Windscreen Alignment (slipped a gear)

sennister

sennister

Joined
Aug 6, 2007
Messages
2,900
Age
50
Location
Grant, MN (aka Stillwater)
Bike
ST1100 & ST1300
This morning I left for work. I had my windscreen all the way down from my trip home the day before. Well it was a little chilly. Nothing cold enough to bother with the Coldest Ride but enough that I wanted to raise my windscreen. About a mile from my house I stopped to wait for a red light. While sitting there I started to run up the windscreen. It got to the halfway point and I saw the right side drop down a bit. :eek: The dreaded failing power windscreen. Dang it. It is one of the big things I love about the 1300 and now it is on the way out. So what are my options. As soon as I saw this I immediately let go of the switch in hopes that I will save the stupid plastic gears. I don't want to try and adjust this with the mechanics possibly binding. I tried to lift up on the right side but it felt solid.

So since I haven't tore into my windscreen mechanics before and some of you out there have. Is there any hope for saving my assembly or is my only option to replace it at this point? I hope that there is some way to adjust it to get it lined up right maybe saving it from destruction. The good news is that it is up high enough for me for now, and winter is fast approaching so I can look at it once I park the bike for the winter.
 
How about trying removing the screen and running the mechanism. Maybe it'll straighten itself out..and not torque too much..since the screen will be off? <just a thought>.
 
Well, I think my windscreen motor is shot. Well at least the gears.

I pulled the wind screen and opened the front of the bike. I looked it over a little and I don't see any means of adjusting. I ran it down and up. As it goes up I can see it skipping a gear. Infact every time I run it down and up is skips a little more. It is now to the point where the left one is up all the way and the right is about midway up. Grrr. Well I put it back together as best as I could. The top bolt on the right side is in the slotted hole. The lower isn't on anything. As for the left side it is in the lower position. The shield is only secured by 3 bolts but feels stable. Oh well I probably only have a few more days of actual riding left. Much of the next couple weeks is taken up by deer hunting.
 

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one on ebay right now.

I wonder how difficult it would be to machine up a set of gears and to come up with the cable.......
 
Mike said:
one on ebay right now.

I wonder how difficult it would be to machine up a set of gears and to come up with the cable.......
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I have been thinking about tearing into this once the bike is down for the winter. Since I have a few months where the bike will be down I have some time to look it over. The tough part of this is since haven't seen what type of gears this uses I don't know how hard it would be to make a set of gears out of metal rather than plastic which is what I hear they are made from. My father in law is a retired machinist and have I have a metal lathe and access to a mill. So it is possible. The biggest problem is time. Though I will look into it.

I have looked at used ones on ebay. Most seem to go for over $200. The problem with that is they are all beings sold as is. Heck I saw one at something like $150. I don't know what it ended at but it was even reported as damaged. Since this part is known to fail I wouldn't want to pay that much for another one that may just fail again.

The one on ebay now looks like it is going to be about $100 shipped. Will probably go higher. They have a video of the bike before it was stripped. It looks like it went down pretty hard on the right side. There is road rash on the top part of the front fairing above where the right mirror would be. I would be concerned that the wind screen mechanism is tweaked on that one.
 
Okay. My thinking:

The spindle gear should be obtainable off-the-shelf somewhere - I don't see the OEM tooling them.
The cables are wrapped in some rubberising compound - the cables themselves seem to be a flat coil construction. Again, I'd see that stuff being manufactured pre-assembly, i.e., non OEM.

Therefore, maybe the parts are available if we water-board the OEM Honda contractor that manufactures the parts into telling us where to lay our hands on such pieces?

My Wife is at the poinjt I should just go buy one before the tax goes up in January. That's a heated seat's worth of pennies :(
 
Sennister, when mine went it got really out of whack and I ended up lowering it and pushing on the top of the windshield until it was even again. It seems that when it starts to go, it will not get any better...unless you don't use it! I replaced mine with another ST owner and the whole job took about 2hrs. It's really not very hard at all. The most time consuming part is of course tupperware removal.

Skip
 
skipcurt said:
Sennister, when mine went it got really out of whack and I ended up lowering it and pushing on the top of the windshield until it was even again. It seems that when it starts to go, it will not get any better...unless you don't use it! I replaced mine with another ST owner and the whole job took about 2hrs. It's really not very hard at all. The most time consuming part is of course tupperware removal.

Skip
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I tried that on mine but no dice. That is why it is in the current configuration. I kept raising and lowering (without the windscreen) until the top bolt was even with the bottom bolt on the other mechanism that wasn't slipping. That way I could mount the windscreen at least in the up position and ride for a few more days. We are snowed in now but I haven't had the chance to tear into the bike yet as I have been busy with the holidays. Things will calm down a little in a couple weeks and I will likely tear into it to see if I can shim it to get by a while longer.

Based on what it is doing it makes sense that it is the drive gear and not the cable. Not that I am saying my cable isn't worn but the part failing now is the drive gear as it skips a couple times during the range of motion. While it is possible it is several stripped teeth on the cable it is more likely it is the drive gear as it happens at regular intervals. Something like one skip per about 1" of travel.
 
