I’m afraid not. Neither of us are mechanically inclined. we are both only good for checking the oil level and kicking the tires.
I get your frustration. A conversation with a competent technician should go something like this:
"Hi Mam. I'm not experienced on your model, year of motorcycle, but I do know how to troubleshoot electrical issues. If you would be willing to gamble the price of one hour labor plus shop supply fee, I will do my best to go over the basics. We may not come up with the solution, but by the end of that hour you will know the following:
- Battery condition
- Starter condition (primary and secondary wiring)
- Any abnormal current draws: Key off - engine off, Key on - Engine off
- Overall visual inspection of the wire harness
- If I can get the bike started in that first hour, I'll be able to test the charging system
At that point, I'll be more comfortable in telling you if I can competently repair your bike, or if you'd be best to find a specialist."
Since this is not the type conversation you are getting, it may help if you initialize the conversation. So first you need to decide if it is worth the time and money to gamble that hour labor, shop supply fee and your time to take it to a shop. If you think that is a yes, maybe try something along the lines of this approach:
"Hi I'm Kathleen, and I have a new to me 1983 Honda Goldwing with a sidecar. It appears to have a battery/starter/charging system issue, as I can't get it to restart.
I would be willing to gamble an hour of your labor charge, plus shop supply fees, if you would be willing to check the following for me:
- Battery condition
- Starter condition (primary and secondary wiring)
- Any abnormal current draws: Key off - engine off, Key on - Engine off
- Overall visual inspection of the wire harness
- If you can get the bike started in that first hour, a test the charging system
If you don't feel this can be competently covered in one hour, I'm open to negotiation with the understanding that this is a gamble. But at least I will know the above. At the end of the troubleshooting any personal insight and recommendations beyond the above information, based on your wealth of experience, would be sincerely appreciated."
Too many times customers will come into a shop with demands, and ideas that are not at all realistic. When someone comes in with a plan, a bit of knowledge, and realistic expectations it can soften that "wall".
Side Note: The items above are pretty basic electrical troubleshooting skills. A technician not comfortable with doing this is a technician you do not want to work with, no matter how nice or accommodating.
Hope this proves helpful.
Hold my keyboard and watch this! 🙃
Very nice of Scott to be the wordsmith in his dissertation. I applaud you, Man from Roosevelt.
Kathleen, I can tell you the more common electrical ailments that your generation of Goldwing usually had.
Regulator/Rectifier...as you have already previously been told.
Stator....the motorcycle version of an alternator.
Wiring connector and wires coming out of the engine casing, from the Stator, going to the Regulator/Rectifier.
Aftermarket "stuff" that has tapped into the bike's electrical system, and creating a "draw" on the battery, even when the bike is off.
My experience with these sidecar rigs, is that 99.99% of the people that installed a sidecar to a motorcycle, do a TERRIBLE job of Wiring the sidecar wires into the bike's Wiring system. Most of work like that is done by "butchers"...they butcher the bike's Wiring.
Even well known sidecar manufacturers in the US today, in 2025, do NOT do a professional job on the wiring. Only one professional shop in all of the US does a competent and professional job of wiring the sidecar to the bike, and he is 3,000 miles away from you.
I have much newer sidecar rigs, and I insist doing the wiring on the bike myself, before having the sidecar manufacturers install the sidecar, so all they have to do is attach the sidecar wiring to the new wiring I installed on the bike. And even when they are done, and the new rig is back in my shop, I clean up their messy work.
Trailer yours to the USCA National Sidecar Rally in Topsham, Maine in June, and we Borg, The Collective, will fix your bike for.....FREE.
One tip: disconnect everything that is connected to your battery, except the original heavier Black ground wire to the Negative side of the Battery, and the heavier Red wire that is connected to the Positive side of the Battery.
The only two wires you want, or need, connected to the Battery....right now.....are those two wires.
If a previous owner(s) have installed anything.....ANYTHING....to the bike that you don't want, or like....remove it. Throw those items at your husband's Tesla, and blame the neighbors.
Two Million Mile Rider
Exploring the World in Comfort
wow! Well, I can tell you that the wiring by the battery looks like a jumbled mess to me. I think there might have been a wire or two just hanging around. I’m not connected to anything I thought maybe it was just a ground wire. If I Can figure out how to take a picture with this phone and send it I will. But in the meantime today, I will go over and hook those two wires back up that you mentioned.
Thank you for that fantastic offer of working on my bike! I know that is not what you have planned for when you go to a rally and I appreciate the generosity of your time and efforts! I did Register for the rally in Maine! I will have my rig on a trailer, and camp in my Honda element. I’m sure you guys have your plans mapped out for each day so I would not hold you too fixing my electrical problem. I would have it there just in case you could even look it over. But I would not expect you to devote too much time on your vacation to my problem. but I would be very happy to be there and meet everyone.
