewed 924 times
Windshield support 1.jpg
Windshield support 1.jpg (116.56 KiB) Viewed 924 times

You can't see it with the cover on, hardly notice it with the cover off and from the seat it is inline with where the cover attaches to the windshield so it doesn't block the view.
Windshield support 3.jpg
Windshield support 3.jpg (121.44 KiB) Viewed 924 times
Mr. Honda ('83 GL1100/Dnepr) summer How a motorcycle evolves thread
The Famous Eccles ('84 CX650EI/VeloUral) winter Never Ending Build (CX500forum)
Click: Colour schematics for all GL1000 & GL1100 and GL1200 standard models plus instructions on how to download the full size version
"A guy with two sidecars can't be all bad." - Cookie
Another guy with two sidecars..... Hmmmm... must be something to that....
User avatar
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Re: Mr.H: How a motorcycle evolves over time

#28

Post by Sidecar Bob »

You know, when I sat down to post about 2019 I thought "This will be quick. Not much has changed in the last couple of years" :roll: :lol:

At least this 4th & final post for 2019 will be the short:

It was nice out on Oct. 29th with rain or worse was predicted every day for the next 2 weeks so I got Mr.H ready for winter, drove it to the shed and moved the U1 battery back to Eccles.
Image
Mr. Honda ('83 GL1100/Dnepr) summer How a motorcycle evolves thread
The Famous Eccles ('84 CX650EI/VeloUral) winter Never Ending Build (CX500forum)
Click: Colour schematics for all GL1000 & GL1100 and GL1200 standard models plus instructions on how to download the full size version
"A guy with two sidecars can't be all bad." - Cookie
Another guy with two sidecars..... Hmmmm... must be something to that....
User avatar
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Re: Mr.H: How a motorcycle evolves over time

#29

Post by Sidecar Bob »

2020 was.... well.... 2020.
I had spent a lot of the winter going through all of the boxes of stuff we brought here from Matt's apartment after he died with the intention of moving it all to the garage as soon as Kay was willing to start parking inside and having "Antique Computer Sale part 2" to get rid if it all in between getting the garden ready and planting. Once that stuff was gone I'd move Mr.H to the garage so I could work at whatever it needed for the season and once Mr.H was ready to go I would put Eccles in the shed and use the garage for storing and cutting wood while I replaced the back deck.

One day in March I came upstairs from sorting and Kay told me about this new disease she had just heard about and that there were about to be a lot of restrictions about being in the same place as other people and that it meant there would be no garage sales that year. I shuffled my plans around, decided I should do the deck first and by the first week of April I had the old deck removed and was ready to order the materials.
It was May 15 by the time the deck was finished and Mr.H finally moved to the garage.

When I added the speaker/wiring box I had to change to a smaller (CT70 repro) keyswitch and even then I had to mount it on the end of the box. I initially had it sticking out of the end but later decided it would be nicer looking if it was flush so I cobbled together a mount that worked (sort of) but it was never as solid as I would have liked. Lee is always looking for projects for his 3D printers so I got him to print me a mounting block
This
Image

was replaced by this
Image

And resulted in this
Image
Details here: https://www.ngwclub.com/forum/viewtopic ... 16&t=72778

I also replaced both tires on the bike. I liked the Shinko E240 rear and Duro HF-308 enough that I replaced them with the same. Pandemic related shortages were already starting and I couldn't get a "Classic 240" (Shinko's new name for the E240) blackwall so I was "forced" to buy a double whitewall instead :lol:
Mr.H Jun 19 2020.JPG
Mr.H Jun 19 2020.JPG (164 KiB) Viewed 905 times

It was ready to go on June 19th but on the first short ride both head gaskets failed. I won't go into all the gory details here except to say that these were the ones that came with the Athena kit. Ironically, I normally make all of the gaskets I need from gasket sheet except for head gaskets and I only bought the kit because I couldn't get GL1100 head gaskets in 2017. Fortunately the Honda dealer had no problem getting them for me in 2020.
https://www.ngwclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=73408

