Engine paint, bolt paint, cold galzanization

jackleberry wrote:

MDZ1rider wrote: I'm with Nessism. I've had my Caswell kit for 10 years and done 4 restorations using it. It's probably the best money I ever spent. I use a 15% muratic acid to strip the zinc. It leaves the bare steel. Phosphoric acid leaves a black oxide coating. With the zinc stripped, you need to be ready to replate almost immediately. The bare steel will begin to flash rust within minutes of removing it from the acid.
There are several chromate conversions you can do to zinc plated hardware: Black, OD green, yellow (looks like cad) or clear (blue) which gives a rainbow effect. The clear can also get "cloudy" and may look like paint.
I've never owned or worked on a "P'. There may have been some special coating specification Kawasaki had to meet for the original Government contract these bike were sold under. I've seen a lot of regular Z1/KZ's over the years, and the majority of the hardware is zinc plated.

So, as someone who's seen lots of KZs over the years, do the side cover bolts look zinc plated to you, or do they look like they're covered in aluminum paint? Because on the KZP, they look like they're covered in aluminum paint (not that it looks painted on, it's very thin and uniform coating).

Read the thread by martin_csr, in the paint & bodywork section, 4 days ago
Pete




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pete greek1 wrote:

jackleberry wrote:

MDZ1rider wrote: I'm with Nessism. I've had my Caswell kit for 10 years and done 4 restorations using it. It's probably the best money I ever spent. I use a 15% muratic acid to strip the zinc. It leaves the bare steel. Phosphoric acid leaves a black oxide coating. With the zinc stripped, you need to be ready to replate almost immediately. The bare steel will begin to flash rust within minutes of removing it from the acid.
There are several chromate conversions you can do to zinc plated hardware: Black, OD green, yellow (looks like cad) or clear (blue) which gives a rainbow effect. The clear can also get "cloudy" and may look like paint.
I've never owned or worked on a "P'. There may have been some special coating specification Kawasaki had to meet for the original Government contract these bike were sold under. I've seen a lot of regular Z1/KZ's over the years, and the majority of the hardware is zinc plated.

So, as someone who's seen lots of KZs over the years, do the side cover bolts look zinc plated to you, or do they look like they're covered in aluminum paint? Because on the KZP, they look like they're covered in aluminum paint (not that it looks painted on, it's very thin and uniform coating).

Read the thread by martin_csr, in the paint & bodywork section, 4 days ago
Pete

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I did, but I didn't learn anything from it.

The KZP engines (crankcase, cylinders and valve cover) indeed appear to be painted silver. The side covers are painted in clear coat which turns yellow and rubs off (CitriStrip will remove this easily), but that aluminum engine paint they use is good stuff and looks exactly like rough finish but polished aluminum except that it never oxidizes--and CitriStrip won't touch it. The bolts look to have EXACTLY the same finish as the engine. However, as mentioned above, I inadvertently discovered a way to remove it with Evaporust and WD-40.

Oh, and another thing I think I forgot to mention. When I wiped the finish off the bolts, it looked the same on the rag as it had on the bolt--like a very very fine aluminum powder.

And one more thing. The bolts I soaked in Evaporust and washed and dried kept their finish. It was the ones that I pulled from the Evaporust and immediately wiped with WD-40 that the finish came off of. Until I have some idea how to replace it, I don't want to experiment any more with other fasteners...

Still waiting for some other KZP owners to chime in with some more insight
Pete

If the finish was easily removed from those KZ-P fasteners with Evaporust and WD-40, why would you want to replicate that? Are you trying to do a faithful restoration?

Nessism wrote: If the finish was easily removed from those KZ-P fasteners with Evaporust and WD-40, why would you want to replicate that? Are you trying to do a faithful restoration?

Let me put it like this: The fasteners where the finish isn't worn off don't rust and don't look ugly. It's not like I take the side covers off all the time, so if there's something I can spray or daub on them with a q-tip that lasts until the next time I wrench on them, that's fine with me. Yeah, I could gold plate them, but the way they were coated from the factory was good enough--it just doesn't last forever (but what does?).

Although I could shell out $80 for a set of SS bolts for the engine covers, the particular bolts I took the finish off of are part of the KZP specific heel toe shifter mechanism.

I'm also doing all my work in someone else's carport, so even if I wanted to electroplate stuff, that's just not going to happen for the forseeable future.

I was just hoping that somebody knew of a product that produces the same finish. I know people repaint the engines and this *seems* to be the same kind of finish...

Nessism wrote: The hardware is electroplated with a coating of zinc, followed by a sealer of some sort, possibly a chromate. You can not replicate this coating out of a spray can. Caswell's plating sells a kit that works nicely. I've been using one for three bikes worth of restorations now and can't even imagine being without anymore.

www.caswellplating.com/

That's bad ass!

The factory finish is just cheap flash plating,no copper or nickel.

So I did a little test... Soaked a zinc plated nut and bolt from the hardware store overnight in Evaporust and cleaned it with WD-40 after... As expected, there was no effect.

So I think whatever the kawasaki bolts were coated in was definitely not a plating.

jackleberry wrote: So I did a little test... Soaked a zinc plated nut and bolt from the hardware store overnight in Evaporust and cleaned it with WD-40 after... As expected, there was no effect.

So I think whatever the kawasaki bolts were coated in was definitely not a plating.

How about posting some photos of the bolts in question? Think you mentioned they were engine bolts?

I'm rebuilding my '81 GPz550 and refinishing all of my hardware and fasteners. I'm getting the rust and original finish off using phosphoric acid (kleen strip). Once all of the fasteners are stripped, I'm going to refinish them with Gun Kote.

I'm using the same technique to strip the paint off of my calipers and handlebar controls so that they can be refinished as well.