Blast from the Past

Found an old Browns Chrome plating receipt from 1981 for my Z1. All the motor covers and then some. 

You can tell it was "long ago" at those prices

Was the exhaust pipe brand new? I was told that a used exhaust pipe would be too dirty to re chrome.

Gdizard wrote:

Was the exhaust pipe brand new? I was told that a used exhaust pipe would be too dirty to re chrome.
 

I've heard something like that, but it was limited to used two-stroke pipes. I guess there was no good way to ensure all the oil residue was removed, and that stuff would contaminate the dip tanks.

Some chrome shops still refuse used exhaust, others no problem

Blast from the past is soo true!! Everytime i go chrome i always expect 1000USD bill, ha. Plus it's getting harder to find places that even do it anymore, EPA mandates run these industries out of business. Recently had a Z1 brake pedal, LTD900 grab bar done and misc little stuff done, resulting bill 600ish USD. I can see why persons buy repop, not correct but saves a crap load of money. 

It's nearly impossible to find a chrome plater in Massachusetts, and alot of the repop stuff is junk ,that's why I'm always on ebay and other places looking for the nice used stuff. Which is getting harder to find.

You are 100percent correct Ron! Used to be able to find those bits on ebay but that venue is slim pickings/dried-up these days. I used to have a fairly local chromer in KCMO, Detray Plating. But "Bub" retired and no one else picked up the skill so no longer doing it. They referred me to shown chromer in St. Louis, MO. Super Nice fellas and reasonable as you can get. Also have Paul Miller of Suzuki fame do some stuff for me but that's more of a barter thing. I do his early Suzuki GT750 gauges and we swap services. Stuff shown is what Family Finishing did for me. A gaggle of those Z1 original springs and a handful of the passenger peg "exposed" end stems. Can't buy those chromed, have been superseded to zinc.   

We sent so much stuff to Browns Plating in the 70's and 80's when I worked at the custom shop. We had exchange kits for the 750 Hondas and the Z1900 where you could drop off your covers and get chromed ones that same day. The prices on chrome is through the roof around here. They are charging 300 for a rim or front fender. 

Our crew somewhere around 1980.
 

Brown's was relatively in our back yard.  Had a few things done by them in the day.  They're missed1

We've had stuff done recently at Spacecoast.  They precisely followed our instructions to retain crisp legibility of date codes on Z1 rims, but couldn't retain the linishing marks.

www.spacecoast-plating.com/

Good Ridin'
slmjim & Z1BEBE

Did they have complementary bell-bottom jeans to complement those shades?

I do believe bell bottoms were out of style by then. Thank God!