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Good Job Paint and body work is an art not easily mastered. I feel it's probably safe to say that this won't be the last time you paint you bike

A tip to make things easier for next time: Paint your stripe color first, then tape off your stripe and paint the rest of the tank. It's much less masking and less chance of getting overspray on another part of the tank Keep up the good work!

porchev914 wrote: Good Job Paint and body work is an art not easily mastered. I feel it's probably safe to say that this won't be the last time you paint you bike

A tip to make things easier for next time: Paint your stripe color first, then tape off your stripe and paint the rest of the tank. It's much less masking and less chance of getting overspray on another part of the tank Keep up the good work!

This will probably be the last time I paint this bike as I plan to have it professionally redone eventually (unless I get REALLY good at it), though I may be painting the '66 A1 when I get toward the end of that project...

Stripe first...makes sense now that I've tried it the other way. Thanks for the tip.

Ok...as promised, I have some better photos with my good camera. Keep in mind that I still need to get some seat foam, but it is otherwise ready to roll again!

clutch wrote:

Hmmm....looks like it's time to clean up those darn forks...and I thought I was done! LOL!

The bike looks great and you beat me too it...the dirty fork lowers stand out now that everything else is done. Also just throwing in my 2 cents that side covers without the emblems was the way to go. Great job and I totally feel your personal satisfaction after finally getting 600 miles on my bike this summer after 2+ years of staring at it in my garage.

danonelson0109 wrote: The bike looks great and you beat me too it...the dirty fork lowers stand out now that everything else is done. Also just throwing in my 2 cents that side covers without the emblems was the way to go. Great job and I totally feel your personal satisfaction after finally getting 600 miles on my bike this summer after 2+ years of staring at it in my garage.

Thanks! It's definitely a sleeker look without those monstrous letters an numbers on the covers. I have a feeling I would end up rubbing them off with my legs at stops and such since they are just stick-ons. As for the forks, whats the best way to clean those up? If you notice on the right one, I was playing around with a "polishing kit" I had bought a while back for my dremmel. It seems to work fairly well, but it would be time consuming to use that...especially since my battery for it doesn't last very long. Is there a faster/easier way to clean and shine those things?

I had to replace the seals in my forks a couple months ago and it was definitely easier to clean and polish the lowers while the forks were off the bike and disassembled.

I'm by no means an expert at polishing aluminum. I also have a dremel polishing kit and found that it is time consuming for larger pieces and also caused some noticeable unevenness in the finish. I have stopped using the dremel to polish.

The approach that worked sufficiently well for me was with sand paper then steel wool and a finish buff with polishing cream. I'd use 250 grit to even everything out, step down to 400 and keep at it to remove the 250 grit scratches, then 600 grit, then finer grades of steel wool to even everything out. There are still barely-visible scratches on all my polished aluminum, but from a few feet it looks pretty nice.

See attached picture of the results using the method above. Polishing is a pain, but in my opinion the results are worth it. Also an excuse to spend extra time in the garage while maybe enjoying some cold ones...

wish I'd found this thread a while back, excellent work.I think the rear foot peg mount would have popped a bit more with the recessed area painted gloss black, just my opinion.Wish I had the patience to paint like that.

Godfrey wrote: wish I'd found this thread a while back, excellent work.I think the rear foot peg mount would have popped a bit more with the recessed area painted gloss black, just my opinion.Wish I had the patience to paint like that.

Thanks! This thread is only about 3 weeks old or so. Not sure if it would have been around when you needed it

EDIT: I wish I had just a tad more patience to do it a little better

I took the tank off to remove the petcock and seal it with a liquid thread sealer today (it was leaking ever so slightly..only noticeable by touching the adapter plate). When I flipped it back over, I realized it had been sitting on top of a screw and now I have some nice little scratches on the top of it.


Any tips on doing a repair job, rather than completely repainting it would be appreciated.

Looks really good clutch... Great Job!. Had it on the road yet?

Boostable wrote: Looks really good clutch... Great Job!. Had it on the road yet?

Thanks

I haven't ridden since fixing the ignition problems, rewiring and painting...unless you count going back and forth on my driveway a few times to make sure it was running right. I may take it out tomorrow for a ride before pulling the tank back off and fixing the scratches I made on it today. I keep looking at the pics I took and wondering if I should just clean the fork lowers, or if I should black those out too (I think the black will look better).