1976 Kz 900 A4

Im an hour or more away......... but I got Baldor polishing stand and wheels/grits. Seriously I have seen the results of SHARKHIDE metal protectant.I bought a quart $80 but for polished parts you can't beat the performance compared to a lacquer or other clear. you can wipe on or use an airbrush. If you want to keep the shine give it a try. Also for roll pins look at Brownells gun parts they have good size kits for gunsmiths at fair prices( all come long and you cut/file to length).Hope it helps and wow you got some attention to detail for sure, looking good!

Hi MK. Was this the same polisher guy in Buffalo @ Tripp Plating that did the Zinc?
You should have bought a Harbor chi-comm buffer and some wheels and started a new career!
I just cleaned these suzuki gs1100 forks up. They polished nice. They are on eBay right now.

I have a one fork hyd. damper sitting, Would you like the whole thing? This roll pin actually looks like someone ground the tips down after it was installed?? I could mail it out today 1st class mail. You can have it free.
Marty in Buffalo

Shankkole wrote: Im an hour or more away......... but I got Baldor polishing stand and wheels/grits. Seriously I have seen the results of SHARKHIDE metal protectant.I bought a quart $80 but for polished parts you can't beat the performance compared to a lacquer or other clear. you can wipe on or use an airbrush. If you want to keep the shine give it a try. Also for roll pins look at Brownells gun parts they have good size kits for gunsmiths at fair prices( all come long and you cut/file to length).Hope it helps and wow you got some attention to detail for sure, looking good!

You have been around! Do you know about "ZOOP"?? must be a similar product? learned about that 25 yrs. ago from the hot rod car guys. Keeps aluminum like fresh polished all season.

Marty,

No I didn’t have Steve at Tripp polish them. I try to find local guys to avoid shipping. The guy that did them was a retired guy that has a local shop I’m assuming is moragte free and didn’t need the money. I still took a chance but learned a good lesson. The gentleman on the west side of Michigan that has been doing my Vapor Hone suggested a new polisher in Tennessee. I just put them in the mail this morning. Let’s see how this goes.

Thanks for the offer on the damper. I’ll PM you to discuss.

Another good hardware supply is McMaster-Carr (mcmaster.com). Not sure if they have the right roll pin you are looking for, but they have a lot of hard to find stuff. Yes, they are pricey, but the stuff arrives in one or two days - even during the pandemic. I had an envelope sit in a USPS sorting facility in Santa Ana, CA for eight days around a month ago... The postal service is not operating at a very high efficiency these days.

Skidmark wrote: The postal service is not operating at a very high efficiency these days.

Been there, took 15 days for the first round of zinc replaced parts to come home form NY. I probably could have walked them home faster. Hence the trying to find local sources for work.

Thank guys I’ll check out both Brownells and McMasters.

I'm a bit confused because I thought you were restoring to original. The lowers were never that polished out of the factory.

HRM, Your correct that is the intent. I thought I would just add a few personal touches. I have doubles of every thing I'm polishing and if it starts to look like more than a few subtle detail items I can swap them out. I'm not any thing that would take more than a quick bolt on and off to swap. For example I'm not polishing the wheel hubs, that would mean re-lacing a rim. So forks and a few other bolt on parts and covers are easy to swap out. The polished wont go to waste I have another build in my future.

hardrockminer wrote: I'm a bit confused because I thought you were restoring to original. The lowers were never that polished out of the factory.

I was wondering, too, to the point that I even got out my Feb. 1977 issue of Cycle magazine with my KZ1000A1 on the cover to check if my memory was fading and my lowers had just dulled. There must be a process to brush a cleaned up pair, wouldn't there?

BCScott wrote:

hardrockminer wrote: I'm a bit confused because I thought you were restoring to original. The lowers were never that polished out of the factory.

I was wondering, too, to the point that I even got out my Feb. 1977 issue of Cycle magazine with my KZ1000A1 on the cover to check if my memory was fading and my lowers had just dulled. There must be a process to brush a cleaned up pair, wouldn't there?

Look a few pages back, HRM showed a set he did that look very original. Sanded out the scratches, then vapor hone and then a light buff. I don’t know the grit or compound he used.

Sorry about the delay on the PM. I just don't look at them very often. Will take care of business on Monday.

I don't recall what paper I used but I suspect it was 3000 or 5000.

The originals, at least on the 1977 KZ650 bikes, had a clear coating of some sort on them. They were very clean and had a nice shine to them, but they did not look highly polished like chrome. Here's an image of mine when I installed a pair of new old stock ones on my 1977 KZ650-C1. Ed