How to change a cylinder head gasket on GL1100

[Clemmennt]

Hi all!

A couple of weeks ago, my GL broke down, the cylinder head gasket was broken –there was a leakage of water under the left cylinder-, so as winter job I decided to fix it.
I’ll try to describe you how I changed it. ☺

I’ll quickly describe the disassembly of both the valves system parts and cylinder head. Then, I’ll focus – more pics! - on how I cleaned up -removed the carbon- and checked if parts are worn. I’ll finished by how I re-assembled the cylinder head and set camshaft/rocker mechanism/belt & pulley.

Regarding the gaskets you'll discover during these operations, you can buy a set for 150€.

Step 1: transform your bike into an IKEA kit…

Put the bike on its center stand,
Unplug the battery,
Place a block under the engine near a frame link – not under a crankcase junction,

Remove exhaust headers and mufflers,
Remove the front wheel –think about placing a block between the brake pads to avoid the caliper’s cylinder to go out if someone presses the master cylinder!!-,
Drain oil and water; take the opportunity to change oil filter and gaskets.
Unscrew the four intake pipes and the two water connections
Remove the camshaft/valves covers –place a bowl under .


Remove the two belt covers (four screws):

To do this, you need to access to two screws hidden behind the radiator.
You need to unplug the water hose closed to the water pump, to remove two black bolts at bottom of radiator and to loosen the two acorn nuts at the top of the radiator.
Pull the radiator forward and place a block (I used an aerosol plug ☺).

Remove the belt and pulley + camshaft:
Loosen the belt tensioners and slide off the belts by pulling them near the camshaft belts.
Remark: We don’t care the position of the crank when we remove the belts…
Remove the screws behind the pulley –you can rotate a little the pulley to place the screwdriver.
Disconnect the fuel pump on the right cylinder and the plug on the other side.
Remove the rocker shaft holders (six screws each one).
Remark: Be very careful, these pieces must not fall down!
Remove the assembly pulley/camshaft and unscrew it after by using a vice with wood blocks.

From now, all the valves are in there “rest position”, I mean there isn’t any force applied on the valves since the rocker shaft has been removed. All the pistons can move freely - without a risk of contact between pistons and valves.

Remove the cylinder heads:
Loosen a little the six screws but don’t remove them! Remove the 10mm screw at the bottom.
Reconnect momentary the battery –just for the next step.
If you’re sure that the rocker shafts have been removed on both sides, you can unstick the cylinder head from the crankcase by pressing the starter button – you can do it, be brave guy.
Hit with a soft mallet the cylinder heads – notice that there is centering pins, so if you face the cylinder head, pull it toward you.
Again…: Be very careful, these pieces must not fall down!


From now, your bike should looks like this:

As you have spread several parts all over the work shop, it’s time to tidy up all this stuff…
I’m quite sure that there isn’t any difference between the two cylinder heads BUT regarding the natural wear of parts all running together, it’s important to keep the assembly in its original state.
For my part, before storing the parts made of steel, I apply some oil with a spray -like WD40- and I wrap the parts into a plastic film –like we use for the food. It’s important that rust doesn’t come onto these pieces.

Be very conscientious when you tidy up, it’s the hardest part of the job!

[Clemmennt]

Step 2: it’s time to clean up

To be honest, this step is very very long and boring!
The aim is to remove the old “slices” of burned gasket on both crankcase and cylinder head in order to have the smoothest surface. The optional job is to clean up the carbon stuck onto the bores, pistons and valves. I’ll perform it because I want to do some metrology and I cannot imagine to reassembly dirty things...

On the picture below, you can see the gasket and carbon deposit on the crankcase:

I rather like to use mechanical cleaning instead of chemical… By the way, be careful with the spray used to remove the carbon inside the oven, some of them are not compliant with aluminum and can damage it!
Also, I could use Sodium Hydroxide like I usually use to clean up carbs but here I rather be patient and scrub with my teeth brush.
So as chemical product, I only applied detergent based upon petrol. This product is used to solve tar stains on cars ‘body. See: http://www.restom.net/moteur-pont-boite ... eo-262.htm

Here are the tools I used to clean up:
a plastic knife,
a teeth brush and a “soft steel brush”

a sponge with a scratching side
“Steel wool”

A Karcher –I mean a tool which sends out water with high pressure-
I used also a turning machine equipped with a wheel of scratching materials…

So how I did it?

As first job, I advise you to remove the carbon with the valves mounted on the cylinder head. You can scratch with the soft steel brush but be careful to do not make scratches the surface where the gasket normally is.

