81 1200 Project

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brianinpa

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I woke up this morning with an unusual circumstance. I woke up and realized that I have three full days of nothing. No work, no honey-do lists, no places to go... NOTHING! So today is the day.

This is how my garage looks...


Momma can get her car in, so all is right with the world, but winter is coming (if not already here) and I need to get my Jeep in or else I will be cleaning snow off of it before I drive to work.

So I set about tearing apart the 1200 donor bike. I started it up to run the fuel lines dry, heat up the exhaust manifold studs/nuts to make removal easy and just to make sure everything runs correctly before tearing it apart one last time. I thought it was odd that the fan didn't come on while it was sitting there running for a few minutes, but when I pull the radiator off, I found out why... the wires were cut. When I drained the radiator, I expected to see the green look of anti-freeze, but all I saw was clear cold water! I am glad I drained that before it got too cold.

This raises my first question. How can I be sure I have all the water out of the block?

When I went to pull the exhaust system, I found that there were only two nuts on either side holding the manifolds to the head. When I pulled the fuel line from the fuel pump... well:


I am all for and even subscribe to the theory of caveman tech: doing something CORRECTLY in the cheapest way possible. To me, this bike was maintained by someone who subscribed to the theory of Redneck tech: doing something just to get it done.

Now my garage is a mess!


If everything goes well, tomorrow it is the 1100's turn!

Just to give everyone an idea of where I am going with it...
1200 motor (stock - for now)
C5 ignition (no way I am keeping that off!) in the 1200 stock ignition location.
Single carb, but I will most like install the stock carbs first and make sure I get all the bugs out of the motor before switching to a single carb.
1200 swingarm and final drive... can you say Darkside 1100?
Vetter Windjammer III fairing (there is just something about those external turn signals that appeal to me more than the internal signals of the Windjammer IV
Bates saddlebags (you can already see that they are on the bike now)
And as I mentioned some time ago, it's time to make them look similar, so it is time for a color change.
 
I don't think so V. There is a lot of cleaning, painting and that secondary air system to deal with. In addition, I am also going to upgrade the fuse box and a few other things.
 
True enough but that's what makes them available at such a good price much of the time. :smilie_happy: They don't know what their doing or what they have, :nea: & just want it gone as the cost to have it fixed, & who to do it is more trouble than its worth. :headscratch: Music to my ears more than once :yahoo:
 
Moving right along :good: ..By the way there is a bolt at the front of the engine(near the oil drain) that drains the coolant, I would guess it is there to drain it all out.
 
[url=https://classicgoldwings.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=164603#p164603:2y8yal72 said:
Denver » Sat Dec 19, 2015 10:35 am[/url]":2y8yal72]
True enough but that's what makes them available at such a good price much of the time. :smilie_happy: They don't know what their doing or what they have, :nea: & just want it gone as the cost to have it fixed, & who to do it is more trouble than its worth. :headscratch: Music to my ears more than once :yahoo:

That and some bent forks are want drove the price so low on this one, but yeah, music to my ears as well.

zman":2y8yal72 said:
Moving right along :good: ..By the way there is a bolt at the front of the engine(near the oil drain) that drains the coolant, I would guess it is there to drain it all out.

That has most of it drained, but every time I tilted the motor, a little more water would come spilling out. I think I have most of it now but I wasn't sure if there was a way to blow it all out with air.
 
Today was the 1100's turn...

It still amazes me how easily and quickly a motor can be removed from these bikes. Even that :sensored: cir clip only took me 10 seconds to remove. Happily, that is probably the last time I will mess with one of those. :party:

Once the motor was out, the swing arm was next and now I have both cars and both bikes in the garage. The frame from the parts bike, well that was relegated to the shed for a while.
 
I had a short goal today: Get the bike to a rolling frame once again with the 1200 swingarm. That goal was easily achieved, but I found out a few thing:

The left side has no issues with a stock 1200 wheel/tire setup


The right side may require some massaging of the fuel tank


I also realized that the 1100 Progressive shocks will not fit the 1200 swingarm :crying: I guess I'll be rebuilding the pair that you see in these pictures, :head bang:

The next step, get a tire and work on the wheel, then I will really know what kind of clearance issues I may have. :builder:
 
hmmmm yes goal was met brian its up ...your right no telling what mod might have to be done till tire is here for rear ...mine clears good ..but 1000 tank is different ....it seemed to me the 1200 shock were just to tall to use for me ...i went with 1100 shocks seems the shock eyelet hole was different and i changed that on 1100 shock if i remember right .... :popcorn:
 
R/S does look a bit tight. Are you sure you have all the spacer in the right places? Once the new tire is in place you'll know better where it needs to be.
 
Dampers, & springs come in various lengths, & stiffness, :read: same diameter, & cases cause all use same seals, if memory serves. :headscratch:Build your own for a lot less, :yes: still not cheap :whistling:
 
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