Left Photo is beautiful GL1000 engine restoration by customer Tom Cox of Loveland, Colorado

Here are some technical tips you might find helpful. My intent is to publish technical information that you're not likely to find elsewhere - so I don't generally cover procedures here that are adequately covered in workshop manuals. While I'm on the topic of manuals, I rely on three: the Official Honda GL1000 Workshop Manual, plus the ones from Clymer's and Haynes.

Generally, the Honda manual is sufficient, but sometimes the others provide helpful cross-reference. I also make extensive use of the official Honda GL1000 Parts Book (very helpful…has exploded diagrams and part numbers) and the dealer Set-Up Guide. I strongly recommend that you obtain at least one good manual before you delve into any repairs or maintenance.

For convenience, the Clymer and Haynes manuals are listed here (at good prices) via links to Amazon where you can get brief descriptions of each book. Buy them wherever you like. The Amazon referral fees to me are inconsequential. The main thing is that you have access to this information.

A good source for the Honda manual is: http://www.helminc.com/helm/homepage.asp

My lawyer asks me to remind you that you are advised to heed all recommended safety practices detailed in the manuals listed above and that you assume ALL risks. I welcome suggestions and will gladly publish clever ideas once I verify the merits.

This section represents years of work and research on my part. I would remind plagiarists and anyone else who might be tempted to "borrow" any of the material published here (with or without attribution) to read and heed the Intellectual Property below. I'm serious about this issue and vigorously pursue violators.

For more information on the use of material from this website, click here.

Please read: Disclaimers

"If you decide to change your own tires, you can safely use soapy water as a lubricant to dismount the old tire and mount the new tire.

However, if your rim is made of anything other than chrome plated or stainless steel, I do not advise you to use soapy water.

A local Honda dealer here in Houston installed new tires, front and rear, on my customer's 1999 GL1500SE Last week the customer brought his Gold Wing to my shop to install new fork seals and steering head bearings. He told me that his front tire had a slow leak.

It turned out that the tire itself was not leaking. I checked the tire, valve stem, and valve for leaks using water from my garden hose. I found no leaks. Then I checked for leaks around the rim between the rim and tire bead. By this time, bubbles were flowing like an Alka-Seltzer tablet in a glass of water!

I dismounted the tire from the rim, and found some grayish white powdery corrosion. This corrosion usually forms after a tire is lubricated with soapy water. Apparently, the soap in the soapy water had enough sodium hydroxide (the stuff that makes soap slippery) to corrode the alloy rims that are used on later model Gold Wings. Parts of the rim were also pitted right where the bead contacts the inside of the rim.

If you ever get a chance, look at the ingredients on a can of Drano or Sani-Flush. You'll find that products such as Drano contain sodium hydroxide, also known as lye. Sprinkle some Drano into an empty aluminum foil pie pan. Then sprinkle some water into the pan and watch the bottom of the aluminum pan literally evaporate, leaving a grayish white powder behind.

A similar, but less severe chemical reaction takes place when soapy water is used as a lubricant for tire mounting and dismounting.

One optional lubricant is Lemon Pledge furniture polish. Now the dismount and remount job is so easy that even a caveman can do it!

But now the problem with Lemon Pledge furniture polish is that the first time our caveman friend slams on the brakes, the rim will stop, but the motorcycle will act like the Energizer Bunny and keep rolling! Now the tire beads are so slippery that there isn't enough friction between the rim and tire bead to keep the tire from slipping around the rim!

During my 43 years as a motorcycle technician, I've tried everything from Vaseline, axle grease, rear end gear oil, motor oil, soapy water, Crisco, Mazola oil, olive oil, 3-in-1 oil, WD-40, Lionel electric train oil, cod liver oil, castor oil, and candle wax to Vicks Vapo-Rub. All of these products had major drawbacks when it came to tire mounting lubricant and sealant!

I finally found a product that will ease the mounting and dismounting of a motorcycle tire. This product also acts as a sealant. The product is known as a protectant. Two brand names of such protectants are STP Son-Of-A Gun and Armor-All Protectant. These products are used exclusively in my shop, and they can be purchased at most auto parts stores and discount store automotive departments.

If you choose to have your local Honda dealer or certified Honda technician change your tires, I highly recommend that you insist telling your service people, 'PLEASE DO NOT USE SOAPY WATER TO MOUNT MY NEW TIRES. USE A LUBRICANT THAT IS SAFE AND FREE OF ALKALIS, SUCH AS A PROTECTANT.' "

"Everything effects everything....everything needs to be "close" before starting final adjustment of idle mixture and carb balance. The reason is as follows:

1. If carbs are out of balance, then the mixture is unsetable because the motor is running mostly on one or two carbs, the others are being drug along and are running very lean as a result.

2. If mixture is way off, then balancing the carbs (making the vacuum the same) will inherently make it run worse, not better.

Conclusion: Give up? Not at all, but don't take shortcuts. This is what I do.

1. After cleaning the carbs (rebuild or whatever), "mechanically" synch the carbs. This involves looking in the carbs and either adjusting synch by visually noting the gap in the throttle plate or using a gauge pin to make sure that the carbs are mechanically in synch. This often leads to a better running engine than the vacuum method if the motor has other issues like unbalanced compression or valve issues....read on.

2. Adjust the idle mixture screws by the "turns out" method according to the manual so they are all the same.

Now you know the "system" is close to where it was designed to be. Now, use an iterative method to tweak the adjustments (meaning do idle, then balance, then idle, then balance, if necessary).

Note:

If you need to move any adjustment very far then you are actually trying to compensate for incorrect valve timing, unbalanced compression, improper ignition timing, etc. and will ultimately find yourself frustrated.

This is because if you are adjusting either balance or mixture to compensate for something else, the result of the adjustment actually yields a worse running engine.

Did I mention that everything matters?

BTW: If you still get the "high idle hang" condition, that means that the system cannot be adjusted to run at idle without having the butterflies (throttle plates) open farther than they were designed to be. This means that either the carburetor rebuild process was faulty or the compression etc. is far enough out of spec that you will not be able to compensate."

Jim Myers - Bunker Hill, Indiana