'76 Yellow Wing - Winter '24/5 Project is On

[wingrider]

Congrats on BOTM. Very nice resurrection!

[Fred Camper]

Nicely documented story and a well deserved Bike of the Month of October.

[NotSoLilCrippseys]

Yowza! Thanks, all.

Fun update: We know that the seat has the '78/9 stepped profile and not the '75/6 breadloaf one.

I wasn't exactly itching to pick up the period-correct original seat for this bike. Then I saw an opportunity for the right seat in a barn find of pretty-much abandoned early GLs and parts. That barn stash is four hours from my home, a little beyond my standard range for this sort of mission. BUT...

I already had a work-related road trip to that state, and the drive would literally - in the actual and not Gen-Z meaning of that word - take me through the town where the stash is located. I got my work colleague to agree to the pit stop, a 5-minute detour off the highway. (I promised not to get too lost in the hunt to reduce possible friction.)

In the back of the garage, up high on a shelf was a dirty, dusty, cobweb-coated '75/6 seat in a stack of king/queen Corbins/Gentrys and a stepped '78/9 or two. The seat was piled amid the parts that document a story of someone's abandoned plans to put several of these bikes back on the road. It was sad, actually.

Preservation by dust was years in the making. I pulled the seat down. Cobwebs dangled off it like a beard. (I should have snapped a photo because the cobwebbing was October-appropriate and gave the garage the air of a haunted house.

Outside, I quickly wiped the seat cover with a pile of fall leaves to clear the webs and get a closer look. No rips, nicks. Good. It was way too crusty to tell much more than that, and the HONDA logo looked like it had faded away long ago. I bought the seat and a few other hard-to-source items from the piles on the shelf, tossed it all in the back of the car, and continued the work trip.

Once home, I gave the seat a 5-minute cleaning and uncovered a very nice example of a first-gen seat, and the HONDA logo is still quite prominent.

PXL_20251004_001914522.jpg

Whoever got that feverish itch to rebuild or restore an early GL did a pretty good job sourcing components.

I'm not sure I'm entirely done with that garage. But it's a half-day drive from my house.

[Fred Camper]

Save that seat for the next buyer as the seat you have is more comfortable for sure. At least for me.

[gltriker]

Well Done

[NotSoLilCrippseys]

Save that seat for the next buyer as the seat you have is more comfortable for sure. At least for me.

Agreed. 30 minutes on that '75/6 seat is a bit harder on the tail. Something about the foam density. One virtue of the breadloaf is that I can slide back a bit to get my personal ergonomics working well.

There's a guy in Rhode Island selling a registered, running red '76 right now. He has the newer saddle on it but claims to also have the original. I think his listing reinforces your point, Fred.