If I am able to find a mechanic before that with the helpful suggestions and guidelines that I have now been given, then I would hopefully get it in writing condition because I have not even been able to get inspected yet. I was going to but then start to get to the inspection station and I’m sure it would fail for brakes anyway.
so tomorrow I will devote my day to finding a mechanic near or far.
I thank you again for such a generous offer and I look forward to meeting everyone in June! If we do have luck with the electrical system, but the bike is still unusable due to brakes and inspection, And I will just tour around Maine While everyone is out riding and then meet up at the campsite at the end of the day.
Sounds like a fun vacation to look forward to!
I am sorry, I was using speech to text and then I did not proofread. But I think you could figure out what I was saying I hope.
And by tour around Maine, I meant in my car, Disconnected from the trailer
Kathleen, when anyone on these forums makes an offer to help...they mean it, and they do not make the offer just to be polite.
You bring your Sidecar rig to Maine, and you will have to beat people away with a stick (willow branches work best) as several of us will be there to offer assistance and support.
BTW, even if your Sidecar rig isn't up and running, there will be plenty of empty seats in sidecars that are there, if you care for a ride...as the Monkey.
Another term you need to learn....the person, dog, or living thing IN the sidecar, is called the MONKEY. A term that goes back 100 years.
Don't be shy, this is an extremely SAFE environment, with great people....wives, dogs, kids, etc.
Worst thing that could happen is someone eats too many donuts. 
There WILL be plenty of tools available, and volt meters, etc, so we will be HANDS ON with your bike.
Two Million Mile Rider
Exploring the World in Comfort
thank you for that! And yes, if I wasn’t so far away, I would take you up on your generous offer, thank you! I did just Register for the rally in Maine, although I won’t Be able to ride I will just camp out and meet everybody.
As long as you are willing to read a book, I will just tell you of my first few rides on the Goldwing.
well, I consider my first ride to be my crazy ride off the trailer. Never having had a trailer before the instructions were to have me sitting on The bike and my dad would pull the pin on the trailer, then walk to the back of the trailer and put pressure on the back corner to help tilt the trailer. Then the bike would ease off. Well, I would not have used the word “ease “ off.
when my Dad Pulled the pin, the front of the trailer shot Straight up in the air , And the bike just flew off! That was a surprise to say the least! My dad saying to me, why didn’t you use the brakes?!
I said I’m sure I use the brakes, but I guess I didn’t use them hard enough! I didn’t realize at the time that it’s just that I had no breaks to speak of, so I’m sure I had been applying them. It had gotten dark by that time, so we had to put riding off for another day. The next available day I had of course it started raining hard and rain for three days straight. Finally, 10 days after buying the bike was the day to put the battery in. It started right up! The idle very high, so I goosed it-Which made it go higher and then higher! So I shut it down . OOOPS… Turns out I had It on full choke. Well now I know where the choke is! So my Dad was the first to drive it, I rode in the sidecar.
Out the driveway and through the Winding roads of the neighborhood. It was not what either of us had expected at all! The steering took so much effort with so much pressure on the bars to keep it where it should go. It was kind of shaky, then it got more shaky, then I remembered that I was supposed to push a button to get the air pressure up into the front and rear shocks, after that, it was less shaky but still shaking compared to the nice smooth ride of my magna of course. It still seemed like a wrestling match to steer so my dad and I then switched places and it was my turn to drive. Let me say that the person in the sidecar definitely had a worry that they would be forgotten and run into things because The driver was so focused on the workings of the shaky machine. Anyway, we weren’t going fast only 22 to 25 miles an hour and we rode a round like this for about an hour. So then I was testing the brakes. The side car has no break. The brakes on the bike were terrible! It took several bike lengths to come to a stop, and that was with only going about 25 miles an hour. So I figured when I brought the bike for inspection, I Would have the brakes Switched up, including the rubber hoses as was suggested. So back to my Dad’s We went. I Shut the bike down, but then I thought I would reposition it to a different parking spot. When I went to start it, it would not start. I thought maybe it was hot and needed a few minutes to cool off. After about two hours, I went out and the bike started up so I moved it to its parking spot. Then I turned it off and tried to start it again, but it would not start a few lights came on the dashboard, but it would not turn over. So, my dad and I after feeling quite shaken up by the unexpected performance of the motorcycle share a glass of wine or two, to calm our nerves and quell The Feeling of buyers remorse that was creeping in. the operation of this bike is so different than Either of us was expecting, So I stayed up all night watching YouTube videos of people riding Sidecar rigs. I wasn’t sure if the bike was Behaving this way due to my Way of driving it, or if it was a mechanical issue with the Goldwing. Most of the videos I saw I was watching peoples arms and how they were steering not seeing the wrestling match that I recall having done. Then I came to a video by.- TheMissenderFlyer.
