Honda Goldwing 1100 Crankshaft

[mxyzptlk8833]

I am building a spare Honda Goldwing 1100 engine. I measured the taper and out-of-round on the crankshaft main bearing journals and found that the number 3 journal has a taper of .00055. The Shop Manual allows .0002. All the specs for the crankpins and the other main bearing journals are good. I hate to junk the crankshaft, so I'm asking for any and all advice from this forum before I proceed further.

[virgilmobile]

Honda is notorious for holding tight specs....It may be tolerable for some other bikes but when something is out of specs,either bring it back to specs or replace it.
Sorry...I suspect that it would run OK (for a while) but out of tolerance will usually come back and bite you.

My opinion only....anybody else.???

[WingAdmin]

I have to agree. You can get away with a bit of fudge factor/slop in other manufacturers, but Hondas really are picky about tolerance, and require it to run sewing-machine reliable. There is a reason why people have 300,000 miles on their Goldwings and are still going strong, and Harley engines often need a rebuild at 50,000.

[ct1500]

Good question and I think would need to be explored a little further with some other questions.

How many miles are on this engine and was it running well with no pressure problems previously? What is the intended purpose after rebuild, is it going to the track?

Only an experienced Honda engine rebuilder would know what can be gotten away with and what can't for certain. It could be that the 3 journal if at the back of the engine takes the brunt of the wear from the clutch and might be considered normal even on low mileage units that go on to serve a couple hundred thousand more miles.

What does the journal look like and how is the bearing wearing? At this point checking clearance with plastigage and new bearing might be in your best interest, if that taper does not show up too much on the plastigage, your call.

[mxyzptlk8833]

Thank you all for your replies. I installed a good used bearing and checked it with plastigage, and it's reading between .0015 and .002 clearance. The journals show no signs of burning, so I'm going to use it. Believe it or not, the plastigage was flattened slightly more on the surface that was on the low end on the micrometer. I did check the diameter twice (very carefully) and I'm sure that the readings are correct. Mysteries. I hope it doesn't come back and bite me in the ass...