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The Rocket, or pidjones winter of 18-19 rat bike project

I hate brakes!

Well, they are pretty necessary when you are riding, but I hate working on them. Was able to pump one of the pistons from these GL1000 front calipers out with a front master. The other wouldn't budge. Had to put an 8mm grease fitting in the bleeder hole and pump it out with the grease gun. All cleaned now and pistons dressed, awaiting seals and reassembly. Will have to get a Chinabay special for the rear master because after two hours to get it off, the rear is trash.

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Got the CB750F dash mounted with a little mountain engineering and the G1000 headlight ears installed. Also installed new bearings in the front wheel.

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This week is paint the G1000 week because the weather is forecast to finally be right.
 
Slow boat from Taiwan arrived with my accelerator pump. Carbs mounted to intake horns but haven't connected the airbox boots yet. Assembled and installed the front calipers and hooked up the lines. Still not bled, though. Afraid I'll have to jump-start this master cylinder again. Turned out I bought the wrong piston for the rear (75 - 77 front vs 78 rear in GoldWing numbers). This one is too tall. Correct one on order.
 
Trottle cables hooked up (why didn't I remember to connect before mounting?) All boots on. Brakes front and rear completed and bled. Compression ~140 each cylinder. Hope to try for start next week if weather is right. Still missing speedo and tach cables (on order) and drive chain (awaiting successful start). Will also need tires before test ride (these are at LEAST 15 years old, but more likely beyong legal drinking age).

Also got some color paint on the Hunley side covers, shelter sides, and front fender. Awaiting curing (stored in my upstairs den to keep warm and dry) before light wet sand and rattle-can 2K clear coats.
 
I hate brakes.

BOTH front calipers are leaking. Guess new pistons are the only way to fix it. On order.

I hate brakes.
 
Decided to try re-routing the brake and clutch cables on top of the coils instead of under. Not only is that worse (tighter bend), but I had to pull the coils to try it - and discovered BOTH coils had large cracks in the bottom. Also checked the plug wires and they are Ok, but both straight (#2 and 3) plug caps are open. Found an '80 set of coils with straight caps on ebay that look good in the 10 photos shown, so sprung for that. As usual with these old bikes, the more I check, the more I find wrong. But the bake lights and turn signals work!
 
The Rocket has front brakes! And even better, they aren't leaking. Still some bleeding and working out of trapped air. Waiting for delivery tomorrow of coils and plug caps. Which lead to an attempt to start some time next week. Rerouted the clutch and throttle cables again, this time outside the headstock triangle like the FSM addendum shows for the F bike. Much better! Thinking the rear wheel comes off next, though. Need to check the bearings (if anything like the front, I should have already ordered new ones, but they sound and roll pretty nice.)

Wife and I blew and shreded leaves today. Third time so far this Fall, and looks like we'll need to do it as many times still. Takes all morning and is pretty tiring. We fill a big sand delivery bag ~1 cubic meter of shreded leaves just from the front yard. We are boardered by woods on three sides and have a strip running through the midfle of our lot. At least we can dump & blow into that strip - and it is all downhill to it.
 
Rear wheel bearings on order. The bearing retainers came out easy by drilling 3/16 holes in an aluminum bar and dropping 3/16 drill bits through them into the retainers (after first drilling out the stakes). The bearing in the sprocket carrier came out easy, and a good thing because it was single shield with the shield installed toward the seal and the open cage exposed to anything that gets by the o-ring between the carrier and the axle area. It felt very rough, had rusty grease in it. I think (hope) the All Balls kit has all double-shield bearings. Haven't knocked out the two smaller bearings yet, but don't expect a problem (famous last words).

Still waiting for the coils to get in. Post Office is really dragging their feet, plus today is Veteran's Day observed.

Set up the controllers for heated gloves and jacket liner on my GL1800. Looks like temperatures will stay down until Spring, now.
 
Coils came in yesterday evening. Between the original wires and angled plug caps and one of the caps/wire on the replacement coils, and one plug cap pulled apart, cleaned, and reassembled I have all reading ~5K Ohms. Tried old plugs on each and have sparkies on all four. But, I have the rear wheel bearings out and Partzilla won't be shipping the new ones until tomorrow. So, replaced the swingarm grease fitting (old one was broken), pulled the swing arm bolt and lubed it up before reinstall, and while doing it observed that the right leg of the center stand is broken ~1/2 way through at the joint to the pivot tube. So, I'll set the swing arms on jack stands (bike is presently on center stand and a dolly under the headers) and fold the center stand up for removal. I have one of those brake spring tools so will try that. Never had success with coins/washers in the spring coils. Guess I need to pull that HF welder out and dust it off. Wonder if the auto-darken shield still works? The daughter borowed it for the eclipse year before last, and it worked then. I'll strike a lighter in front of it to test before I strike an arc.
 
