GL1000 Carb rebuild

With debugging the wiring and ignition done, attention turns to getting the fuel in. The carburetors on this bike are pretty sophisticated. It costs $135 in gaskets and o-rings to rebuild the entire thing. It takes about 3-9 hours to do the whole thing right. There are a few people who do the rebuilds and will charge you anywhere from $200 to $800. The turn around time is anywhere from 4 weeks to 3 days. That's an option for some people, but anyone who claims to be an engineer should have no problem performing this rocket surgery. So at the least, figure it costs about $150 and at least a whole day of work. This particular set wasn't completely filthy like some I've seen. Now that they are rebuilt, the engine fires right up and idles nicely.

Rebuild kits:

http://www.randakks.com/ - best parts for honda GLs

One of the float bowl screws had stripped the threads right out of the body, so I tapped it oversized and cut a new screw for it. Fortunately nothing else needed any machining or otherwise modifying. I could have drilled out the jets by a few thousandths to allow for extra airflow, but that isn't in the plans yet.

I found this micro lathe and have it kind of set up for drilling stuff. Its more of a novelty at the moment because the drive system is kind of scary and I'm not sure if the leather belt drive system is usable. The drive motor sounds like a jet engine spooling up, but fits in the palm of your hand. But it is the smallest useful lathe I've ever seen. For $40 at a garage sale, so beat that.

GL work & parts list

Hey, its still July! Heat and biting insects haven't slowed progress a bit. Things that are done:
-Everything removed, cleaned.
-Tank drained, cleaned, refilled with clean gas and MMO.
-New fuel lines and filters put in. I didn't get any transparent lines. I like them so's that I can see that the fuel is going in the correct direction and isn't full of shite. But the fat black ones will have to do for now.
-Brakes off
-- Rear master cylinder is knackered; could be rebuilt, but why? More about that in a bit.
-- Front master cylinder works, but its just nasty. I want something in the 7/8 bore range that was made within the last decade. So this on will be replaced by a donor from a crashed Honda RC45 race bike with adjustable bits.
-- Lines are all off. They are to be replaced with custom teflon/stainless lines from Spiegler Performance Parts. They are great, good prices, fast service. They will cut and crimp up custom lines with any of their nice anodized fittings. The factory banjo bolts or new titanium ones will go back in.
-- Front calipers are in OK shape, but need boots and the grippy parts. These are off and cleaned. They will need painted or powder coated. I have 2 sets of front 4 and 6 piston calipers from other big sport bikes (crashed) but they won't go on without making adapters. Maybe later, if the single pots don't do the job.
-- Forks off, polished, then back on temporarily. I do not enjoy polishing, and I'll have to do it again, then clear coat tha bastards. Woo. Seals are weepy and look nasty down in there, so new OEM seals are going in. Upper tubes cleaned and polished with bronze wool. No scratches or pitting on them to ruin the new seals.
-- New battery and just going through all the wiring. Its mucked up pretty good, but most of the wires are connected to the things they need to be connected to.
-Ignition bits checked out. They are working as designed, but the spark looks a little weak.
-New condensers (capacitors)
-Electronic ignition from Dyna-S or something. I forget the details there, but I like modern electronic ignitions over mechanical ones. Points are a liability.
-- Starter was not working properly. At some point the nut which retains the starter bolt and all of the insulating bushings was loosened, which caused catastrophic arcing of the main coil lead against the rotating bits. It would turn over if I held the starter lead at the correct angle, jiggled it about a bit. It also smoked a few times, so I'd had enough of that. I pulled the starter motor out, pulled it entirely to pieces. The winding that goes around the permanent magnets (it has a name) was burned off of the bolt which goes through the housing/insulation bits on which you attach the battery's solenoid relay's hot line. So the bolt had to come out, be re-faced and re-soldered to the primary winding, then bolted back in correctly to preserve the insulating nylon bushings which prevent the whole thing from shorting out. This took maybe 20 minutes of sitting in the grass playing with something I'd never seen the inside of, kind of like a monkey getting ants out of a log. Anyhow, that worked out fine; I cleaned and greased the important bits and gears, fit it all back together somehow and put it back in the right hole. It had dumped about a liter of oil when it came out as its all lubricated by the engine oil on its mechanical side. Which I replaced with MMO temporarily until I change the oil, which will happen once it runs long enough to warm up the old sludge.

