So, I took the dive and bought a bike, an ’82 Honda GoldWing Interstate. The previous owner put two months of solid work into it and got it put back together and running at 85% or more. It still needs some work on the engine, though. It misfires occasionally and needs a good tune up.

I’m planning to start from the electrical side of things first. The spark plugs are new, but I plan to check the gaps anyways. I bought a spark gap tester to check if there’s enough juice coming to the plugs from the coil. After that, I’ll check the coil over. I bought a valve compression tester to check for leaky valves since the exhaust is smoky on one side of the engine. Valve clearences need to be checked. Finally, the carbs have been rebuilt, but have never been synchronized, so I’m borrowing a set of 4-cylinder carb-sync gauges from a coworker to do this. If I have any time left over, before my parent come to town on Wednesday, I’ll start getting more familiar with the bike by running through the scheduled maintenance procedures.

Wish me luck.