Before removing the valves, check with you thumb if there is lateral play in the valve guides:

Then after, you can remove the valves. To perform this, you need to compress the valves springs in order to remove the two fasteners on the valve stalks. Instead of buying a special tool, I use an assembly with a clamp and an aluminum pipe with a “cut” like this:

On picture 329, you can see what I call fasteners. By the way, the pipe comes from the front fork on a bike .

Once you have removed the valves, put them into boxes –the blue ones on the background- to avoid mixing up the parts!

[Clemmennt]

Also, remove the exhaust gaskets, valves stalk gaskets & washers

Regarding the cylinder heads, apply the detergent and scrub with the brushes, and scrub, and scrub…

Focus on the valves seats, it’s important. You can use the steel wool here.
Finalize the cleaning by the water force!

This is how the cylinder head looks like after this cleaning

[Clemmennt]

On the valves –especially on the exhaust ones- there is a sort of carbon deposit but much more hard like rock material. The solution I found was to use a turning machine with a special scratching wheel. It looks like this:

I know, my hat is upside down and I look like a hobo…

Before/after valves picture:

Clean also the crankcase; use the plastic knife to remove the stuck gasket. Do not use the steel wool because of the metal dust it produces!
Before/after Crankcase picture:

Then, it’s time to check if the parts are tired!

Ok, next time I’ll explain the reassembly of this stuff, how to set the timing, bend the belts, etc.

See you soon!

[Clemmennt]

Hello all,
Today I’ll explain how to put back the cylinder head & the camshaft and how to check the belt tension and valves clearance.
All the gaskets you’ll see below are new. I have followed the Clymer service manual method and sometimes a French service manual as well because there is some lacks in the Clymer book. I removed the carbs; I’ll clean up them during Christmas holidays.

Once both crankcase and cylinder head are cleaned, place the new gasket on the crankcase

Don’t forget the oil restrictor on the cylinder head

Then tighten the six screws using the classic “cross” sequence and applying the good torque -torque 55N.m- ! Don’t forget the 6 mm screw –torque 10N.m-.

Check that all the oil pipes inside the camshaft holders are not blocked

Next step is to reassembly the camshaft, camshaft holder and pulley.
First, rotate the crank clockwise –via the alternator screw- until T1 mark is lined up:

Put oil onto the camshaft and reassemble the pulley’s gasket -and also the plug for the left cylinder-. Reassemble the camshaft on the cylinder head.

Remark: Check -by putting the pulley on the camshaft without the woodruff key – that the “up” mark is upward.
This is really important and it’s not written in the Clymer book!
In the picture below, I made the mistake to place the camshaft upside down… And for sure I was forced to disassembly the camshaft!!

After this check, you can remove the pulley.

Place the camshaft holder and tighten the screws -torque 27N.m.

Place the pulley cover plate.

Put oil!

[Clemmennt]

Reassemble the pulley with its woodruff key –torque 27N.m.To avoid the valves forcing against the pistons when you tighten the pulley’s bolt, clamp the pulley and fasten the clamp with the frame.

BE SURE AT THIS TIME:
That the T1 mark on the crank wheel is still lined up with the crankcase,
On the both pulleys: the “up” mark is upward and the small arrow is lined up with the mark on the pulley back plate.

If it’s ok, you can replace the belts. For the right one, you need to maintain the pulley in the good position with your hand.
Tighten the belt tensioners a little. Now it’s time to check… Rotate the crank slowly clockwise! If you made a mistake and a valve is touching a piston, do not try to turn the crank counterclockwise! The only solution is to disassembly the camshaft.

Next step, to put under tension the belts:
Remark: Normally, the springs of the belt tensioners are made to apply the good force in order to put under tension the belts.
On the pulleys, when both the “up” marks are upward, it’s possible to stretch one belt and check the tension of the other. When both the “up” marks are downward, it’s the contrary! To change to position of the “up” marks, just rotate the crank to the next T1 mark.
For the belt on the right side, you check when the “up” marks are upward.

To check the tension, you need to place a two kilos weight on the belt and measure the bending – between four and nine millimeters if I remember well-. This is how I checked:

After, I check the valves clearance as described in the service manual. My tips: for a 0,1 mm clearance, I put a 0,12 mm shim and I tighten the screw.

Replace the valves covers:

Last step for today: the spark plugs. I always add some copper grease on the threads.

That’s all!
Thanks you!

[Clemmennt]

I forget this one:

See you soon.
Clément.

[WingAdmin]

This is an awesome tutorial! Thanks for posting!