Shadowfax-ST said:
Okay. My thinking:

The spindle gear should be obtainable off-the-shelf somewhere - I don't see the OEM tooling them.
The cables are wrapped in some rubberising compound - the cables themselves seem to be a flat coil construction. Again, I'd see that stuff being manufactured pre-assembly, i.e., non OEM.

Therefore, maybe the parts are available if we water-board the OEM Honda contractor that manufactures the parts into telling us where to lay our hands on such pieces?

My Wife is at the poinjt I should just go buy one before the tax goes up in January. That's a heated seat's worth of pennies :(
Click to expand...

I would think that there is likely someone making them for Honda. Odds are though that they are not set up to do individual sales to a person. They probably sell in lots of 1000 or something. It would be cheaper to buy a new assembly.
 
I'm going to look into this a little. No promises but I could do it if it fit Honda cars. Just so I don't waste my time, what's the lowest price you can find for it?

Mark
 
sennister said:
I would think that there is likely someone making them for Honda. Odds are though that they are not set up to do individual sales to a person. They probably sell in lots of 1000 or something. It would be cheaper to buy a new assembly.
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If you go back over years, including scouring My-MC.com, you'll find there are some who have attempted to find a replacement gear by part number. It's always come up to a dead end. Seems likely that Honda sourced the whole assembly from contract manufacturer and their source for the parts is not accessible. It seems likely that the gear is not an off the shelf part. I think it's crazy that Honda sourced this out with no durability requirements.
 
mnxs54 said:
I'm going to look into this a little. No promises but I could do it if it fit Honda cars. Just so I don't waste my time, what's the lowest price you can find for it?

Mark
Click to expand...

When you say find it for what are you talking about exactly? The gear and cables are not available as mentioned. So there isn't a price point that we have any idea about. As far as the entire assembly which is the only way to fix this, I think it is about $370 last time I looked at any of the online parts catalogs. Add shipping and you are going to be in the $400 range. Which is why I have been looking at other options to extend the life and/or come up with a better solution.
 
sennister said:
When you say find it for what are you talking about exactly? The gear and cables are not available as mentioned. So there isn't a price point that we have any idea about. As far as the entire assembly which is the only way to fix this, I think it is about $370 last time I looked at any of the online parts catalogs. Add shipping and you are going to be in the $400 range. Which is why I have been looking at other options to extend the life and/or come up with a better solution.
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I'm in the automotive aftermarket industry. Sometimes I can get pretty good prices on certain parts, even OEM. I know for cars I can usually get it for dealer net or at least cost plus 5. Generally retail is a little under twice what a dealer can get it for. I'll use $370 as a starting point and see if I can turn up anything. As I said, no promises but it never hurts to look I guess.

Mark
 
Gears are generally available in nylon/plastic,just google and something should show up.The manufacturers will supply small quantities and they are not expensive.I've purchased many over the years,good luck!
 
sennister said:
I tried that on mine but no dice. That is why it is in the current configuration. I kept raising and lowering (without the windscreen) until the top bolt was even with the bottom bolt on the other mechanism that wasn't slipping. That way I could mount the windscreen at least in the up position and ride for a few more days. We are snowed in now but I haven't had the chance to tear into the bike yet as I have been busy with the holidays. Things will calm down a little in a couple weeks and I will likely tear into it to see if I can shim it to get by a while longer.

Based on what it is doing it makes sense that it is the drive gear and not the cable. Not that I am saying my cable isn't worn but the part failing now is the drive gear as it skips a couple times during the range of motion. While it is possible it is several stripped teeth on the cable it is more likely it is the drive gear as it happens at regular intervals. Something like one skip per about 1" of travel.
Click to expand...

I'm no engineer but there's a nylon gear biting onto a rubber friction sheath coating the drive wire. When there's a slip, the rubber is gnawed away leaving nylon grating on metal cable causing wear, which gives less 'grip' and consequentially increased wear on more rubber.

I shimmed a plate that sits behind / beneath the gear, which increased friction but where the rubber is badly rubbed away it has eventually become ineffective.

The design was crazy at outset to my mind.
 
CG from MK said:
Gears are generally available in nylon/plastic,just google and something should show up.The manufacturers will supply small quantities and they are not expensive.I've purchased many over the years,good luck!
Click to expand...

There have already been multiple attempts to source the gears here and on other ST forums over the years. Seems like somebody would have found something by now. Please knock yourself out helping us with this. :)
 
Shadowfax-ST said:
I'm no engineer but there's a nylon gear biting onto a rubber friction sheath coating the drive wire. When there's a slip, the rubber is gnawed away leaving nylon grating on metal cable causing wear, which gives less 'grip' and consequentially increased wear on more rubber.

I shimmed a plate that sits behind / beneath the gear, which increased friction but where the rubber is badly rubbed away it has eventually become ineffective.

The design was crazy at outset to my mind.
Click to expand...

I wonder if the European version is different than the states. I've worked on mine and the gear is metal and engages into a metal flexible cable. There is a elastic member between the metal coils of the cable. Either way the parts ware and the design is less than ideal. My feeling is that if the windshield was only moved when the bike is not moving it would last much longer, possibly outlast the bike, d'oh, outlast an ST not possible:). Larger aftermarket windshields place even more stress on the mechanism when attempting to adjusted with the pressure generated at speed. I've even read where some say a large windshield wont even adjust at all when moving.
 
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