HeatShieldKitInstall3

Detailed Installation Instructions for a

This procedure is easier with the fuel tank nearly empty, because it is lighter.

1. Start by evicting any cats from the garage; cats die from drinking coolant spills (ethylene glycol).

2. Put the bike up on a jack and tie the front wheel straight forward, to prevent handlebar damage to the fuel tank. The picture shows a cord tied to the right rear foot peg. Tie both sides when up on a jack.

3. Unlock and remove seat.

4. Detach the vacuum line from the petcock.

5. Pop loose the fuel line disconnect, if you have one. Otherwise, pry the fuel hose off the petcock nipple.

6. Unscrew the Phillips #2 screw inside the chrome petcock handle and pull the handle off the petcock. Just let it hang there. The screw will stay inside the handle.

7. Unbolt the fuel tank, lift the rear edge up 2” and prop it up with a piece of wood (2x4 shown in picture). Detach the tank vent hose. If your fuel tank is full, you’ll want to cap this vent with a vacuum cap from one of the intake manifolds. Otherwise, fuel will shoot out when you move the tank. For the Interstate tank, disconnect the fuel sender wire. Finally, lift the tank off and put it on a towel, using a gallon paint can to hold up the rear end. This keeps the weight off the petcock, so it doesn’t get knocked loose. If the fuel tank is full, it may squirt fuel out the vent as the temperature in the garage goes up. You can install a vacuum cap on the vent to prevent this.

8. Remove the top of the air filter box (six #2 Phillips screws). Put the top and the air filter somewhere clean.

9. Loosen six #2 Phillips screws on the hose clamps, atop the carbs, that hold the air filter box boots to the carbs. Remove the bolt at the rear end of the filter box.

1. Slowly lift up the air filter box while helping the rubber boots off the carbs. Pull each loosened clamp onto its carb as you progress through this, one carb at a time. While you’re in the middle of lifting, detach three hoses from the bottom of the air box. Use needle nose pliers for two of them. The third, the dragon drool hose, will detach on its own as you lift the air box, because it is saturated with oil. The picture shows all 3 hoses with their open ends. When the air box is finally free, put it somewhere clean after threading its bolt back into its rear end.
2. Remove the pods on the Interstate model with a 5mm hex wrench. They are held on by three bolts: Front, top, side. Leave alone the other two bolts, the ones just above the adjustable air louvers. Gently pull the pods straight out sideways to pop them off the rubber grommets on the bars. Put the pods on a soft rag.
3. Remove the engine crash bars.
4. Remove two #3 Phillips screws holding the PAIR valve to the carb assembly crossbar. It is in the center of the top picture, but the two screws are shown in the bottom picture. Use needle nose pliers to pull up the hose clamps onto the fat hoses (see bottom picture). Now pull up “hard” on these hoses to slide them off the reed valve assemblies, and the PAIR valve will come free. Put it somewhere clean, keeping the screws with it.

14. Remove the PAIR valve vacuum line and petcock vacuum line. On the California model detach the rear hose from the upper octopus of hoses, leading to the canister/valve. When you pull the carb assembly out in step 23, you want all your octopi to come out fully attached to the carbs.

15. Take a picture of the throttle linkage adjusters, to help with reassembly. I put marks on the adjusters with a felt tip pen. Detach the two throttle cables. PULL is inboard and RETRACT is outboard.

PULL has a long adjuster w/two nuts and RETRACT has a short adjuster w/one nut. RETRACT’s wire pokes out shorter too, like in the picture. Detach the throttle cables from the carb assembly. Tie them to the frame with tape or something, so they don’t poke you in the eye later on. Your face ends up here a lot.

16. Remove three #2 Phillips screws from the chrome plated linkage guards at the top of the carbs. These cover the choke linkage. The clutch side guard has a wiggly wire to hold onto the choke cable as it pops out the front.

17. Take a picture of the choke linkage adjuster for help with reassembly. I put marks on the adjuster with a felt tip pen. Then detach the choke cable and move it out of the way, so it doesn’t poke you in the eye later on. It seems safe to just let it stick straight out sideways at the top of the radiator.

18. Unbolt the front spark coil (labeled coil #1 and #2) and tie this assembly to the frame to get it up and out of the way, as in the picture.

19. Use a 6” extension on a small ratchet to break loose the twelve 8mm bolts, holding the six intake manifolds to the heads. Loosen the six hose clamps at the carb bases, holding the intake couplers to the carbs. These hose clamps are the upper ones, not the lower ones. You’ll be leaving each rubber connector attached to its intake manifold. Also detach the big drain hose from the drain octopus.

1. One intake manifold at a time, you need to:
   1. Unscrew the bolts
   2. Pull/wiggle the intake manifold off the carb
   3. Plug the intake hole in the head with a yellow plastic plug, to keep debris out.

