Hondasaki drive

[trikebldr]

Well, here's the progress on the "Hondasaki" drive, as Tony (Lucasind) calls it!

A brief update on the history of this project here. Tony didn't like hearing his Voyager 1300 "screaming" at 4000rpm at 70mph, and was trying to find a set of higher-ratio final drive gears for it. Not gonna happen! So, the alternative was to find an existing drive with the appropriate gear ratio. The Voyager 1300 has a 3.40 ratio, and the '84 Gold Wing has a 2.833 ratio. Both are right hand mounted, so they spin the same direction. In theory, by calculation, the Honda drive will give 3333rpm at 70 mph. Another requirement was that the shock mount had to be positioned to at least give me options for making an adapter to correctly position the stock Voyager shock's lower end.

So, since all final drives/rear wheels have a unique coupling, I bought the whole rear end from an '84 Gold Wing, including the swingarm, driveshaft, final drive and rear wheel. The project is to swap everything onto the Voyager's swingarm, then blend the front half of the Voyager's driveshaft to the rear half of the Honda's.

To start I cut the flange that mounts the final drive to the swingarm from each bike's swingarm. Each flange is a machined casting with a short nose that centers it in the swingarm's right tube, then it gets welded full circle around the tube. Simple! I cut the tube right along the weld on each swingarm without cutting all the way into the flange casting. Once it was thin enough I knocked the flange off with a leather mallet. Did this on each swingarm.

The Honda flange has a slightly larger diameter nose, by about .150", so I cut it down by about .130" because the Voyager's flange actually wiggled a bit inside the Voyager tube. The Honda flange now fits perfectly inside the Voyager's right swingarm tube. I also cleaned up the remaining weld on the flange while I had it in the lathe. I was worried about making the nose on the Honda flange too thin by turning it down to fit, but it turned out to be the same thickness as the nose on the Voyager's flange. It also tapers a bit to become thicker as you move from the edge of the nose.

So, we are now at the rough-cut stage. Next I need to make a jig to align the axle with the swingarm's pivot points, and at the Voyager's original span from pivot to axle. Once this jig is made I can weld the Honda's flange to the Voyager's swingarm tube. Then I need to assembled the whole thing to fit the Voyager's brake caliper to the Honda's rear wheel/rotor. I'm hoping it will only be a matter of a shim to correct side-to-side positioning from the Voyager's stock position. They both use the same diameter rotor. I also will have to make up a new axle spacer to fit the Honda rear wheel in the Voyager's swingarm.

Here are just a few pics of progress so far. The complete set of pics can be seen at the link below. The gold final drive is the stock Voyager drive, and the silver one is from the '84 Gold Wing.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/7789950@N ... 688788019/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[ekap1200]

Looking good Bruce. Got to love it when a plan comes together. I am looking forward to see what becomes of the shock mounts and how that turns out. You did do one for Tony didn't you Gene

[trikebldr]

I am looking forward to see what becomes of the shock mounts and how that turns out. You did do one for Tony didn't you

This IS the one for Tony (eventually, after I get done playing with it and testing it)! Since my 1300 will be pulling a sidecar I prefer to have the lower stock ratio. Besides, I kinda like to hear six cylinders singing alto rather than tenor.

I've got three different shock mounts in sketches right now. It is really interesting to compare the Honda engineering style to Kawasaki's. Kawi uses a single-hung shock mount on their final drive housings, but Honda uses a double hung approach. I've noticed this on other Kawi's, too, and Honda almost always uses the double-hung mounting. I have yet to see any of Kawi's studs bend or break though, so they obviously have the numbers right. Personally I tend to over-engineer, so I am trying to stick with the double-hung lower shock mount. The left shock is double-hung mounted on the lower end.

The shock mount will be a built up plate arrangement that starts at the stock Honda shock mount and goes back to be anchored by the axle bolt. So far I can't seem to make it a beautiful piece, but just strong! Maybe if I hand-engrave it, like a rifle! It sure won't look factory! Good thing that Voyagers have a lot of crap covering up the rear end! Oops! That's right! Tony's doesn't anymore!

