I've Been Thinking....

...and in honor of deere old Dad, I've decided to redo the naked wing like this:



Ya right! But I will admit that they did a great job with it. I would love to see the John Deere Goldwing in person.

On To Lights

I really want to change out the Honda factory lights on the '78 Goldwing. Anyone who has seen them know how big and chunky they are. I would like to streamline the rear fender with a mini tombstone tail light. It is suppose to be a universal fit and the reviews that I have read say that it mounts up nicely and looks good. I wished that I could find it with a red lens however. I think that all the lenses should match. All colored or all clear.

Turn signals on bikes can either be painted or chromed and I think that both look good. For my naked '78 goldwing I like the smooth bullet style signal lights and I prefer chrome for this bike. I also prefer smaller lights. Not dangerously small but noticeably small.

I am looking at the Biker's Choice Smooth Bullet Marker Lights. They come in both red and amber lenses and have about an inch and a half face in diameter. That is about half as large as the Honda OEM marker lights. They have a dual filament bulb and should work well for a lower profile signal light.

The front signals will be mounted on either side of the Honda emblem under the headlight. Originally they were mounted up along side the headlight. The rear lights will be mounted midway back on the fender where the seat will end. The cage for the hard bags and trunk originally mounted there and the rear signal lights were coupled with the tail light and licence plate.

Speaking of the licence plate I want to move it down to the left side just behind the shock on a sideways plate mount. Something like this.
This is the Kuryakyn vertical mount and runs about 100.00 dollars. The nice thing is it is lighted already.

This one is a lot more simple but I would need to add the lights below to make it legal. This placard is about $70.00 and the lights another $30.00. After that and the time to put it together it would be well worth the money for the Kurakyn frame.

A Few Pieces of Chrome

So naturally I've been scouting some bling for the Naked Wing. I personally think that you can have too much chrome. With that being said, there are a few pieces on every bike that should be chromed. (unless it's an outlaw of course)

First the grips. I have these same grips on my Bleubells CM400T. I have been very impressed with how they've held up and they are also quite comfortable. The Rubber inlays are very durable but don't offer any cushion. I'm not old enough that I really care about that yet anyways. These will for sure be the grips on the '78 Goldwing.
The second thing that must be chrome are the mirrors. Plastic stem and mirrors were designed for dirt, sport or touring bikes. Not cruisers. There are a myriad of mirror styles. (little play on words there, ha ha) Some are really cool and other are really out there but which ever you choose it must fit the style of the bike. Example. Flames=flames, Maltese Cross=Maltese Cross, etc... If you don't have any elements of the mirror on the rest of your bike it looks a little silly. I do believe that the opposite is true as well. You can have too many flames, crosses, dolphins or whatever your theme is. A safe bet is to keep it simple. You lose a little originality but make up for it in class. Oval is pretty standard but look good on most all bikes. These are chromed, not billet and i think they look pretty good. (At the end of the day, my opinion is the only one that matters.)

Now lastly, chrome is not needed here but on older bikes I think it is acceptable to spice up what would otherwise be a dark cavase of an engine, cable covers. Now I have heard that they can be really cheap and aren't worth the time but I am considering them in the gold color for a select few cables on the bike. I am thinking mostly of those down buy the engine itself. Not to hot on them up by the controls. I'll need to look at the bike again and see where in any where that I'd really like them.

Fantastic Sticker Remover

I kept thinking about how I was going to get the factory spec decals off the chrome without scratching it up. I knew that Oops! gum remover worked wonderfully but I couldn't keep it on the sticker long enough to penetrate the glue.

I thought about soaking a rag then holding it in place. That would take a lot of Oops! but, if I could keep a small amount on the sticker for an extended period...

Alas! If I placed one square of toilet paper, folded in half, on overlapping pieces of packing tape....then soaked the paper and placed it over the sticker....sealing the sides....much like a bandaid....then let it sit for a little while....

