Thanks for the kind welcome. It's definitely a lot more maneuverable than a true GoldWing, then again having the high center of gravity on the engine design kind of offsets that. I figured it was a nice inbetween bike until I can get a full one but in the meantime I've restored a bit of history.
Our local Honda dealer hates it - won't even touch it except for changing oil - but luckily they're one of the easiest bikes ever made to work on and we've got a few forums that are second to none. Everyone helps everyone else out, matter of fact I was battling cancer most of last year and a member about 30 minutes from here came and trailered my bike and all the restoration parts I'd purchased to his shop out in the country and did most of the work for free but the paint's up to me.
Oddly enough the Harley dealers love seeing the bike, many either had or knew someone that had one so the salesmen and mechanics alike all come out to flock over it - and that was when it looked like a tragedy.
Know what I'm going to do this spring after I get the paint finished? Every time I'm by the Honda dealer I'm going to park it right out in front while I mill around the new ones and the parts department. It seems to me it would be good advertising to see a 32 year old Honda in perfect shape, kind of a testament to the longevity. I've only got around 12K miles on it and they're known to run 200K - 300K provided plain old common sense maintenance, the worst part being having to change the cam chain & associated guide pieces as that's an engine out procedure. On occasion the stator may fail around 100K but keeping fresh oil in it and not letting it overheat may extend that life as well. We also occasionally lose a CDI on the older models such as I have but I've got two extras and the complete design to build a new one or, as many have done, they just put in an Ignitech unit. This option also allows you to go over to one of the newer stators later that gives you a lot more current output should you want to run heated gloves, vest, higher wattage headlights and whatever else you want. You lose the ability to push start it if the battery's dead (no kick start on this sideways engine) but that was of little option anyway as you need at least two people pushing with you on the bike to catch it when it starts.
Perhaps one of the more interesting bikes Honda ever made and history is a bit confused about how it came about. Some say it was a personal challenge by Motoguzzi to Mr. Honda to better on their design, others say it was to best the Harley's on the dirt track races which, if I recall, it did both.
Old history lesson:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_CX500
I'm not kidding on Larry and his ability to service carbs to perfection as well as repair all the radios. He's got all of this down to a fine science over the years. It's amazing what he can do compared to anyone else. As far as carbs he'll not only have them perfect as he ultrasonically cleans them for days if necessary then gets the last of the residue out of the jets using tiny drill bits of the exact size but also polishes them up so they look brand new. He will go into every detail necessary to make them perfect and stands 100% behind his work. A long time back we found that a simple rebuild kit doesn't address all the tiny passages our carbs rely on.
He also keeps all the parts around for our (mostly built by Clarion) radios/intercoms and does very good work on those as well. The biggest problem we have with these is moisture getting into the pushbutton switches and he puts in a complete new set as well as cleaning/lubing the controls and anything else he thinks needs to be done. Had I his expertise I'd be doing these myself but my eyes are getting old and I've got so much work already in some of my new engineering designs I just don't have the time nor do I want to compete with an expert.
Sorry for the long post but we're still pretty much snowed in here so I've got a bit of cabin fever. I'm waiting on a UPS package that should have been here Monday but according to the tracking # they just gave up at noon yesterday. Last I looked I'm down to around 8 of the true 7807 regulator ICs we share but more will be here today best I can tell.
$5 for one kit or $8 for two kits to the USPS
AND Wing forum community, looks like only $1 more to about anywhere else unless you want Priority Mail which about doubles it. Link address is
http://www.innoengr.com/CX500/regulator_assembly.doc to look at what you get and what's involved. Figured out I'm making about 0.32 (let's see if this forum will accept it 32¢ ) but I'm only trying to provide a service to the community.
e-mail me first, my PayPal is different from what I normally talk on.