 Eh what else. I had to tend to the seating arrangements, as there were none (see previous post). I found very nice CB750 seat from 1978 that had been preserved in all its vinyl goodness for around 80 USD + shipping. Yes, this stuff is expensive when found. I considered making a seat, but looked into the past, then into the future and realized what an awful job I'd done. So I went back to the present and found a good seat from a good old bike, which not surprisingly looks like it was made for this bike or one very much like it. While it fits perfectly from an aesthetic perspective, it requires some creative adapting to fit mechanically. So I fabricated the necessary bits after much looking at things from different angles. I got away with using one piece of scrap steel and a bit of angle iron. This also led to fitting a ZX14 rear tail+signal assembly by chance. Well you can do pretty much anything with steel, so that worked out fine.

Next is fuel pump check, then carbs need doing. That is a whole complete cluster of madness in itself.

78 GL1000 restore

About 3 weeks ago I found a mostly dead Honda Goldwing on the south side. It was all kitted out in peeled chrome, dry rotting saddle bags, ape hangers and other stuff that I could do without. So the brothers went down and rolled it into the back of Little Moe and drove it home. It's now in the back yard where its metamorphosing into a 600 lb 1-liter bull dog rat ton up endurance trailer queen street bruiser salt flat fuel burner super bike. The nice thing about Goldwings is the engine. It's the most complicated engine you could want in a bike, but also probably the most durable and reliable. It's a 1-liter boxer engine, so the cylinder heads stick out either side. As most BMW folks will tell you, that makes it so much easier to to top end work! You can change head gaskets while sitting on the side of the road, etc etc. Well if it were air cooled that might be the case, but as is you'd be spilling coolant all over the highway.. anyhow. The cylinder heads (you get two!) are easily accessible to both the mechanic, the riders knees, and weather. The last two bits are not so fantastic. The valve covers are naturally covered in chrome, because this is a big fat bike for fatties who like to have everything electroplated in nickel and chromium to give it that cheap, polished look. Because the real polished look takes time and work, rather than time and chemicals. Anyhow, due to the reactivity of aluminium alloys in relation to PH and the presence of other alloys, the nickel/chromium coating bubbles and peels and reveals the white hydroxide corrosion underneath. Hydroxide corrosion itself is not so difficult to remove and prevent. But in the presence of electroplated nickel + chrome, or copper + chrome, it is a complete pain in the ass. If you want to avoid wasting hours of your time, but want to restore the aluminum parts to some degree, pay someone else to do it. Otherwise you may peel, sand, brush, or try anything to remove both the old nickel/chrome and the hydroxide corrosion without making the old valve covers into a complete mess. If you do get them polished up to a nice brushed aluminum finish, either stop there or have them powder coated. Do not try to paint them. This will end in tears. Paints of any kind are not durable enough for the kinds of things valve covers go through. So, first things first, if the engine don't work right, whats the point? GL engines are interference type with belt driving timing gear. The belts on this bike had seen 54,000+ miles, which is probably 30,000 too many. Anyhow, belts are cheap and easy to change, so rather than risk complete engine disaster, I replace the belts.

Slime mold Physarum polycephalum found in the yard. It appeared soon after the sun went down. This is a fascinating creature, exhibiting extraordinary intelligence for a single celled creature. It is capable of navigating mazes to locate food sources, taking the shortest path first. It can recognize patterns of events over long periods of time. It's been a hot item for your bio-computing scientists. http://www.es.hokudai.ac.jp/labo/cell/accomplishment_e.html

Koshirae examples

Kenji Mishima's site. many fine examples of polishing and fitting work.

