1975 Honda G1000 Goldwing
The goldwing was one of those projects that popped up spur of the moment. I had alerts set on some classifieds sites for cheap vehicles, and this 1975 Honda Goldwing slid into my DMs. I bought it from a glorified scrapyard in Orem and it had a Wyoming plate on it. It was the middle of the night, and me, my brother, and our friend Tom rolled over there in Tom's truck and just deadlifted it into the bed.
After my the blur of the night wore off and I could see it "sober" (I don't drink, but seeing cheap classifieds for cars is a high enough for me) it dawned on me just how much I taken on. It was a wreck. Not literally: the chassis was straight, the wheels weren't bent, only surface level rust, and the nothing was seized up. But, it was in bad shape. But, I was determined to make the most of my $200 investment.
My older brother and I got to work. We spun the engine, checked the plugs, made sure it was lubed up. It had water, oil, and gas. If you didn't know, the early goldwings don't have a traditional folding kick start. The engineers didn't think many people would want to kick start the 1000CC flat four, and they were right. But, they added a little optional kick start in case you were totally stuck, stupid, or s*** out of luck. Being all 3, I opted for the kick start. It traditionally has a little tube that hides inside the faux gas tank, but that was long gone. I just took one of my socket wrenches and used that as the kick start. After a few kicks and some checking with a multimeter, it had spark. That meant we had gas, spark, and good compression. And that means fire. So, having already been tired out by the few kicks with the wrench, we decided to hook the battery up to our Audi Allroad's battery. The starter relay was shot, so we just used a screwdriver to short it and spin the starter. With lots of prayers, sparks, and starter fluid, it burst to life. All on that first day after to getting it. Me and my brother were like two cave men who had invented fire. That feeling is second to none. We had just raised Lazarus from the dead.
We were lucky enough to have gotten it on video.
After that, what we did was mostly cosmetic. New covers, a new seat, some light electrical work. We went for a slight "cafe racer" look (we're so original), and I think it turned out pretty well. We painted the faux tank white and wrapped the exhaust. We ripped the enormous 80+ pound muffler out and just straight piped it. Holy moly that thing was loud. For being over 50 years old, it sure did rip.
Eventually, I rebuilt the starter motor with new brushes and a good cleaning to get the carbon out, and it started up really easily when paired with a new battery and starter relay.
As my car collection grew and my brother moved away, my wife and I decided it was time to sell it. I tend to like the project more than the finished product, so I didn't end up riding it once I was basically done with it. I listed it for sale, and I ended up selling it to an older guy who bought it and immediately drove it to New York state. I wonder if he made it. But knowing that Honda, I'm pretty sure he did.