The man(Andy) was also very surprised by the amount of pressure needed to steer. And I can see that he was putting the same amount of effort to keep the bike straight as I was. This was a great relief and helped ease the feeling that perhaps I had bought a lemon. His riding buddy got his turn to Take it for a spin . he compared The steering to flying a Taildragger Airplane. My dad and I had spent many decades flying in his 1947 Luscombe 8E a tail dragger. So when I told my dad that he felt a little better about the Goldwing as well.
So, day two the bike started Up without a problem, we took off around the neighborhood again. I was the driver and my dad, the hapless passenger. This time without the surprise of the.” Different” steering, and keeping our limited response breaking in mind, we had a less stressful ride. Around the neighborhood we went over and over. We even got a smile and wave for the first time from someone who stopped his mower to watch us. probably, he was seeing our lack of finesse and worried that we would Veer off course and take him out! Then we headed to the nearby church parking lot to run circles unfortunately the UPS man was taking a nap in his truck in the parking lot so I only circled few times then had to let him have his nap. But the parking lot is very small, I really need to find a bigger parking lot so I can, do some decreasing radius turns. So after that ride, I felt more enthusiastic about learning to drive it.
On the third day after still riding around the neighborhood many times, I planned on doing circles in the church parking lot. Heading into the parking lot and making a quick right hand, turn to get to where I needed to be. I perhaps was heading in a little too hot and up went the sidecar! I was surprised because I didn’t think it was that sharp of a turn, but I did not panic. The result was that I was a bit less aggressive with my circles. It was a short ride doing circles because suddenly cars started to appear in the parking lot. I had to leave before I would be kicked out for good. So we swung back to my dad‘s house shut her down to have some lunch. We had our picnic on the porch of my little camper. My dad had made a cute little campsite for me and I have a Small vintage camper a 1957 Scotty that is only 10 feet long. So we had a nice picnic after all. So after lunch, I was ready for another session! The parking lot was empty and I was wanting to do The circles. Unfortunately, the bike would not Start. After a few hours to cool down, it still would not start . just a click. The dash lights did come on, but it would not turn over. So that’s where I am at this point. Disappointed, and a bit worried that I may have got myself into something that will always be giving me problems. If I can find a mechanic that would be less of a worry, but that is a problem for tomorrow. Where I will put my nose to the grindstone and call every Motorcycle mechanic I can. I will try not to focus on the negative and just try to get things resolved. And that is The story so far.
Well, I just got to my dad’s house and he said…” Of course I Want to go to the rally also!”
So my dad,Tom Note will be coming along with me. So I won’t be Camping at the fairgrounds after all, but I will get a hotel room nearby.
Kathleen, if you and Tom Note (Dad) can get a room at the Comfort Inn, in Brunswick, Maine....that's sidecar central for most of the sidecar people staying in a hotel.
Right now, I have a fully paid reservation for a room with 2 queen beds, but.....my wife has decided to not come....which means I only need a room with one bed.
If you check with the Comfort Inn, and they have a room with one bed....I will trade you rooms.
That way, you and Tom Note (Dad) can have separate beds.
My reservation is for June 11th to June 15th.
Two Million Mile Rider
Exploring the World in Comfort
Miles beat me to the invite. My not-wife and I are also staying at Comfort. We’re driving up from Philly suburbs. Leaving Wednesday. She’s driving four wheels and I’m on the rig.
‘83 Interstate with Vetter Terraplane. Know my way around the old wings. I’m definitely not the only one that would greet you with a smile and wrench.
Rick and Amy
thank you, Miles, I was able to get a room with two Beds. I booked it just to avoid any unnecessary mixup that would probably happen on my end. But that was a kind offer. Thank you.!
Having not been to one of these rallies, I’m not sure of how much downtime there is. So I think I will keep my reserved camping spot maybe Pitch a tent there so we don’t have to keep running back-and-forth to the hotel. Since we don’t have a rig working, we might have a bit of sitting around in case all the monkey seats are taken up.
Even if I just set up an awning with a couple chairs. It’s at least a landing spot.
thank you! Do you have a bet as long as a drive as I do. My dad and I will be looking forward to meeting you both and everyone else there!
It sure feels nice That folks are so willing to help me out with my new troubled Motorcycle!
I’m sorry about the speech to text typos!
I was just saying that it looks like you have this as long a drive as I do