Tanto, 3 layer construction

This is in progress, needs polishing. Its constructed of saw blades and other scrap folded into a nice thick shobu zukuri with high shinogi. Quenched on the last day of 2009, just before the temperature dropped to far to do any work outside. I froze my toes and deep fried my gloves that day.

Nice balls

Bearings, shafts etc in metric, standard.

http://www.vxb.com/

for example

http://www.vxb.com/page/bearings/CTGY/3-4inch

NICE

Doc Ellis & the LSD No-No

Yeah I don't dig on baseball. Or any major league bullshit. I would, however, if games looked more like this:

M44 scout mounts?

Rifles with low power, long eye relief scopes are nice for hunting and other short range shooting. I like em, they open up the field of view. Before you can hit a target, you have to locate it. Wide fields of view are nice for this.
Anyhow, I've seen a few M44 scouts at the range and decided to build one or two. Also, I really wanted to put scopes on the pair of K31 Swiss rifles but the top eject port kind of gets in the way.
So I got one of the M44 mount deals, which came with some extra stuff for ~$30 or so. I forget.
And I got one that fits the Swiss in the same manner, which I will now describe.
The M44 replacement base is a Picatinny rail with some leveling screws fore and aft of the single mount point. Punching out the leaf pin in the M44'r rear sight allows you to remove the elevation device and spring underneath. The replacement base sits where the spring was, and is held in place by two small screws which pass through the leaf pin holes and thread into the aluminum base. I had to machine off a bit of the replacement mount to get it to fit. That's not unusual, due to the differences in individual M44s. Once the holes line up, carefully set the screws.
These screws are small. Good thing we're mounting a really tiny piece of optics.
Now there are 3 set screws in the new base. The first one from the front end is pointed and sets on the front of the M44's site base, just a few mm's from the mount point.
Here's the problem: you have to set these screws perfectly, or else you torque the mount. This is not possible in my opinion. They have to be set so that they are all in contact WITHOUT actually putting any pressure on the mount/rifle. Since there is a central mount point, anything you do to these screws is going to bend the ends of the Picatinny rail upwards. See if you can get any kind of rings aligned on this thing. If thats not at all important, and it might not be, then forget about it. Throw a cheap handgun scope on there and go shooting.
Same goes for the K31 mounts. These are meant to solve the problem without the need for drilling & tapping the receiver or otherwise permanently modifying the rifle.

Heat treating 1075, sunobe blades

I have two large 1075 blades in progress. One has a confused shape, no shinogi and a strange hamon that would not normally be seen on early 13 century blades. It has a short point, only slightly longer than it is tall. It's drawn and forged from 1075 1/4" x 1 1/2". 1/4" thick is not a good starting point for making thick, wide blades with lots of meat. Thin whips or 'willow branch' blades still need a good amount of meat at the machi for strength and balance. Some people will comment that a blade feels heavy even though overall it isn't. This is due to improper balance, caused either by not having enough weight near the machi or a lack of distal taper.
These things need to be thought about before forging and during the creation of the sunobe (blank). You may be able to get a thicker cross section by upsetting along the width, but some of the metal is going to move in the wrong direction eventually. If you take 1 1/4" down to 1", you are not really moving that 1/4" directly into the thickness. Some of it is going into the length.
So anyway, thinking about the proper balance and shape before forging is important.
With this blade I mostly wanted to experiment with mixing my own clay rather than using Satanite.
I believe this came out really really good. I will get into the details of the clay after this post if I have time.
I used about 1/8" of the experimental clay mixture to create the hamon. The 1075 appears to be very sensitive, but has a good balance of hardness and toughness.
There were some problems this time around. I heated to 1450 and let soak for 2 minutes, quenched in cold rain water. Rain water has produced less cracking at this temp for me.
I built a quench tank/rain water collector and lined it with plastic. I didn't use waterproof glue, so without the plastic its going to leak. So while quenching I got the tang hung up on a wire, which means 3/4ths of the blade went in at the right time, but then the rest had to go in after getting it unstuck from the wire about a second later. I don't know if this had much of an effect on the blade though. The hamon jumped out during the initial polish where I look for edge cracks and other defects. So even after making a complete mess of the quench, dropping the blade completely in the water and punching a hole in the tank, it came out pretty close to how I intended. If I fuck up that bad I don't expect it to survive.

