I've been on the hunt for a new bike for a little while - I had to sell one (my ZRX1200) due to ergonomics issues and the BMW K1100LT I picked up last year is too much of a project to provide too much riding enjoyment, so I'm putting that up for sale pretty soon.
I figured a decent late 2000s BMW or Guzzi should do. Well, that plan survived roughly until I saw this:
Restored '79 Honda GL1000, pretty nice but not so nice you want to park it in your living room and never ride it. I've always liked the look of early GoldWings, but finding one that a) runs properly and b) doesn't have a metric crap ton of stylish 1970s plastic bolted to it is actually not that easy.
Let's hope I can actually get some riding done this year instead of more bike wrenching.
That may be the nicest naked Goldwing I have ever seen. Nice work.
Thanks. This was one of those bikes that sounded overdescribed on the phone and when you see them in person it's like "hmm, I don't think the seller was exaggerating after all". It's also nice that all instruments work (one of the trouble spots on these as the 7V regulator for the additional instruments likes to give up the ghost).
If this is going to hang around for a while I'll try to find a parts bike with decent exhausts on it so I can go back to stock mufflers from the Harley ones on the bike. There are a couple of other small bits missing but it looks like all the other expensive stuff (like the complete factory toolkit and the passenger grab rail) are actually in place.
Amazing how good they look with all the fairings off of them! 
Very cool bike. I like how the comstars look polished.
92dxman wrote:
Amazing how good they look with all the fairings off of them!
The GL1000 was only sold as a naked bike, there were no factory-dressed Goldwings until the GL1100 Interstate. In fact, you could still buy a naked Goldwing up until the first year of the GL1200 models (1984).
Looks great!
The exhaust looks stock to me.
In reply to Slippery:
The headers are, but as mentioned the mufflers are Harley items. Common modification on these as good original mufflers are really hard to find these days.
This is what the OEM mufflers look like:
Hey Tim- can you attach the hard luggage from a regular to one of these?
My dad had a GL11 (naked 1100 goldwing) back in the early 80's. I rode it a few times when I was out visiting him. Of course, I always wore a full face helmet so no one would recognize me. It was a pretty nice bike. Eventually, the water pump went out on it. I told him that I had had a lot of trouble with my shovelhead, but I never had to replace a waterpump on it.
Anyway, looks good. Pay attention to the timing belt. If it hasn't been replaced or you don't know when it was done, take care of that. It is an interference engine.
In reply to octavious:
Define "regular"...
You do have various luggage options - Vetter cases and mounts aren't that hard to find, there are some OEM Honda options and IIRC you can get Krauser bag mounts as well. I find most of the period-correct options rather fugly, but I'm currently keeping an eye out for Hondaline/Samsonite cases. AFAIK the frame is different between the 1000 and the 1100 so I doubt that the 1100 OEM cases fit.
In reply to Dr. Hess:
The waterpump is a known weak point if one uses the regular silicate-laden green coolant. This one seems to be filled with OEM Honda coolant. And yes, the timing belt isn't very old (couple of thousand miles) but I'm planning to change it out during the offseason anyway.
In reply to BoxheadTim:
Yep, I did not pay attn at whether they were black pipes or not. Just looked at the general shape.
I was about to pick up this '76 a while ago and we could not come to a deal. We were about $500 off and I just did not want to move further up from my last offer. I should have just gotten it.
Might call the guy tomorrow and see if he still has it.
Out of curiosity, how much is he asking? That one has a bunch of unobtanium parts on it (that looks like an OEM seat with OEM cover, obviously the exhaust, the grab rail and the chrome looks decent, too). Even if the bike itself isn't much good, if those parts are in good shape those are worth a fair amount of money. Clocks look pretty non-faded, too.
He was asking $4900 and I offered him $3500 at first. I moved up all the way to $4400 and then started to lose interest.
The bike was in very good shape but had a few things that turned me off:
- rear drive was spray painted grey.
- loose throttle cable.
- carbs needed to be rebuild but were the correct ones.
- it had a switch to turn on the rad fan, orherwise it would not work.
- the clocks were alright. They were not completely faded but also not in the best shape.
- not sure the handlebars were factory. I remembered them being shorter, but I could be thinking of the european ones.
Here is a pic of the clocks
Great, now you got me wanting that bike again lol
I believe the cables on these bikes are routed inside of the handlebars, which this one did not have and is what made me think the handlebars were not factory.
The handlebars look pretty stock, with Honda it's usually the electrics that are running through the bars. The ones on mine also look pretty high, especially when you compare it to one with European bars:
I agree that the price it too high especially for one that needs the carbs rebuilt.
BTW, the rear drive on these is normally painted AFAIK so unless it looks like it was painted by Ray Charles' guide dog it should be stock-ish.
To give you a price point, I paid less than $4k for mine...
Great bikes. My father in law has one with 67k on it and the Vetter fairing. He rides it quite a bit and hasn't done much maintenance outside of routine.