1. At this point the carb assembly is sitting on top of the engine. We need to get it out of there, and lots of stuff is in the way. Remove three bolts from the motor mount holding the ignition switch. Pull it back (while twisting it) toward the rear of the bike, and just let it hang there.

1. Remove three bolts from the clutch side motor mount. Move this one out of the way too, leaving the spark coils still attached: Push in, pull up and let it hang there. In the picture, I have wedged it behind its mounting tab on the frame. This seems to work.

1. With both motor mounts out of the way, the carb assembly can be very slowly worked out the throttle side of the bike. The carb drain octopus gets its hoses snagged on the reed valve assemblies, so unhook the hoses as they snag there. During all this, the carb assembly must be tilted and rotated to clear the hump in the air dam, at the center front of the engine. The hump covers the thermostat housing. In the top picture, the #2 carb is not yet over the hump. In the bottom picture, #2 carb has just cleared the hump. The #2 carb drain line is very likely to be snagged at this point.

At this point, the carb assembly is finally out, and you can see the top of the engine for the first time.

1. Break loose the two hold down bolts on each of the reed valve assemblies, using a ratchet with 10mm socket and 3”-6” extension. Unscrew these bolts and remove the reed valve assemblies, but leave the smog pipes floating there for now - we don’t want debris falling into open holes in the heads.
2. Draining the coolant: Undo the radiator cap set screw, unscrew the cap and let it sit in place. This keeps debris out of the radiator. Undo the bolt under the water pump housing and let the coolant drain out into a bucket. Reinstall the drain bolt, being careful to not lose the copper or aluminum sealing washer. If you’re going to flush your coolant down the toilet, you should measure how much you drained out first. Around 97 fluid ounces comes out.
3. Remove the air dam. To do this you need to stretch the lower rubber membrane to get it off the four fasteners. You can pry the fasteners with a blade screwdriver a tiny bit to get the membrane loose. Don’t try to completely remove the fasteners; you might break off the plastic stubs. The goal here is to minimize damage. You should be able to stretch it off the fasteners without tearing it (bottom picture).

Here is a picture of the air dam completely detached from the membrane.

Just lift the air dam out and put it somewhere.

27. Thermostat will be abbreviated TSTAT. Using a 10mm combination wrench, use the closed end to break loose the 3 bolts holding the upper part on. Use the open end to unscrew the bolts, because there is not much clearance in there. Use some twine to tie the TSTAT housing lid up and away from the lower part. Two strings are used for this in the picture. Be careful not to rip the air dam membrane, which is probably neoprene. Pop the TSTAT out. Inspect the TSTAT and its gasket. The TSTAT should open at 190 degrees F. You can test this by plopping it in a pot of water and heating it up to the boiling point. The TSTAT should smoothly open as the temperature swings up through 190, and it should smoothly close as the water cools off down through 190. Don’t tell your significant other about this – just clean the pot and put it back.

28. Soak up the little puddle of coolant inside the TSTAT housing. Detach the two electrical clips from the sensors on the TSTAT housing. Use a small ratchet with 10mm socket and 3” extension to break loose the two mounting bolts. I think it is convenient to use a 12” extension and a universal joint to unscrew the bolts after breaking them loose. Push the TSTAT housing forward enough into the air dam to clear the water pipes, tilt it down and remove it sideways. The pushing forward part is just a little bit difficult, and the picture shows me prying with a large blade screwdriver against some wood scraps. The rubber seals in there are stubborn.

29. Use a ratchet with 10mm socket and 3”-6” extension to break loose the bolts holding down the chrome water pipes. Unscrew these bolts by hand and pull the coolant pipes straight out of the heads with a twisting and wiggling motion.

30. Sop up the coolant from the top of the engine. Clean the top of the engine. I used Simple Green and Formula 409 mostly, but some hardened grease required paint thinner.

31. Plop the heat shield down on the crankcase, while pulling up the TSTAT electrical wires to be on top. You can use an X-acto knife to clean up the edges. Don’t let any trimmings fall into the holes in the heads where the coolant pipes go. They could clog the radiator.

32. Remove old seals from coolant pipes and clean the pipes. Nev-r-Dull wadding can be used to polish them. Nev-r-Dull is raw cotton with a petroleum based solvent and a mild acid (I think). Don't use steel wool on chrome. If you have trouble cleaning old gasket sealant out of a seal groove, use a sharp piece of plastic or a popsickle stick to rub it out. If the chrome plating is cracked or missing in the groove, the water pipe is End-Of-Life and must be replaced.

