2001 GL1800

[Papa Fred]

Good afternoon...
This is a 2-part post with the first part being an introduction of sorts. I've been riding various bikes (street & dirt) since the 1970s, spent my "working" life in several avenues...aircraft manufacturing, autobody repair, radio commercial production, and most recently retired from nearly 25 years as a long-haul Professional Driver...owning and driving 5 Large Cars in that time. Back in 2017, before retiring, my wife & I acquired a 2000 Yamaha Royal Star Venture and rolled up over 50,000 kms (yep, Canadian. You know...snow, short riding season in the The Prairies, 3-Down football)
At the beginning of this past July, the run-forever-bulletproof-tried-and-true Yamaha ate one of the big bearings in the transmission. Those of you familiar with the RSV know that the trans is easy to work on...once the gas tank and carbs come off and you pull the engine out of the frame. Waaay beyond my abilities or garage space, and my mechanic can't get to it till the already short season is over...essentially a late fall or winter project. We figured our riding season was done and possibly part of next year as well depending on the surprises when the motor is opened up.

Here's part 2:
In an effort to pass the time, I began looking on-line at used bikes, and after talking at length with my neighbor who has a 1994 'Wing, and researching this and other forums relating to Goldwings, we found our next ride. A 2001 GL1800A.(the "A" means ABS, correct?) with 100,000 kms on the odometer...a hair over 60,000 miles. First owner had it for nearly 18 years and put most of the miles on it, the next 2 owners shared the remaining 20,000 miles over 3 years. Overall the bike is in really nice shape, and we're looking forward to putting a lot of miles on our run-forever-bulletproof-tried-and-true Honda. (hmmmm..sounds familiar.)
When I got it home, I eased myself into the Goldwing way of doing things by changing the oil & filter, flushing the coolant and replacing the sparkplugs. While doing these "simple" jobs I discovered that the previous owners had neglected a few things in what I would call routine maintenance. Quick example: the plug wire boots were basically glued onto the sparkplugs. Much effort and colorful language to remove a simple boot.

I'll next be working on flushing the Clutch and Brake lines since by the looks of the butterscotch pudding in the reservoirs they haven't been serviced in a while. I concluded, after riding the bike home, and much research on this forum and videos, that the REALLY rough ride I experienced was likely due to the Anti-Dive valve basically locking up the forks. I found a tip somewhere about splitting that valve case open and inserting a drain plug washer into the body to over-ride the plunger in the ADS. I got the fork travel back at the expense,of course, of a little dip action when stopping. I'm hoping the system flush will allow both Anti-Dive and smooth ride to live together.

Sorry for the length of this, but here's my final ask...for now. When I changed the oil, I followed what should have been straightforward thinking by warming up the engine slightly, then removing the drain plug and filter. I refilled the filter with fresh oil before installing ( done quickly with no spillage) installed the drain plug with new washer, and added oil. I put in slightly less than called for, ran the engine for a few minutes, shut it down, waited a couple of minutes then checked the level (stick not screwed in). A bit of oil added brought the level up to the high mark on the stick so I closed it all up and walked away. Yesterday we took it for our first long run...about 250 miles...got home late...put the bike on the stand and closed the garage. This morning I was working on freeing up some of the stuck switches and noticed a small puddle of oil under the lower cowl at the front. Not big...maybe just over an inch...but fresh. It looked like it had come down from the front engine cover (clutch??) then trickled down over that air canister before dripping down onto the front cowl and onto the floor.

Here's the ask...would too much oil in the crankcase cause the excess oil to leak or be thrown out somewhere? By too much I mean instead of showing between the lines on the dipstick it appeared to be maybe 3/16 inch over the High mark.[/b]

I gently snugged up all the 8mm bolts holding that front engine cover, drained maybe 2 ounces of oil from the engine and finished up with the switches. Usual lack of maintenance issue with switches, repaired by taking apart what I could, cleaning what I could, bit of lube or grease where possible and all is well...except that oil thing.

I have learned a lot in the past couple of weeks, spending a silly amount of time looking at Goldwing Docs videos and posts trying to learn what my new-to-me Goldwing wants me to do. Thank you all for getting thru this "introduction" and I appreciate any help you can throw my way.

Regards...
Papa Fred

[runnerme]

Welcome to the club.
I don't think there is such a thing as a silly amount of time spent on the wealth of information to be had from the videos and Q & A discussions to be had on this site. Enjoy the wing. I'm in the 'Peg too.

[Papa Fred]

Thanks for the welcome mat, Runnerme. I'll be spending more time with the multitude of videos and forums, but so far I've found the Goldwing Docs site to be the most useful overall.
I've got The Air Filter Adventure planned for an upcoming rainy day after I re-watch and re-read the procedure. Between the repair manual I'll be picking up, and my tablet in the garage, it should be an entertaining few hours of learning. What could possibly go wrong?