I haven't struck an arc (intentionally) since ~1970. But, the center stand on the Rocket is broken on one side, so I'll give it a try. The removal was tricky because I already had the rear wheel off and bearings out of it so I had to support the swing arms on jack stands. Was able to get clearance for the pivot to come out by removing the two muffler mount nuts on both sides and pushing the muffler down enough for the studs to come out and rest against the mount. Did the penny trick on the spring because my brake spring tool just didn't have the mechanical advantage for this job.
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The stand is really bad on the right side someone must have really banged it good.
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So, imagine the weld quality by someone that hasn't welded in well over 40 years - it was stick then - and them doing it on a rainy driveway with a Harbor Freight flux core welder with five year old HF wire. Scary enough? Worse than a Honda weld! Anyway, it's worse but "it is what it is". Went back together surprisingly easy. Then I knocked it on its side taking it off the jack stands. This thing feels light after picking up GoldWings.
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USPS Tracking showed that the foam grip that I ordered were delivered to our mailbox. But, they were not there. I printed the tracking page and left it in the mailbox (rural route) with a note that they were not in or near the box. Our carrier isn't the best. Hope he finds wherd he put them, but I'm also hoping the ebay vendor still has some next month in case I need to re-order. Aaand, my rear wheel bearings shipped UPS but with Surepost delivery was delayed until Monday. Hope he gets that one right.
 
Today, the carrier delivered the grips and explained that she started to deliver something else at another address and dropped off my grips instead. She picked them up and brought them to me today. So, still not much can be done until the rear wheel bearings arrive. Then they can be installed, the rear wheel installed, and I can roll it outside and try to start it.
 
Rear wheel bearings finally came. Installed and she is setting on her own wheels now (not the furniture dolly's). Discovered I had ordered the wrong size petcock in August, so had to order another. Might go ahead and put a little gas in the tank and try it this weekend, just the same.
 
The correct petcock is finally installed. Hopefully, it will be dry and not to cold tomorrow. If so, I'll back her out of the garage and make a few attempts at starting.
 
OH! This will be fun!

Got to thinking it would probably be good to check on how you adjust the cam chains on these beasts. My GL1000s were just belt driven cams with tensioners that have springs you let pull the idlers into position and then just lock that down. So I look through the procedures and then go down to the garage to identify the adjusters. And what do I find?
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So, I found one bolt on ebay and ordered it (although I probably could have made one on the lathe out of an 8mm bolt from Ace). Looks like the lock nut is just a flange nut with an o-ring relief. The fun will be in removing the rusted, broken-off-below-the-case bolt. Already soaking in PB Blaster. I do have some left-hand bits and some easy outs. I'm thinking about a dozen heat cycles to pull the lube in and loosen it up, too. Joy. In an awkward spot to drill, too.
 

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Finally have enough parts assembled to at least start it and help show what else needs done. Some poor critter lost his home in the exhaust pipe, I'm afraid.
 
Oh, and the charging system seemed to work fine! IR thermometer indicates it is only running on the center two cylinders. Also #3 and 4 carb float valves leaked. And after leak checking with alcohol before mounting! Just really looking forward to pulling them off again, but then it's a long winter ahead.
 
Success this morning! Rigged up the left-hand bit in a 1/4" chuck normally used in a battery-powered screwdriver that has a 1/4" hex drive and jammed it with a nut behind it so it wouldn't unscrew. Then mounted that in a 6" x 1/4" hex extension that came with a bolt hole cleaning brush set. Chucked that in the battery powered drill in reverse and drilled the bolt. Didn't catch and unscrew during that, but the extractor bit and held to remove the broken bolt. Blew out the hole and it looks clean with undamaged threads. Ran a regular bolt with a smooth flange nut in it for now, until the ebay replacement comes in.
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Found a problem with the accelerator pump (o-ring too fat at bowl/carb junction) and remounted the carbs. New front cam tensioner bolt came in, so I went through adjusting and (lightly) locking it down. Ready to re-mount tank but broke the inline fuel filter I had added so will have to wait for next week to fire it up again.
 
Beginning to pull on my sparse hair. Fired it up again after fixing the float valve and accelerator pump issue. Starts easy, even idles after a good warmup. BUT, exhaust for cylinders 1 & 4 are still not heating up. I have great hot blue spark on them. Much better now that I've run an extra ground lead to the spark units (was reading 150 ohms from mounting stud to (-) terminal before and had weak yellow spark). Compression is not great on any cylinder, but is actually 10* psi better on the outside pair at 130, 120, 120, 130 when last checked. Have not balanced or messed with pilot jets yet (all set at 3 turns because the aircuts are disabled). Even with throttle open for ~5k RPM, the #1 stays ~60C, #4 ~90C while 2 & 3 go over 300C (read on outside of bend at head exit).

Ideas? Carbs have been off twice (fully cleaned 1st time, just looking for problems and fixing float issues 2nd), so I'm getting better at it. I heat the "isolators" with a heat gun until warm to the touch to make it easier on them and me. Spray of brake cleaner around carbs and isolators yields no change in idle. Full airbox and filter. New plugs. 5K ohm plug caps, new plug wires, coils ~11K ohms secondary, 2.5 ohms primary. Pulled #1 cap while idling and no change.
 
Still fighting #1 cylinder, but #4 seems to be slowly joining the team. Carbs off again, was hoping something simple stupid like a shop towel still stuffed in the carb insulator, but no. #1 plug wet but not overly so - so why isn't it firing? New plug caps on #1 &4 maybe helped #4. Tried swapping coils, but no change so swapped back. Plug wires are new and read 0 ohms. Swapped #1 & 2 plugs just to check, but it will be next week as it is supposed to rain now for three days. I'll be making an aux fuel cell and air gap tester in the meantime. Haven't pulled anything apart on the carbs yet. Checked choke, butterfly, and piston freedom is all.
 
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