Nothing else changed that year. On Nov. 6th I went for the mail and came home the long way to give Mr.H a good run. When I got home I drained the bike tank while I moved all my stuff to Eccles, then drove Mr.H around the house and into the bike shed, ran the carbs dry & drained them, removed the battery and covered it up.
Last edited by Sidecar Bob on Sun May 29, 2022 10:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Mr. Honda ('83 GL1100/Dnepr) summer How a motorcycle evolves thread
The Famous Eccles ('84 CX650EI/VeloUral) winter Never Ending Build (CX500forum)
Click: Colour schematics for all GL1000 & GL1100 and GL1200 standard models plus instructions on how to download the full size version
"A guy with two sidecars can't be all bad." - Cookie
Another guy with two sidecars..... Hmmmm... must be something to that....
User avatar
Sidecar Bob
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Re: Mr.H: How a motorcycle evolves over time

#30

Post by Sidecar Bob »

Mr.H moved back to the garage under its own power in late April 2021. In theory I should be able to move the battery from Eccles, turn the fuel tank selector valve to the one on the sidecar, remove the plastic bag from the air filter (intended to keep rodents out), give it a shot or ether and it should start on that and run long enough for the fuel pump to fill the carbs.
I always try that and it never works so I end up walking back to the garage to get a syringe and a nut driver so I can disconnect a fuel line and squirt fuel into it to fill the carbs and I often end up having to re-charge the battery before I'm done. This time was no exception but I decided to use the charger I bought for the R/C mower's batteries. I set it to 4A (no problem for the U1 battery) and when I came back an hour or so later it started as soon as I touched the button :-D
Unfortunately, while I was squirting fuel in I noticed that gas was coming out around the shaft of the selector valve so it looks like I'll need to rebuild it again (this has happened before). One more job to add to the list....

In between other projects like getting the garden planted I worked on replacing the turn signals to sequential signals that work better without the flasher as I had done on Eccles the previous fall. The front signals still look like little LED signals so most people wouldn't notice they had changed without studying the pics closely
Image

The new rears consist of 2 sequential strips each (4 strips total) behind the lenses from trailer lights that used to be on the back of the winter machine years ago but with the rusty metal backs replaced by ones I cut from ABS sheet. Definitely a lot nicer looking than the round, red truck lights I had before
Image

After a few days with the indicators on Eccles' instrument panel not flashing I decided I didn't like that and ordered some green flashing LEDs to use for the indicators. On Mr.H that meant installing the flashing green ones in place of the white LEDs that indicated when the bike and sidecar headlights were on and wiring the turn signal indicators in the (sealed) instrument panel as headlight indicators (Eccles got a similar treatment over the summer but with the flashing LEDs in the fairing).
More details here https://www.ngwclub.com/forum/viewtopic ... 1&p=801184

You can see all of the custom lighting working in this. I think I'm finally happy with all of the lights.


Before I could start driving it I needed to deal with that leaking selector valve. For those who haven't seen it, here's what it looks like mounted on top of what used to be a chromed fuel pump cover
Fuel valve assembly.JPG
Fuel valve assembly.JPG (107.34 KiB) Viewed 891 times

And here it is ready to be re-assembled with the new o-ring on the shaft and the old one on the bench
Fuel valve apart (new o-ring on shaft).JPG
Fuel valve apart (new o-ring on shaft).JPG (149.79 KiB) Viewed 891 times

I've had the valve since 2010 and I had to replace the same o-ring in 2018; In both cases I discovered the leak while using a syringe to squirt fuel into a fuel line to pre-fill the carbs when starting it after storage. This time there was no sign of a leak after driving it from the shed to the garage or during the time it sat while I worked on the signals so I got thinking that maybe the pressure from the syringe was causing the problem as there would normally be negative pressure from the fuel pump at that point.
I don't like having to disconnect a fuel line to pre-fill the carbs every spring either so I added a brass Y fitting in the hose that runs from the valve to the pump with a short hose from the 3rd leg of the Y sticking up between the fuel filters and a plug that I can remove so when I pre-fill the carbs I'll be putting the fuel in after the selector valve
Carb filler 1.jpg
Carb filler 1.jpg (127.88 KiB) Viewed 891 times
Carb filler 2.jpg
Carb filler 2.jpg (140.12 KiB) Viewed 891 times
Mr. Honda ('83 GL1100/Dnepr) summer How a motorcycle evolves thread
The Famous Eccles ('84 CX650EI/VeloUral) winter Never Ending Build (CX500forum)
Click: Colour schematics for all GL1000 & GL1100 and GL1200 standard models plus instructions on how to download the full size version
"A guy with two sidecars can't be all bad." - Cookie
Another guy with two sidecars..... Hmmmm... must be something to that....
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