The Bike Is Ready

I called Rhonda to be sure the bike would be ready on Friday. She said it was.

It seems the culprit was the ring gear bearing in the final drive. There are actually two of them and they are what the rear wheel turns on. A search of the GoldWing forum shows I am the 51st person to report a failure, although I was a lower mileage than most. Honda USA was blaming trailer towing but 38% of our reported failures had never towed a trailer.

This looks like a regular rebuild item due to a design weakness. I would rather fix it before it fails next time, since you can't choose where your breakdown will happen. Some are buying brand new cast-off final drives from trike installers, since they don't use those parts on the three wheeled vehicles. Warranty covered this one and maybe the next, too, but the total cost was about $700. That's not bad for once ever three years.

So we'll be off Friday to pick the bike up, probably making a loop through Brampton so Leo can swap his 2002 BMW R1150 RS for and equivalent RT.