Total Motorcycle Community Forums

as far as the sandblasting goes - call a body shop and see if they do that in-house or send it out. a lot of places send stuff out to another company, see who it is and ask if they'll do it (IIRC the last time i had something like that done is was pretty cheap)

the steering head should (and i say should, because once again, memory is a bit fuzzy) tap out. the bearings are probably pressed in - same with the dust cover. if not there has to be some kind of clip/retainer holding the bugger on. try tapping it with a rubber mallet - but don't whale on the sucker.

Cool, I'll try that when I get home.

I have a family friend who owns a body shop, so I'll ask him about the sandblaster. Thanks for the tips!

So, family friend does not have a sand blaster. But he has some other tool that should apparently do that the job. I'm not sure exactly what this tool is, because my dad was explaining it over the phone, from a description given to him from family friend. Sooooo, it's up in the air whether that will work or not.

For now, I've figured out a solution (albeit a temporary one) for the exhaust. I cut the stock exhaust just when it bends to run under the frame. Got that painted gloss black with high-temp paint. It doesn't look terribly good, and I'm sure it will be loud. But, they were free, didn't take much time to do, and they will work until I can afford a better option.

I've also repainted the headlight housing and gas cap a matte black, and the rear brake drum with that high-temp gloss paint (I'm not sure how hot that drum actually gets, but I didn't want to take any chances).

I'm having some second thoughts on disassembling and rebuilding the engine. I'm afraid I'm not to break it, loose something, or not be able to figure out how to put it back together.

So, I may be just take a few choice pieces off, cleaning what I can, then painting the crank case/tranny/cylinders all together. I would prefer not due to that, because then I get nasty amateur paint seams everywhere. Buuut, I do want to be able to ride this thing at some point.

I've set goal, and that's to have this thing finished an rideable by May 1st. That gives me about 9 weeks to get it done. I think that should be plenty of time. From where I'm standing now, it looks like my biggest obstacles are going to be:

Fabricating the seat and rear cowl.

Getting the paint stripped off of the frame.

Relocating the battery and electrical components (I cut off the stock mounts behind the side covers. The side covers were leaving, so having the battery and electrical box thing just sitting there would be ugly).

Making a new wiring harness, and improving it's connection to the various components.

Well, it looks like my plans may be getting set back. My car apparently needs about $1300 worth of work done. I don't even know how I'm going to pay for that, much less where I'll find extra money to buy parts for the bike.

So, I'm going to try and do as much as possible without actually purchasing parts, and then buy those when I get some money. But, sadly, it looks like I may not be able to ride this thing this summer.

So much for that...

I went ahead and ordered some parts.


I got:
Brake shoes and brake pads.
New dust covers for the forks.
New clubman handlebars.
New grips and throttle.

Total was about $150 w/ shipping.

It turned out that I didn't need a sandblaster. Advance Auto has a heavy duty paint remover, I bought some for the gas tank, and figured I'd try it on the frame. Apparently it works really well for that. Basically I just coated the entire thing in a layer of the paint remover spray, waited 20 minutes, then washed it off with a hose. Ta-da! Clean metal (mostly). Then, I just sanded off the remaining bits of paint and a couple small rust parts.

The coated the whole thing in primer, then in two layers of gloss black engine enamel (I figure the frame will get pretty hot in some places). This seems to have worked pretty well. It's definitely not professional quality, there are a couple of drips here and there, but overall it looks pretty decent.

I did the same thing to the tank as well. I haven't painted it's base yet, just primer. I had to use some bondo in a couple of places. I sanded that all down smooth. Coat of primer. That was last night. So when I get home tonight I should be able to sand out the drips and imperfections. Then, I should be ready for two base coats, a wet sand. Then two clear coats, and another wet sand then buff.

Also, the guy I bought the bike from had some picture from right before he sold it to me, so here are the "before" pics (stay tuned for the after...):


Edit: I'm not really sure why Photobucket is flipping that first picture...

I've made a fair amount of progress. Here is a picture from last night. Hopefully tonight I'll get the rear wheel and suspension done.