33. Put a dab of fast drying hard setting gasket adhesive (e.g. Permatex #1) on the tip of your finger. Wipe it into the seal grooves on the pipes as you rotate the pipes. Install new seals, dry. Clean up any mess you got on the pipes. You need to let this stuff harden for an hour, but you can speed up the wait: 5 minutes with a hair dryer, 15 more minutes to cool down. You can use acetone on a q-tip to clean up excess gasket sealant, although acetone weakens or dissolves rubbers of many kinds. Don't let acetone contact the seal for more than a second or two. Don't vigorously rub the seal. Use light swipes.

34. Put a drop of oil on the tip of your finger and wipe it on the seals as you rotate the coolant pipes. Honda says to use coolant to lube the seals, but they are insane. Use oil or you’ll cut the seals. Install the coolant pipes through the heat shield’s elongated holes. There should be a “foop” moment when the pipe goes into the hole in the head. If you don’t recall any such “foop”, pull the pipe out and inspect the seal. Lastly, line up the hold down bolt holes with the engine bolt holes using an ice pick, as in the picture. Screw in the bolts loosely for now.

Note: One air pipe touches the short water pipe and another air pipe touches the long water pipe, right at the places where these water pipes fit into the heads. The heat shield is flipped up in this picture, to allow matching some bolt holes up with an awl. You can see there is a small half circle cut out of the heat shield, to allow the two pipes to touch. If you have no air pipe here, because you're fully desmogged, you won't have to cut half circles into the shield here. The heat shield is shown in final position in Step 42, bottom picture, so you can see each half circle skirting the point of contact (short coolant pipe has a half circle cutout, and long coolant pipe has a half circle cutout).

35. Straighten the short coolant tube so it lines up with the long pipe. In the picture, a stick is used to pry the short one until it lines up. Put a drop of oil on your finger and wipe it around the seals and also inside the two holes of the TSTAT housing. Push the TSTAT housing into the air dam so you can slide it sideways and line it up with the coolant tubes. Pull back on the housing, seating the tubes. This is actually pretty easy to do.

36. Put a sealant on the threads of the TSTAT mounting bolts. Hylomar or Permatex Blue RTV 6B #80022 is fine. Screw in the two bolts and torque them down to whatever seems OK (it is hard to measure torque in there). Lastly, tighten the bolt at the middle of the little coolant tube and the one in the middle of the long coolant tube.

37. Install a new TSTAT gasket on the old (or new) TSTAT. The lip in the TSTAT housing where this gasket sits is probably ugly, so you want to put some gasket adhesive there. You don’t need adhesive on the plastic lid. Install the TSTAT with the spring end down and pilot hole towards the rear of the bike. It won’t stay bottomed in the lip of the housing.

Untie the TSTAT housing lid and wipe the sealing surface. Flop it down onto the TSTAT housing and put antiseize compound on your three bolts (they are corroded). Install the three bolts and torque to 1.4 ft.lb, says Honda. This isn’t much torque. It is because the lid is plastic and can’t take a lot of torque without distorting. Hook up the electrical wiring to the thermostat housing sensors.

38. Put the coolant back in, approximately 97 fluid ounces. Check the ends of the coolant pipes for leaks. This is your big chance to find leaks, before you put it all back together. If you cut a seal when installing a coolant pipe, it will leak plenty. Leaking coolant will pool on top of the engine, and all you have to do is lift up the heat shield to see it.

39. Now would be a good time to static balance the carbs on your workbench. All you need is a 0.002” x .25” x 2” strip of brass shim stock, a #2 Phillips screw driver and the Honda manual to see the carb adjustment order. It isn’t scary. Best of all; you can choose not to adjust anything. You basically just open the throttle, insert the shim, close the throttle on it, and pull the shim out. When each carb is equally grabby on the shim stock, you’re done. If you have sensible fingers, you can do an awesome job of balancing the carbs this way.

40. Unscrew the bolts under the heads, attaching the smog pipes (see top picture). For the OEM setup, it takes a 5mm hex wrench. Remove the chrome plated bolts that hold these same two pipes on top of the heads. (Above the #1 and #6 cylinders.) Cock the long pipe at #1 cylinder and lift the shorter pipe out of the head (see second picture). Lift all four smog pipes out of their holes in the heads. Replace the four rubs and four o-rings and reinsert the smog pipes into the holes on top of the heads. When you reinstall the smog pipes underneath, you might need new graphite gaskets. I ruined one of my two OEM gaskets – it just fell apart. Now is also a good time to replace the six couplers on the smog pipes. I suggest A1-15 boat fuel hose, inside diameter 3/8”, like in the Stealth Desmog kit. But you can probably use any 3/8” fuel hose rated SAE J30 R7 or R9. Whatever you put on, install the coupler fully onto the smog pipes in preparation for the following steps. This will require some oil if the couplers are new.

