GL1000 Conrod shells

[GL1000-1976-SCX-593P]

I have been rebuilding a GL1000 engine I bought to learn more about my GL1000 bike, whilst doing this I managed to acquire 2 motors for £200.00 a bargain I thought.
I have been looking for Con Rod shells and the book says Pistons 2 & 4 are 13217-371-003 and 1 & 3 are 13223-371-003.
I have just split the second motor to see what condition the shells are in but the ID on the shell says D50-A Std and I cant see any colour mark on the edge which is probably not unusual.
this has made me wonder if this motor is a much later model??
Any help would be appreciated.
Regards John

[Old Fogey]

Hi John
All GL1000 use the same shells, regardless of year.
Shells 13215 to 13219 have oil holes and must be fitted rods #2 and #4
Shells 13221 to 13225 have no holes and must be fitted to rods #1 and #3
The rod caps can obviously have either type of shell fitted.
The shells should have a colour mark on the edge which indicates the thickness of the shell: blue, black, brown, green, yellow, thickest to thinnest in that order.

If the shells have no marking, Plastigage or a micrometer that can measure down to 0.001mm is needed to size the journals.

I have found no correlation between colours and the stamped ID on the backs.

You can see the various shells listed in order here: http://www.wingovations.com/bearing-shells/4579471136

You will also see that they are in extremely short supply. Some colours are now virtually impossible to find.

[SnoBrdr]

You will also see that they are in extremely short supply. Some colours are now virtually impossible to find.

I/m still amazed that no one has started to produce them on a 3d printer.

[GL1000-1976-SCX-593P]

Thanks for the info John, on your website it still shows 2 x 13223-371-003 and if so I will have them.
If you want to send me a proforma invoice, or just let me know and I'll order from ur site.
Thanks.
Ps if you have the above, think I will only need 1 x 13217-371-003 if the 3 ive ordered from Germany arrive.
Rgds John

[f1xrupr]

Hey guys...I replaced bearings in a 1100, and used shells with holes for all 4 cylinders and it does great! That's all I could get. All 4 of my rods were drilled, so it just oils 1&3 extra well. I have 70 psi oil pressure @ 3500 rpm hot-no smoke-runs great! I have put about 5000 miles on it.


Signed,
Looking outside of the box

[GL1000-1976-SCX-593P]

Luckily I managed to find all the shells I needed, but they are becoming very hard to find. thanks to Google and John at Wingovations we are on the road to building the engine back together in the next week or 2 once my new piston rings arrive and the bores have been honed.

[mliz]

Currently in the process of rebuilding my 1975 GL1000 motor and as everyone else is aware, I cannot find the connecting rod shells that are needed. This is a shame because everything else internally (minus new clutch plates) is in perfect order. I have been looking for some green shells 13218-371-003 x4 for over a month now and it is looking like these are going to be impossible to source. I modified shells to work for my application. If you are able to rebuild this motor, you should be able to follow these steps to make your own shells. Took me about an hour to grind and 5 minutes to add the holes.

This is how I modified shells:

I was able to find shells from a 1972 Civic (4B1950-STD set of 8 for $20, they also have .01, .02, .03 undersize) which needed about 3mm ground off the width. I checked these with a high precision micrometer and they look to be the exact same thickness as the green shells. I first tried milling these but was getting too much chatter from my end mill since the parts were not held tight enough on the ends. I ended up grinding these SLOWLY by hand on a wheel sander. Make sure to grind slowly with no gloves so you can feel when they start to get warm. As soon as they get warm at all, set them to the side to cool and move on to the next one until they are all at the correct width. Make sure to clean up the edges with a buffing wheel to ensure there are no burrs. I let my first couple get too hot and the coating seemed to become raised. Tossed these since I did not want to chance running them and I had some extras.

Once you have enough for your application, new oil holes will need to be drilled in 2 of them to allow for proper oiling of cylinder 2 & 4. I did this by putting the shell into the connecting rod and using a drill bit through the oil hole in the connecting rod. This gives you the exact location of where the hole needs to be added. I then marked the other side so I could have a flat surface to drill into. Gently drill through the shell onto a block of wood and use a countersink tool to ensure the hole does not have any burrs.

I am now at the point of checking clearances. This is a pretty simple process which involves plastigauge and some time. I will report back probably in about a week what my findings are. Hopefully everything is at factory nominal.

Hope this helps anyone needing GL1000 shells!

[WingAdmin]

This is the first time I've heard of someone reworking these bearings - it's a shame they just aren't available anywhere, it's one of the things keeping these bikes from running forever.

[Old Fogey]

I first heard about this some 10 years ago, but had forgotten it.
The Honda part number is 13211-PA5-003 but long unavailable from Honda. But there are other places to get them.

http://www.king-catalog.com/Catalog/Set/CR4462AM

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Engine-Connect ... 3538580742

https://suprasport.nl/ACL-ACL-Bearings- ... 4B1950-STD

The 1300 version of that engine was also used in the Triumph Acclaim and I think in some Renaults too.

[mliz]

*Update*

I was able to find yellow and green shells for the GL1000. I compared these to the civic bearings I modified. I measured thickness on my comparator:

Green: 1.498mm
Yellow: 1.494mm
Civic: 1.496-1.498mm

Using this info, I knew that the civic bearings would be a nice substitute for the green or yellow.

All my rod bearings plastigauged between .025-.030mm. Factory nominal is .02-.04mm with a service limit of .08mm. I think that these are a good option and will be running them.

If you have any further questions from me, please feel free to ask.

[Shelby-Right]

Good job , normally you make a split fixture to go in the lathe , and spin off the bearings to the right width , the bigends are 40mm and the mains are 48mm did you use some other car bearings in the mains of the GL , also do you know what the main and bigend tunnel sizes are ? I looked up EB1 honda civic the other day and they are 40mm , but i didnt know the tunnel size , they say the crank is not regrindable maybe this is because they didnt make undersize shells ,or they didn't harden it much , would need checking . Cheers.