Parts Cleaning

Well, not as much progress as I would have liked, but progress nonetheless. The weather has not been very cooperative for working in the garage until today. So, I washed and cleaned the fenders, tank and side covers in preparation for sanding them down.

I’ve also been grinding out the cracks in the fiberglass around bolt holes in preparation for repairing these stress cracks.

Grinding out Fiber Glass Cracks

Today I also got the cylinders and cylinder heads back from Clem.  He has the rings gapped, and provided a new carburetor top as mine had a cracked throttle cable bushing.  I also expect the repaired carburetor back from the Bing Agency next week along with the carb rebuild kit. 

I sent out the cylinder head with the cracked fin to Randy Long of Long’s Custom Services in Pennsylvania.  He specializes in head work and can repair the cracked fins.  You can see the blue paint from the wheel well of my Saturn where I hooked the cylinder head when I was backing out of the garage.  When I get the repaired head back, I’ve got a couple of places who can bead blast the cylinders and heads and I’ll get them cleaned up.

Cylinder Head Fin Damage

I’ve decided to go ahead and add an R90S fairing and may have located one in good shape with most of the hardware.  I picked up the correct turn signal stalks which are longer than the ones on the R75/6 on eBay last week.  The longer R90S stalks are used for the lower mounting points for the fairing.

I’ve been updating the budget as I go and right now I’m just a bit over budget based on current purchases and estimates for the remaining parts and materials, so that’s good.

Parts have been coming in and I’m under the impression that I’ve ordered most of what I need.  To date, I’ve received:

• Battery Box, strap and hardware
• Bar end mirrors
• Electronic ignition and 2-port coils
• Ignition wires
• Exhaust and mufflers
• Instrument cluster circuit board and back  plate

I sent one of the carburetors to Bing International  last week.   See part 5.  I ordered the #6 rebuild kit and Bing Carburetor maunal which I’ll receive when they return the repaired carb. 

Other items I still have to get include:

• Clutch neutral switch and gaskets (leaking and bike doesn’t start in gear when the clutch is pulled in)
• Gas tank rondels
• Gas tank nuts and washers
• Cylinder head gasket (seems I only have one, not two)
• Rings

I also have to decide if I am going to keep the stock seat, or get the Bushong cafe seat w/ tail cone and have that upolstered and paint it .  And, I  have to make the call on the R90s aftermarket fairing.

I heard back from Clem at BMW of Denver last week on the engine.  The good news is it checked out fine.  I was concerned the valve seats may have needed replacement, but they are doing well.   I’ll need new rings, but that’s about it for engine parts as I have all the gaskets except one.

One of fins on the right cylinder head got broken [I hooked my car bumper on it a couple years ago when I was backing out of the garge … one of the lowest days I’ve had in a long time    I found a guy in Kansas, Cycle Works,  that repairs them, and sent a note for a quote.

 I realized that there are quite a few rennovations being done.  I put together a spreadsheet of the work and then grouped the tasks by major subsystem.  Finally, I organized them into a work flow that I hope will keep the work orderly and prevent forgeting tasks or having to remove what I just installed to do the next step.  I was surprised by how many things are getting done.  The task list will come in handy to help Branden and I coordinated.

I’ve been scoping out the painting and have a couple estimates from shops who do motorcycle painting.  I’ve also been combing the web for information on painting, preparation and do it yourself painting. 

I’m debating if I want to add an R90S bullet faring and also if I want to add a new cafe racer style seat with tail cone.  Part of that decision is controlled by the budget.  Adding these parts includes adding the cost of painting as well.

R90S Bullet Faring

R90S Seat w/ Tail Cone

I talked with a local shop about my ideas for the paint scheme and spent some time discussing how to prepare the parts prior to painting as I’m certainly able to strip and sand with the best of them    I also provided a description of the paint project to a nationally well respected motorcycle restoration painting company to see what they would estimate.

My reaction after I got the estimates:  YOU’VE GOT TO BE KIDDING !!!!  Nope, they aren’t. 

When I had the Grey Ghost painted in 1981 in an approximation to the R90S Smoked Silver paint scheme, I think it cost me less the $500 to have have the tank, fenders and side covers stripped, painted and hand pin stripped.  It’s north of $1,000 for that if I do all the paint stripping and also sand the primer and color coats at the local shop. Adding the tail cone and fairing pushes their estimates north of $2,000.   The nationally respected paint shop is also north of $2000 if I provide stripped parts ready to prime and paint

That’s a budget buster.

It turns out I have an acquaintance who restores Trimuph motorcycles and cars and is a professional gear head as well as machinest, Brian House.  I figured I’d call him up and see what he could suggest for options.  Well, one thing lead to another pretty quickly.  He does his own painting, has the compressor and guns and offered to show me how “to do it yourself”.  That’s cool because I’ve had a hankering to try my hand at painting, but didn’t feel qualified nor did I have access to guns, compressors, etc.

This afternoon I brought the parts over to his place so we could talk about the process.  In the meantime, he  showed me the 1968 Ford pickup he is restoring and some pictures of two of his Triumph restorations.  Drool … very nice.

We are going to paint with laquer as its a ”forgiving” media compared to the currently popular urethane two part paint systems a lot of the shops use today.  Based on the pictures of the Triumph he restored, the laquer work he produced was awesome.

The conclusion from inspecting the parts is I need to strip the tank to bare metal as the almost 30 years I got out of the last paint job has resulted in paint cracking down to the primer.  We will hand sand the fiber glass parts down to the gel coat and fix the cracks at the bolt holes with fiber glass resin and cloth for strength.

Stay tuned for the adventures of Brook and Branden as we learn our way around “DIY” motorcycle painting.  I’ll be providing detailed descriptions of the preparation and painting process as we work away under Brian’s tutlege.