[Lucasind]

Thanks for posting a update on this most challenging project ! You may be creating a side business once word gets out that guys can stop raising UP on the shifter ,looking for that not present 6th gear, by simply installing a "custom built" Hondasaki" final drive created by trikbldr
Once the jig is perfected..... you ought to be able to DOUBLE your factories output to 2 per year
What you have done so far looks very impressive and look forward to the next post.
Thanks again !..................tony

[trikebldr]

Just wanted to update the project here. I now have all of my alignment mandrels done and I did a trial fit today. Everything was close enough to tell me that I still need to trim about 1/4" off the edge of the swingarm tube to get the rear axle parallel with the swingarm pivot axis.

The next step is to make up a jig frame (probably out of 2" angle-iron) that will locate the two alignment shafts and also hold them parallel and in the same plane.

There is a LOT of setup time involve in this first one to assure everything is just right. After all the welding is done with all of the shafts, mandrels and frame, it will be an easy job to make up a final jig from the finished swingarm that will line me up for a perfect cut on the next swingarm tubes and then will locate and solidly hold the Honda's flange exactly where it needs to be for welding. Won't even need to align everything with shafts and mandrels anymore.

First pic is of the shafts and mandrels. Second pic is of the shaft with one of the mandrels and tension spring in the swingarm pivot bearing. The reason for the spring is that the pivot bearings are tapered roller bearings and have to be lightly preloaded toward each other to correctly center themselves. The third pic is of the inside of the ring gear of the final drive showing the two surfaces I chose to use to index off of (arrows). The fourth pic is of the mandrel that aligns the whole final drive assembly to the alignment shaft. Colored arrows correspond to the arrows in the previous pic. The fifth pic is of the whole works basically assembled. The last pic isn't really clear, but it does show the very slight misalignment of the shaft to the swingarm end. By cutting about 1/4" off the swingarm tube where the flange will be welded, this alignment should fall right in place.

It's coming together, Tony!

[trikebldr]

I forgot to mention one other issue that has been addressed on this drive. On the '84 Gold Wing final drive, the pinion gear shaft, where it protrudes forward and is bolted to the internally-splined driveshaft coupling, is drilled all the way through so that the gear oil in the drive case can slowly migrate forward to lube the splines between the driveshaft and the splined coupling. This is how Honda typically lubes their splined couplings. Kawasaki just uses grease to lube these same splined couplings. Both methods seem to work equally well, but Honda relies on a seal to keep things from getting really messy inside the swingarm tube.

I won't get into the details of why I can't use that seal anymore on my driveshaft hybrid, but I had to seal off any possibiity of gear oil from running through that pinion shaft. It's only about a .200" diameter hole and about three inches deep, so I made up an aluminum plug about 1" long with a shouldered head. Looks a lot like a miniature golf tee. I cleaned out the hole with lacquer thinner, then red-Loctite'd the plug into the hole. I made sure that the head of the plug didn't interfere with the fit of the splined end of the driveshaft when fully inserted. It's really a simple fix.

[Lucasind]

Hello Bruce, and thank you for the update post . I now see how you are accomplishing the task of pre-weld alignment.I bet there was alot of time spent on making this happen. great job ! ........tony

[ekap1200]

Hello Bruce, I have been following your progress on this task. It is looking great. Hope to meet you in Colorado , or somewhere , to talk shop. Gene from NJ.

[Lucasind]

.....Just to let everyone know .... Bruce has been in the hospital for awhile with serious heart trouble.
His knowledge and wit is missed !.... let's all wish him a speedy recovery please .........tony

[cushman eagle]

I will put Bruce in my prayers

[trikebldr]

Thanks, Eagle! I appreciate that!
I didn't see that Tony had posted his notification here about my recent VA-Hilton stay, but I got home last Friday and got about half of my strength back over the weekend.
Will be getting back onto the rear end conversion soon.

[cushman eagle]

Bruce,I am glad to hear you are back home! I will continue to pray for your full recovery.That should have you to where you can have Tony's hondasaki drive done in time for him to take his Beast to Estes Park

[Lucasind]

.....Wishful thinking perhaps, ...but ALL this will NOT happen in the next 90 days !
Time to head to the rally will be here before ya know it ! Bruce had mentioned to me that attending this years rally was not in his plans , Other 1300 owners are waiting for his work's completion,so testing can begin, then he has to get started building the next guy's final drive !
If mine gets done over next winter,that will be just fine with me ! Even if mine got done now...I would'nt do the job anyway...cause now it's riding time .....tony