I am not a TG owner, but I think most of these guys know that I am a die-hard Harley owner and I am on their side. I was a hairs-breath away from owning one, but kept my kitted Ultra Classic instead. Some of this stuff you see on this thread is not necessarily TG specific and is related to all the latest models, or any model for that matter (like the pulley change discussed above), so be careful with what you read and know what the particular issue pertains to.

I don't think any of us want to run you over to a Honda, but then again....study all you can concerning this very serious purchase. Maybe kit the two you have now? I realize either model may be too small for heavy 2-up long distance riding, but a small frame kit looks good too. Maybe kit one and get a trailer if you are looking at one scoot for the long trips.

There will be more opinions posted here soon...stay in touch.

 

The dealer was well aware of the need for the 11 primary pulley," not from the Tri Owners for he had not sold that many" the other model touring was also suffering from the sluggish off the line thing and lazy 6th gear. The heat has been around on the touring model since 07 and HD made the vicauious admission of this by making the EITMS retro back to that year.

I am not trashing all Harley's or promoting any metric. I considered a Trike Kit on a late model HD Ultra I had a good deal on but it was cost prohibitive in my area once I added everything up. If I had of went with my own build then the brakes, and the gearing would have been on me and I would probably have taken responsibility for the heat.

I however bought a factory trike that was supposed to have a two year warranty and was advertised to be an out of the box touring trike. It was engineered by HD and developed by HD and once they sold it for a considerable bit of money they took responsibility for the trike living up to owner expectations. No disclaimer about the heat, the brakes, the lousy gearing or a host of other smaller problems. If I had taken their Ultra and Triked it myself, it all would have been on me! I was expecting a little bit more from a factory purpose built Trike, especially the way they talked it up in all their advertisements.

A brand name is not like the allegience to a country! They sold me one good new one, the last big ticket touring Trike they sold me sucked as bought. It may be something I can be satisfied with at some point, I have not hit the magic dollar amount yet over sticker, nor the total hours of labor it will take to get it to what HD advertised it to be.

For whatever it is worth, to me since HD built it, they own it! The good and the bad. I have seen where a lot of the guys were thinking of Triking a bike out but opted for a factory Trike. I feel as I know a few of these shop heads and can say with confidence if they had built it they would have stood behind it. The strenghts they built into one and the weaknesses!

 

I don’t think that anyone is saying that at all! I GW may address the heat and performance issues but you may cause a Honda warranty issue! You can solve the TG performance and heat issues but it will require home work and bucks.

This ain’t a perfect world!

Jim

 

If you put a trike conversion on a GW or any other brand of motorcycle it will void the warranty.

 

We've all heard the term damned if you do and damned if you don't. Buy the Triglide and fix the problems HD built into it and cause warranty issues. Buy a Goldwing and install a trike kit and cause warranty issues. I looked into doing a Wing before I took delivery of my Triglide. While looking into it I ran across a thread on another site where a guy had the transmission fail on his new GW trike and the servicing dealer was a nice dealer, they dropped a dime on him about the trike kit to Honda which Honda responded by denying his warranty claim. When all was said and done he was out of pocket $3,400 to repair his broken transmission which BTW seems to be an issue with a great deal of the GL1800 wings.

 

It just can't be put any better than that. You can tie up as-much-and-more in a kitted GW as you can a TG....usually more and they have their own set of problems.

I don't say this because I have one, you'll just have to trust me on that, but my choice would be to try and find a "pampered" earlier model bike to use as a base to kit one from. Even an early to-mid 2000's model would be a good choice. They were not that far restrictive in microprocessor-control and EPA requirements then and you will have no "cats-n-dogs" to fool with. Might have to go in and fix the tensioner problems, but that can be done at a decent cost, especially if you can do it yourself. You can make a rock-solid motor out of the TC-88. I know of many that have rolled past 100,000 miles and are still going strong. You can bump those up to 85-95 HP if you want too at a reasonable cost and I can guarantee you that a TC-95 Stage II will run with the 96's and 103's with no problem at all.

I am slowly building my inventory of parts to keep mine going. You can find low mileage transmissions and complete engines out there for real good prices now, but that is not going to last much longer. So far....I have two complete transmissions (case and all) and one spare gear-set with a stock complete TC-88 motor on the way for just a few hundred bucks.

Just get on past having that TG emblem on the gas tank and you will see the light. You can also change a kitted bike back to a 2-wheeler if you ever wanted to, but with the TG...your stuck with it like it is.

 

Had a 07 GW trike, 35,000.00 invested...it can get expensive very fast

 

What we are doing is a very expensive hobby regardless of the make/model.

 

I also came real close to buying another 06 Ultra I had located that had 2,500 miles on it. I was planing on putting a Motor trike kit on it and yanking the engine and doing a Head Quarters 113 or 120 build. After pricing out what I would have had in everything I went with the Triglide, if I had only changed the batteries in my crystal ball sooner.

 

The classic cars + the Boats + the ATV's! Whoever has the most toys at the end wins!

Or is a slave to em! I got to start scaling back!