Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
When I last left off, the entire bike was down to the frame, and ready to get painted, while the engine was waiting to receive its rear head and then be reunited with the frame.
Let's begin with the frame. I would recommend when painting something yourself, that you spend the extra time prepping the piece you're painting so to avoid the headaches and wasted time that ensues if you do not prep the piece correctly. This means strip as much paint off the piece as you can and wet-sand the piece to a smooth matte finish before you primer it. If you do those parts correctly, the paint should go on smooth and glossy (assuming you're using a glossy finish, of course) and there should be much less finish work needed to make it look pretty. When painting in a garage or other multi-use area, be sure to cover things that you dont want paint on, because it gets EVERYWHERE. I didn't do this the first time I painted, and my bike, that was all the way accross the garage, was coated in a red dust. I also recommend when doing a frame or something like that that is going to have parts bolted on and is under heavy stress that you put some coats of wax on it before reassembling all the parts. This will help preserve the paint coat by adding some layers of protection against rubbing and scraping.
I used Rustoleum Universal Gloss Cardinal Red for my frame, and having a can of paint thinner is always nice to wash the pain off your hands when you're finished if you're like me and never wear gloves.
Once the painting is done, the fun begins. Take your time putting the bike back together, and clean each part as you go. If you put in a couple of hours each day, this is a great way to relax and take your mind off work and the other aggravating things in your life. Piece the bike back together reverse of how you took it apart, and things will just fit in; it's like a huge, motorized puzzle!
When returning the nervous system (wiring harness) to the skeleton, lay it out next to the bike and see where everything goes and figure out the best course of action to put it in the bike. This may take a couple of tries before you realize how its supposed to go in.
Just slowly work on piecing things in, remembering to grease the parts that are constantly moving like suspension components and bearings.
The bike begins to take shape.
And all of a sudden, it's ready for an engine!
For this bike, the rear exhaust pipes need to be installed before the engine is installed into the frame. So i decided this was a good time to clean them. They look so nice after a little bit of steel wool and simple green!
After a little bit of fanagling, the motor just pops right in. This really helps with a second person though.
No matter how much you look at the motor before it goes in the bike, leaks always show their ugly head when you're about to fire it.
Once everything was bolted up and all leaks were fixed, the thing fired right up. And purred. Aside from a high idle due to a carb maladjustment, it ran great.
Time to paint the panels! First I stripped the tank as much as I could, and all the panels down to bare plastic. Then I spent a lot of time wet-sanding the panels for smoothness. The white primer coat then went on. More wet-sanding, and then the base coat, white again. Then time for plenty of clear coats.
Here's the final product.
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