The result:

I was able to remove the sticker by peeling up the edge with a knife blade and then simply pulling it off. I wet the bandaid a second time and reapplied it to the gummy residue and let it sit another 10 minutes or so and it softened right up. I cleaned off the remaining glue. buffed the area with Nev'r Dull and had one nice looking rear fender remaining.

Brainstorming Designs - First Draft

Below are three bikes that I really like and have given me some ideas of what I would like to do to my '78. The first picture just shows that the old gal could look really good with very little modification. Outside of a new seat, paint and pipes this bike is factory direct. (minus a few bolt on accessories.)

One thing that I really like from this bike is the burgundy paint around the radiator. Burgundy is the original accent color on the Goldwing emblems. I like it so much in fact that I've thought about powder coating the frame burgundy. My inspiration? This little cafe racer below. Now cream isn't my favorite color but it looks nice on this bike. The owner painted some of the chrome trim cream as well as the final drive and center stand. I wouldn't go that far with the burgundy. Just the frame. I also think that burgundy is dark enough that it wouldn't pop as loud as the cream does on this bike. A more subtle pop is what I'm after.

I've included this wing called Porter's Wing just because I like the way it looks. Almost completely factory to include the lights and handle bars, but has a very nice line to it. (I'm not making a joke about the paint either) The bike seems to flow well. Again you see the Corbin seat that was on the first bike, which I am becoming very fond of. You'll also notice that it has the Jardine Rumbler exhaust with slash cut pipes. This is the same style that I would like to put on mine.

Finally I've included a picture of what I want the paint to look like. Mother Honda was almost trade marked by her pin striping in the late 70's early 80's. The Goldwing already has a boxier shaped tank and the factory striping draws a definitive line making it even more square. You can see on Porter's Wing that the paint with out striping makes a drastic change in the apparent shape of the tank.

I would like to use the double gold(one gold flame and a second ghost flame) flames by Jim Munroe to accomplish the same effect. If you zoom in on the picture you'll see that the flames are also accented in burgundy. Coincidental? Maybe but, happily so.

Eagle One

I was puttering around with the naked Goldwing tonight and tried to buff of some of the oxidation from the front forks. I broke out the Eagle One nevr-dull wadding polish and started on the lower left fork. In no time at all, 30-60 seconds, the oxidation was coming off so quickly that it soaked through the wadding and made it completely black. It stained my hands. I buffed for another minute then wiped the fork down with a cotton rag. The results, quite nicely polished aluminum.

Oxidized

Polished

Here is the rear fender with the tail light removed. There was a fair amount of surface rust on it, especially in between the tail light and the fender. Again, a little Nevr-dull wadding, a little elbow grease and voila... 33 year old chrome looking very nice.


When I get a little more time I'm going to really get after the forks, valve and timing covers and anything else aluminum or chrome. I'll only do it once but I'll be sure to take a picture after for proof.

Kiwi. Not just for shoes.

This could be Kiwi's new catch phrase. They are really missing out on a chunk of the market by not advertising to the Goldwing population.

I had just a little time this evening to play with the bike and have been thinking about cleaning up the tank cover for some time now. So tonight I did just that. I pulled the cover off the other day and thought that it would look really good if it were clean. The leather is in good condition. If it weren't I would peel it off and have it painted instead.

While talking to my dad about how to condition the leather, we discussed using mink oil or Dubbin, and then Dad suggested using black Kiwi. Now I learned a thing or two about Kiwi while at Basic Training for the Army. I got in 10 years before the suede boots so I spent a lot of late nights sitting in the stairwell spit shining boots.

I pulled out my now quite complete shoe shining kit and when to work on the cover. 30 minutes later, this is the result:

I think that the leather look will be nice on the bike. It will preserve some of the original Goldwing as well as add a touch of character that not many bikes have now. Every biker wants to have something that makes him different from the rest. Anyone can go buy a factory bike and look like every other poser. A real biker wants to stand out and express himself with his bike. He doesn't even care if anyone else likes the way it looks. And why should he? It's his bike. Not theirs. That is what really makes them cool.

With that being said, here's my ride.