(aside)
There are two uses of the word sunobe in terms of Japanese swords. One is the 'blank', or the consolidated and forged shape before the bevels and kissaki are forged in. The second use of the word refers to what we now call mono-steel blades. I think in this case 'sunobe' means that it is constructed from a uniform piece of steel, ie there is no distinction between the core steel and the jacket. It is all one grade so to speak.
Then there are the swords that we make from modern steels. These are not appreciated by anyone studying or collecting Japanese swords. And for good reason. Although we may perfect the shape and create lovely hamon and extremely durable, usable blades that look and feel perfect to us, we did not have any hand in making or refining the steel. This is a large part of the Japanese smith's skill which is to be appreciated.
Anyway, striving for perfection, smiths who wish to carry on this tradition in some way will eventually want to make their own steel! We can become proficient at making orishigane, or get together and try to re-create a proper tatara smelter once in a while.

The other is hopefully more traditional/rational and follows the form of some 14th century or later katana, specifically shinogi zukuri with o-kissaki and notare hamon.
I spent the time to forge this one out more carefully to avoid having to do too much with the file. Refining the shape with the hammer is much more satisfying.

Heat Treating

I heat treated two blades tonight, a wakizashi and an integral bowie. Tanto is 14 inches, the bowie is now 3 pieces of very hard cementite. I held the bowie in the quench too long. This caused a spectacular crack near the handle. I think both were forged too thin for my liking.
Wakizashi:
14 inches is too big for a tanto. I should keep them down to a usable size. There is nothing too remarkable about the shape of this one. It is hira-zukuri. The spine is not thick enough at the machi for my liking, it is 0.23" I think. Its also flat, there are no ridges on the spine. This is unusual I think, but I'm not sure why. I would expect to see more hira-zukuri with flat spines from times when there were lots of wars. They are just extremely simple, and there is only one surface on each side to polish rather than 3 or more.
The clay pattern was simple with some lateral ashi. I wanted to maybe cross the ashi, but that takes much more time as one layer has to dry before the next is applied. So straight ashi, nothing complicated.
On the bowie I made a very risky and flashy pattern which was almost certain to cause problems with 1095 quenched in water.
Oh well. It would have been nice to see it at least stay in one piece.
It is a rainy, windy night, around 53 F. I let the forge get up to some heat before laying the blades on the floor and letting them come up to heat. This forge is not suitable for heat treating. I've been modifying it to reduce interior volume and increase heat for welding. I think it is the last time I will attempt to heat treat long blades with this one, but it is still good for forging.
There are hot spots around the burner, which makes it difficult or impossible to heat blades evenly. If they come up to heat unevenly, there are definitely going to be problems with warping or cracking. If these problems don't show up right away, I think the structure of the steel will all over the place.
I used tap water to at around 110F to quench.
The bowie went in the water first. I put it straight in edge first, held it until the color was gone, drew it out and went in again still spitting and vibrating. This of course is a bad idea, and so it cracked. All of the factors involved were against this one succeeding. The geometry of the blade was weird, the clay pattern, etc.
So the wakizashi I figured had a little better chance because of the simple clay pattern, and now the water was a few degrees warmer. I held it just until the color was gone, then removed it. If its going to harden, it will harden within the first second or so. I don't see any reason to put it back in the water once the color has gone to black. Actually the best idea would probably be to put it right into a tempering oven for an hour before anything is done to it. 1095 has to be treated carefully. It's not as forgiving as stuff in the .50 to .70 range.

