Day Minus 2 - The Wing is ready

This morning Rob started reassembling the Wing. He refilled the coolant system, installed the fuel tank and the battery and put the airbag and the essential electronic equipment to run the bike. 

After a lunch break, we put some fuel in the bike and started it up. The bike ran with no squealing. Success! The culprit was indeed the water pump. 

Rob spent the rest of the afternoon reassembling the body panels, control panels, and the seat.

Tomorrow, we will take the bike on a short shake down ride to make sure everything is operating properly. If everything checks out, we will depart Saturday morning on the Wing with our Tailwind trailer in tow. 

Day Minus 3 - The water pump arrives

At 4:15pm, UPS delivered the water pump! Rob did a quick examination of the part the make sure it was correct. The input shaft on the new water pump turns nice and smoothly compared to the old one. Fingers crossed this will correct the squealing noise.

Rob oiled up the o-ring on the water pump, aligned the input shaft with the output shaft on the motor and slipped the pump in the tight space and tightened the bolts. He then slowly rotated the engine to confirm that the water pump shaft was correctly mated to the engine and not binding. With the engine turning over smoothly, he then attached the three coolant lines, tightened up the band clamps and pressure tested the cooling system to check for leaks. The cooling system pressure testing kit is a tool loaner from AdvanceAuto. They let you borrow the tool for up to 90 days and if you bring it back in good condition (you do not break it), there is no fee. Pretty nice deal!

The pressure held steady so no leaks in the system. Rob reinstalled the alternator and the timing cover cap and called it a night. It took about 1.5 hours but the bike is ready to reinstall the tank. We will tackle that tomorrow along with the rest of the reassembly steps.

Day Minus 10 - While the bike is apart...

Rob wasn't planning on changing the air filter on the Wing, but since it was already pulled apart, he decided to go ahead and replace the air filter. The old one only had about 14k miles on it and wasn't very dirty.

Irregardless, it was convenient to go ahead and replace the air filter now.

The adhesive for the felt padding that sits between the windshield and the dash was beginning to fail and pull out so Rob went ahead and and fixed that.

While the front nose was off, Rob noticed that the adhesive holding on the rubber seal at the top was failing. He removed the seal, cleaned it up, and used some silicon adhesive to reapply it. The front looks much better now.

The water pump is supposed to arrive Wednesday (3 days before our departure). If it does, we have a good chance of getting the Wing back together and taking it on the trip.

Day Minus 11 - Removing the old water pump

The Goldwing's water pump is located on the rear of the motor under the fuel tank. That means a good bit of the bike needs to be dismantled in order to gain access to the pump.

First step is to remove the seat and the dash cover and top shelter (the body work that covers the top of the bike). Because the tank must be removed, the air bag must also be removed. Rob also removed the battery and battery box to provide additional room to remove the fuel tank and drained the coolant. Here's the bike with those items removed and ready for the tank removal.

Rob removed the fuel tank's fuel lines and electrical connections and coaxed the fuel tank out of the bike. It is a very tight fit and required a bit of wiggling and twisting.

Next up is the alternator. It needs to be removed in order to gain access to some of the water pump bolts.

With the alternator removed, Rob was able to remove the three coolant hoses from the water pump and then remove the 3 bolts holding it to the motor. It was a tight fit but the water pump came out.

The Goldwing was now ready for the new water pump when it arrived. You can see the mounting locations for the alternator and water pump. The alternator is the closest hole.

A shot from above.

So was the water pump bad? Spinning the input shaft revealed that the bearing was sticking a bit. It was a bit grabby when turning the shaft. It should spin very smoothly. So it does appear that the water pump was bad. No telling how long it would have lasted before completely failing. Here's what the pump looks like with the case split. The Goldwing's water pump assembly includes the thermostat (lower left section of the right case).

Now we wait for the new water pump to see if that was indeed the source of the squealing.

Day Minus 18 - Which mode of transportation will we take?

To prepare for the trip, we performed some preventative scheduled maintenance on the Goldwing. New brake pads were installed, the clutch and brake fluid replaced, and the coolant system was drained and refilled. During the warm-up of the bike after the coolant change, a loud squeal started after the bike had warmed up. Rob tracked the issue down to a likely failing water pump. He ordered a new water pump but it isn't a normally stocked part so it may not arrive in time for us to take the bike. 

In the unlikely event, the water pump does arrive in time, Rob plans on dismantling the Goldwing to get it ready to receive the new part.