41. Install the reed valve assemblies and torque the bolts to 8 ft. lb. Use the special tool (see instructions for Stealth Desmog Kit) and a rubber mallet to whack the couplers onto the nipples of the reed valve assemblies. If you’re reusing your OEM Honda couplers, you can just push them on by hand: They are gushy and saturated with oil. Any SAE J30 R7 fuel hose will get saturated with oil here. You need SAE J30 R9 (or A1-15 boat hose) to avoid this. The R9 hose is easier to manhandle than the A1-15 boat hose, but it costs four times as much.

42. Put the air dam back on. It is necessary to cut off the lower inch of the air dam, where it goes over the motor mounts and tries to penetrate the newly installed heat shield. You should cut a little bit off repeatedly, until it fits. See picture. The cut is slightly angled to match the slope of the heat shield. After the cutting the legs of the air dam, you need to reattach the flexible lower membrane. Stretch it to fit over each fastener.

43. Route the spark plug wires wherever they were before. They have labels, so this isn’t mysterious.

44. Position the carb assembly so it sits on the engine. The lower octopus (for the carb drains) catches on the reed valve assemblies, so help those little hoses over.

45. Put a drop of oil on a fingertip and wipe it around the inside of each rubber insulator boot for each intake manifold. Check the intake o-rings for cuts or chunks missing. Pop the intake boots back onto their carbs, while you lift the carb assembly. Don’t forget the hose clamps. Now the carb assembly is standing on all six intake manifolds, atop of the six yellow plastic plugs in the intake ports. For each side do the following:

a. Lift the side.

b. Feel with fingers to verify three o-rings are seated.

c. Remove three yellow plugs.

d. Wipe off three intake port surfaces with your fingers.

e. Let the side down.

46. Put antiseize compound on the intake bolts and screw the bolts in by hand. Remembering the funny clamps at #5 and #2 cylinder. Torque to 6.5 ft.lb, says Honda. That’s 78 inch pounds.

47. Tighten all six clamps at the tops of the rubber insulating boots at the carbs. Honda Calls them carb insulator band screws. No torque specified. Don’t tighten the heck out of them.

48. Put the pair valve back on. This requires needle nose pliers to push the hose clamps back down at the reed valve assemblies. Use a screwdriver to tighten the two #3 Phillips screws. They made it into the picture this time.

49. Reinstall motor mounts using antiseize compound on the threads. Torque upper bolts to 20 ft.lb and the lower bolt to 33 ft.lb. If an upper bolts strip out, you can put a longer metric bolt of the same thread through the hole, with a lock washer and nut on the inside.

50. Hook up the throttle cables and choke cable like in the pictures you took. Make sure your throttle has a little slack when released and fully closed. Verify this by watching the throttle cable ends while you operate and release the throttle.

51. Hook up the PAIR valve vacuum line, petcock vacuum line and vacuum caps to the nipples on the intake manifolds. One vacuum cap might be missing, if it is on the fuel tank vent.

52. Untie the spark coil for cylinders #1 and #2. Bolt it to the frame.

53. Clean the engine crash bars and reinstall them. Nev-r-Dull cotton wadding can be used to polish them. Torque to 20 ft.lb for the smaller bolts and 35 ft.lb for the big monster bolt in front.

54. Reinstalling the air box: Look around underneath the air box as you’re putting it back in place. In particular, make sure the dragon drool line is hooked up, as is the big hose for the PAIR valve.

55. Reinstall the pods for the Interstate by first pushing sideways toward the engine (getting the pod into the grommet) and then reinstalling the three bolts back in with a hex driver. These are fragile, decorative bolts; this takes very little torque.

56. Putting the fuel tank back on: Slowly put the tank back on and prop up the rear end of the tank with a piece of wood 2” tall. This gives you room to reattach things. If you have a vacuum cap on the vent, put it back on the intake manifold. Put the vent hose on the vent. For the Interstate, also reattach the fuel sender wire. Then pull the wood block out and slowly lower the tank. Install tank bolts and torque front to 8 ft.lb and rear to 20 ft.lb, says Honda I think this is a bit excessive on the rear torque: I used 10 ft.lb on the rear bolt.

57. Reconnect the disconnect, or install the fuel line onto the petcock. Put the chrome handle back onto the petcock and screw in the #2 Phillips screw.

58. Reinstall the seat. Lower the bike off the jack and untie the handlebars.

59. Take the bike out for a run to warm the engine up, and then check for coolant leaks at the coolant pipes. If you see such a leak, you will probably want to repair it from the front (another set of instructions) to avoid the carbs. If you did a bench balance of the carbs and you changed adjustments a lot, your idle speed may be too high when you start up for the first time. So, be prepared to hit the kill switch when starting for the first time; you may need to adjust the idle speed with that wing nut in amongst the carbs.