Assorted bits

Received Shipments:
~100 lbs of wrought iron anchor chain from an unknown warship circa 1800s.
The links of this chain are about 10lbs each. It is very durable and also exhibits a lovely grain. Wrought splits along the grain if forged improperly, so flattening out discs cut from the links is difficult. It is easily worked otherwise, and welds at low temperatures. It is best hot cut or cut with a large toothed saw with light pressure.

~100 lbs of assorted exotic hardwoods, including lots of Snakewood (Piratinera guianensis), Guapinol (Hymenaea courbaril),
Assorted species of Ebony, Desert Ironwood, Bubinga, Koa, various figured Maple boards.
Some of this is first and second quality book matched scales for knife handles, some as handle blanks and many random ends and cuttings.
Included was a cylinder of Ecuadorian Ivory Palm Nuts! (Phytelephas aequatorialis)
These are spectacularly hard, and will require the making of some new tools. Not to mention the breaking of some old ones.
The plan is to create some fittings from these. They are almost fist sized, but the actual fruit part is 1/4 to 3/8" thick.
I'm going to start with a jungle crow, of the kind found in the pacific islands.
I guess an ivory crow wouldn't make much sense, but black ivory..

Then, the Chambered Nautilus. This one should be interesting, maybe even less difficult to carve.

Recent items of interest (to me, not you)

Some of Conor's work is published in http://www.nytyrant.com/home.html (ny tyrant). I hate NY and people from it, but that has nothing to do with this magazine.
So whaddo we got. I can swallow 1/4 of a chicken in 10 seconds. Humans shouldn't swallow chicken bones. Otherwise I could do it faster.
Some machines in the shop died. Maybe it was the cold, maybe it was just time for them to go, or maybe they're Chinese made cast shit. I'll take China for $100, Alex.
Here's one of the problems: fractional horsepower single phase capacitor start/run AC inverter motors. Capacitors die. Cheap ones last between 1 hour and 3 years. Cheap ones tell you they're dead by exploding in a cloud of green smoke. Exploding is also their way of telling you they're too hot. They have a limited safe operating temperature range. Expensive, military spec capacitors are expected to last 30 or so years under a wide range of conditions without exploding.
You won't find anything like that on a typical inductionm motor. AC induction motors also depend on the freqency of the AC, unlike DC motors, which just spin faster as the current increases. You can't increase/decrease the current on an AC motor and expect anything good to happen.
1/3 hp @ 3450 rpms is too weak and too fast for steel work. Most ~$100 machines use a cheap motor like this to save money. The motor isn't rated for continuous duty. It's also not rated to handle the load typical operations generate.
High torque, lower RPM motors are ideal. Speed control is really nice, but that gets into more expensive electronics. Belt drives with stepped pulleys can provide a few different speeds using one motor. This can be done with much less expensive motors. Motors made for 115v/15 amp operation should be at least 3/4 HP and under 1700 RPM. A 1.5 hp 1700 RPM induction motor is good for most shop machines whether it be a saw, grinder, polisher etc.

Sprayed

The RRB is sprayed and decal'd. I found campy and super vitus decals in australia for $11. They are very good quality reprints. The frame is black and cream. Most of the components are around somewhere, but still waiting on a few Stronglight A9H 1" headsets and a big old chainring.
Also got another random French frame from Ron that was about 48cm. Painted that all Cream and detailed the lugs with a black stripe. It had a Shimano crank which wanted a polished finish. Nice beg aluminum crank arms should be bared, not dipped in grey paint. It also needs a big ass chainring. I don't reckon this paint will last more than a year. Not much to be done about that. Plain old spray enamel isn't as durable as the linear polyurethane that was originally on there. But it isn't as deadly toxic either.
Ok this post is pretty useless without pics.

