GL1000 Restoration Project

In this page we will take a look at some of the discoveries of the Goldwing's made in the Pre-production phase and is drawn primarily from one particular unit, serial number GL1-1000040. "040" was the 28th unit manufactured during this phase and I was exceptionally fortunate to purchase this nearly perfectly preserved unit on Jan 2, 2004.

I began my love affair with Goldwing's the day that I purchase my first one on September 5th, 1975. "Nellie Bel" as she was later to be named is Candy Antares red currently has well over 110,000 miles on her clock with most of them accruing before 1980 when I bought my GL1100 Interstate. During this period we traveled all over the USA and in 1977 I built a camper trailer and with it; the odyssey continued.

During the next 15 years or so and many GL's later, my brother Jerry (who had also succumbed to the early Goldwing's) and I embarked on an endeavor of owning 'Wing's of the 80's, 90's and 2000's. From bikes with trailers to trikes and parts each owning 1000's thru 2004's. Sometime in the 90's I came to the realization that Nellie Bel was an older unit produced in January of 1975. This one discovery unknowingly became the catalyst of a fierce competition between us.

Nellie was the 93rd GL1000 made (serial number GL1-000104 minus the first 11) and I began to wonder if any of those 93 were still in service. Jerry also was looking for the same thing with the idea of purchasing a unit that was older than my Nellie. With the onset of eBay and other online resources, Jerry found one in Virginia in late 1999. GL1-1000053 became available and Jerry made the trip to buy her. Just a little over 4 years later I found "Pennie Lee" (040) in Pennsylvania and she was rare find as well.

Her owner was a police officer near York, PA and he had been her first "titled" owner. It was later found that an official of Honda had been "in possession" of her with the use of a dealer license tag with no title being issued. During this time Pennie had undergone some engine work but she kept her originality intact. The first official owner had piled on some "goodies" but later converted her back to her "original" state and that was the condition I found her in.

Upon arrival at the owners home, Venita and I confirmed the serial number but we were both quite delighted to discover that she was assembled in December, 1974. It had been my assumption to that point that 012 to at least my 104 had all been made in January, 1975. 040 had shown us that this was not the case. The trip back to Tennessee was made with many smiles and unanswered questions (at least on my part as I believe that Venita slept a lot)

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As mentioned, Pennie was a complete bike and by Concours d'Elegance standards she would have held her own in the Original Class. When we got back to Tennessee she was quickly unloaded and she took her place in the garage. My next task was to get her roadworthy so in the following few days I titled her in my name, replaced her belts, rebuilt the carb's, checked and repaired the wiring, changed tires, fluids and inspected the water pump. Upon removal of the carb's, I noticed that the bell crank link arms were not castings like all of the 75 production bikes but they were made from billet (solid) square aluminum bar and machine turned. I also noticed that the vent holes on the right bar had the vent holes facing upward. Because there is no way to reverse this and to place them on the bottom, this was clearly a mistake at assembly. It also lead me to a possible conclusion as to why Honda would allow this to happen. In the minds of the production engineers, they simply were not concerned about a few errors during this phase.

"040" Link Arm with holes drilled incorrectly

On Page 9-18 in the early 75 Service Manual, the billet Link Arm is shown. Notice also that the Plenum Chamber was black and may have been a carb assembly for one of the Prototype or Pre-production units.

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In order to more easily change the timing belts and inspect the water pump, I removed the radiator along with the hoses. As soon as the radiator was free of these parts, I noticed that the upper hose bib was unique. It is longer and bent downward toward the engine block and the upper goose neck. I believe that it was quickly determined in Pre-production that the longer bib was considerably more difficult to place a hose over it. This was a no brainer for me too as I struggled to install a new hose.

This hose bib was a pretty cool discovery and remains part of Pennie's unique history.

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I believe that there were many items that Honda allowed on these Pre-production units and I also believe that they as well as the Prototype units were exclusively used to compile the Genuine Honda Service Manuals that followed in March of 1975. If you inspect one of these manuals you will find descriptions under some of the illustration pictures to be of the above units. I feel that Honda had no time to use any of the Full Production units as they were assembled and crated without delays. At 140 plus units per day, this would be a logical conclusion. Below are a couple pictures taken from early service manuals.

Notice the upper goose neck with the gasket clearly shown. In the full production units this was replaced with an o-ring seal. Note the clamp and its orientation. This would have been the only way the flanged clamp "Band B" could have been placed onto the hose. Because of the heat shield placement to the right, I feel that tightening the bolt of the clamp would have been difficult. The solution would have been to remove the flange and rotate the clamp so that the bolt was accessible from the front.

NOTE: If you have any questions on what I have written thus far please email me here.

To see the restoration in progress, please click here.

The copyrighted information on this page has been formulated over the past five years and is true to the best of our ability to collect it. Data, pictures, and text are the sole property of L.D.Boody and are not to be used in part or in whole for any purpose except by written permission.