[Clemmennt]

Hello,

During my reassembly session, I decided to change the radiator's hoses, to polish the water pump cover plate and to clean up the water equalizing tank... So I take the opportunity to share some pics with you.

Before/after pics for the water pump cover plate.

Then, my tip to clean up the equalizing tank : put gasoline and some balls, which come from a ball-bearing, inside and... play maracas... Shake the tank longtime. See picture below.

As I said before, I removed the carbs in order to clean them and also to clean the water pipes connections which are located under the carburetors. Look how they're dirty, it's about 32 years of dust!

Remark: DO NOT UPSIDE-DOWN THE CARBS. If you want to, remove before the four screws to drain the carbs' bowls of gasoline and oil residues.

I performed the clean of the carbs and intake pipes with a lot of gasoline and a brush.

See you!

Clément.

[Clemmennt]

Hi all,

Last Sunday, I put back the mufflers and I started the engine.

I usually coat some copper grease on the stud threads.

Put oil inside the crankcase. For the water, fill the radiator first, replace the plug and then fill the equalizing tank.

Push few seconds on the starter button -with the ignition on Off position- in order to pump oil everywhere in the engine and also to fill the carburetor tank. Wait five minutes to avoid melting the starter coils . Do it again several time.

That's it! Open the fuel tap, put the ignition on On position and OPEN THE WINDOWS! You'll have a lot of smoke. The engine run well, I had to decrease the idle.

Last pic, the man on my right is the Goldwing owner - so far - and my father as well. As you can see the smile on his face, he's quite delighted to note that the job is done... and I am too because I think I ride more than him!

Salut, à bientôt.

Clément.

[dondons1984]

I am going to be doing my head gaskets tomorrow and dude this is the best article I have found so far. Very impressed with all of this. thanks a ton on showing that there needs to be that little space by using the shim.

[buckwing1975]

This tread is very useful thank you my wings head gasket went on it so I used this for research it was very useful thank you.

[nasaldave]

okay sirs, I just spent an hour logging in your information to my desktop. Second I was in Sturgis some years ago. there was a guy in the camp who was not riding and walked to tow a lot. I saw him along the rode and picked him up. He never spoke and when we got to camp I stuck out my hand. He covered mine, started speaking in french an kissed me on both cheeks.
In the midst of over a hundred bikers I yelled, "he's French, it's okay, he is FRENCH!".
On behalf of you and my unknown friend, Thank You for your international co-operation, and making motorcyclists the worlds largest community. Nasaldave

[Jag]

OK so I have some antifreeze getting into cylinder #3 sigh. Going to do a leakdown to verify but that is just me stalling as it is a reality.... Its not passing coolant into the oil or oil into the coolant. So obviously I have to do a head job on this 83 aspy of that I am sure. My question as I am familiar with doing head jobs on cars with aluminum heads and blocks so does the head need to go to the machine shop to check it for warpage? Do normal automotive machine shops do this or am I going to need to send the head off to a specialty shop? Also wondering how much could the machine shop safely shave if the head is warped?

So again is getting the head checked and shaved possibly not really needed on these and what about the block should I get it checked as well?? No the bike did NOT overheat on me but the previous owner stated it DID on him and he had replaced the head gasket a few years ago then hurt his back and couldn't ride so the bike sat for 2 to 3 yrs with just him running it in the garage every week or 2 on the center stand. So am thinking that the repair wasn't done correctly. Any advice be appreciated.

[@di]

Dear Clément - thank you for your tutorial.

I have followed it.

If I could add something that might help others:
i) you do not need to disassamble your front wheel you may access everything without that operation;
ii) I had a problem with old gaskets they were really sticked to the heads, after many tries I used LIQID MOLLY specific - I have attached the photo;
iii) I bought new belts from GATES ref. No. 5119 - I have attached the photo;
iv) I have also decided to change the tensioning rollers plus the springs - all new OEM, there is a big difference in sound;

I had a leak of oil to the water system and vice versa. I was all the time having problem with oil that was misssing somewhere inside the system (not outside), I also had a problem with hiting neutral when I stopped the bike (could not put the gear on neutral). I even checked the compression on all cyliders - It was fine. But anyhow I decided to change the gaskets.

When I started to unscrew the heads it turned out the they where not torqued on any torque !!! it seemed that gasket got sticked and I had no leak outside!!!
When I opened the heads I found water and oil moisture in the cylinders!

After succesful finish of job I have no problem with hitting neutral - I quess that my oil+water mix before was no good for the clutch ; oil looks like new all the time and I have no more white smoke when I start the machine. Everything runs smooth!!!
The machine is great.
Thanks again.
Adrian.