RRB restore

I've just started restoring one of Ron R. Boi's frames. It's not in great shape, as it has been sitting somewhere on his farm for about 10 years. Ron sandblasted rust from the top tube where someone had removed the braze on cable tunnels. There is some minor rust on other areas, which I've mostly removed. The seat lug had been chipped and had a bunch of rust, so I filed that out and thinned it a little.
The bottom bracket shell is massive. It looks like it could be a plumbing fixture! It's contributing probably 40% of the frame's weight.
At least some of the lugs are Bocama of France (BCM) Professionals (short point). BCM happen to be my initials...

The tubes:
Super Vitus 971 tubeset
XC35 steel

I wasn't sure what XC35 was, besides being a carbon steel of some kind, obviously.
From the french AFNOR standards, I'd call it a medium carbon manganese steel.
Good mix of stiffness and durability.
C Si Mn Smax Pmax
TU XC 35 0,30-0,40 0,10-0,45 0,40-0,90 0,04 0,04

read

this

good read

DWR

Design Within Reach is a company which I have purchased items from. These items are currently being destroyed by cats, but that is my fault for buying attractive matching wool sofa and chair. Now there are some shitty, overpriced furniture manufacturers out there. There are also some very reasonably priced furniture manufactures out there. But nobody wants that shit.
I've always called DWR 'Design Beyond Reach' because of their consistent and unabashed overpriceage.
Take todays example: $650 for a rather small injection molded polyurethane rainwater collection tank.
Its green and funky looking, and it holds 47 gallons. Which is close to the capacity of a typical green plastic rain barrel. Considering it is designed by an architect from Sydney (no, I've never heard of her either), DWR thinks $650 is reasonable. If you want a wall bracket to mount it vertically, you can buy the specially made mild steel, possibly galvanized, channel bracket and a bolt. These normally $3 hardware store items will cost you $90. In addition, if you don't want leaves and other floaties in the tank, you should purchase a leaf filter screen, which is simply a cup of wire mesh. For $50.
This strikes me as outrageous enough to spend time to post this message into the ether, where it will only serve to remind me later that I spent the time to write it.

Paul Van Dik

Paul van Dyk wasn’t always a producer. “I had the chance to work in the studio right at the end of ’91,” he says. “I didn’t know much about the whole thing, but I had a very clear idea of how my music should sound. I realized that in order to make my music I really had to learn everything about electronic music production. It doesn’t satisfy me to sit in the back and say, ‘yeah, that sounds good.’ I really wanted to know how things work. I learned a lot from my co-producers and pretty much the second half of my second album (Seven Ways) was when I was really getting into producing my own things.”


Oh where to begin? "Pretty much the second half of my second album was when I started producing my own things"

WOW. So what were you doing before that? Sitting in the back and saying "Yeah that sounds good" and doing blow off a doughy hookers tits? So who actually produces the crap for mr Van Dik's approval? Well not him anyway. It all sucks anyhow, so I still don't see what the big deal is. Oh, I should learn everything about electronic music production!! Maybe slapping my name on records that other people produce isn't going to cut it. No, it isn't you rabbit fucker.

Holocaust of the Peeps

One of the less enjoyable parts of being a chick sexer is knowing what happens to the male chicks once separated from their more fortunate sisters. Female peeps are whisked off to safe, warm, well-lit places to be looked after and nourished according to individual output maximization schedules. Male peeps, lacking any marketable skills, are promptly macerated, crushed, gassed, electrocuted, drowned, mechanically decapitated, liquefied, buried alive, or thrown into a wood chipper.

Spawn of Iron Maiden

Steve Harris' has a daughter who, being smokin hot as she aught to be, does a bit of singing.
Thats her. (On the left) Her Da's on the right, galloping away on the bass as he's known for.
Dg digga Dg digga Dg...

Now wait, there's a better photo.

Right? Yeah. Either she failed to inherit any of her dad's songwriting genes, or she's just coming of age and hasn't figured out what to write about yet.
She'd do much better to run around on stage screaming and growling like Angela Gossow for a while, at least until she figures out what makes her dad so awesome.