The past week I’ve been working on a number of items.   First order of business was to put the shocks back together and mount them.  I clamped the shock in a vice an put the preload adjuster, retainer and shock together with the tighter windings of the spring at the bottom.

In lieu of the BMW shock spring compressor, I use  two 1 inch hose clamps to compress the springs so I can put the top shock mount bracket on.  Thread the hose clamps through three of the spring coils near the top and then tight to compress the springs leaving a clear space between the top of the spring and the bottom of the mounting bracket.

I could push the aluminum cover down a bit more to insert the 10 mm wrench on the shock rod and a screw driver through the eye bolt to tighten the top mounting bracket.

To mount the shocks, I used a jack stand and some wood blocks to hold up the rear end so I could insert the top bolt on the right side shock.  Since that side has a stud for the bottom mounting, its easier to mount the right side first.

With the rear shocks mounted,  I took apart the instruments, controls and handlebar to clean them up.  I also needed to remove the Windjammer V wiring harness from the headlight shell so I could reinstall the original headlight wiring harness.

I painted the headlight “ears”, and cleaned and polished the mounting hardware before putting the R90S turn signal brackets and fairing mounting brackets on.

I wired in the turn signal wires and the old front headlight wiring harness and the neutral switch that allows you to start the engine when the clutch is pulled in.  I took some time reviewing the wiring diagrams to find out where the connectors go inside the headlight shell.  I also had to modify some of the connectors to the correct “L” shaped connector with insulator boot. It does look like “wiring spaghetti” inside the headlight shell 🙂

The final task was to mount the speedometer/tach, handlebars, controls and atach the new throttle cables and the existing clutch and front brake cables to the levers.  It took some time and couple of disassemble/reassembly tries to get the wiring and cables routed correctly.  For some reason, its too easy to get one thing going the wrong way with that many cables and wiring harness to contend with.  Here’s the final handlebar and control assembly’s mounted.   The new paint stands out compared to the dulled plastic of the switch assembles.  I’ll try more Amour All and see if I can brighten the plastic on the controls.

At this point, the engine top end, carburetor rebuild and new electronic ignition installation are the remaining mechanical tasks.  And,  the painting project of course, is still left to be done.  But, the Silver Ghost is coming back together.

When I had the front end rebuilt, I had 11 rib fork boots not the standard 13 rib.  So, I removed the tubes and mounted the correct 13 rib boots.  I also cleaned up the snowflake cast front rim and the disk brake rotor assemble and had repainted the brake caliper which was showing aluminum instead of the original black paint.

Here are the pictures of the front end with the incorrect 11 rib and the correct 13 rib fork boots.  It looks much better with the correct ones installed.

I loosely mounted the fork brace and then mounted the front wheel .  I pushed up and down on the forks a couple of times to ensure alignment and then tightened the axle nut and locking bolts.  Again, I pumped the front forks up and down and then tighted the fork brace bolts to the correct torque settings.

I bought new disk brake pads and also had to buy a new brake pipe as corrosion had made one of the nuts too small to fit a standard 10 mm ring spanner.  The two pads are different.  The one that goes into the piston side (right one in the photo) of the caliper has a small hole in it and the fixed pad (left one in the photo) has two raised castings that center the pad in the circular caliper cut out.

The brake pad kits come with a new O-ring that goes inside the center of the caliper piston as shown and a new clip for securing the fixed pad onto  the back of the caliper.

Insert the pad into the piston first. The curved end of  the pad goes to the back of the caliper.  Then, put the pad into the fixed side of the caliper and secure it with the clip on the back with the open ends facing down as shown.

Next, I mounted the caliber to the fork using the excentric pin to hold it in place.  Finally, I connected the new brake pipe to the braided steel brake line.  Here’s the completed front end and wheel with brake caliper.

I spent a couple of hours polishing the aluminum engine cases with Autosol metal cleaner, metal polish and finished up with Aluminum oil.  Now it really matches the transmission and rear drive and has a nice satin patina to it.

Finally, I mounted the subframe. I found mounting it using the bottom bolts first makes it easier to force the top legs into the top of the spine.  Then I used a piece of wire and threaded it through the rear hole to the front hole in the subframe.  I wrapped the wiring harness with duct tape and twisted the wire around that and pulled the wire harness back through the subframe tubing to the rear.   Its all ready for the rear turn signals, but I have to finish painting the rear fender before I can mount them as they attach to the fender.

Here’s the Grey Ghost with the subframe mounted to the frame along with the key lock and the side handle for lifting the bike onto the center stand.  It’s starting to more like a motorcycle. I just need to slap the rear shocks back on when I get the chance.

We have had miserable weather with cold, damp and even snow in Denver for the past two weeks.  We did get two warm days stuck in the middle of each week and I took advantage to complete painting of the small parts and the engine cylinders and valve covers.

For the small parts, I used some wood clamps and some plywood on my saw horses to make a “paint fence” so I could hang the parts.

I again had some problems with paint adhering to some of the parts 🙁 , so I had to strip the turn signal brackets and repaint them.

The next warm day, I painted the cylinders and valve covers.  The valve covers have ridges that are not painted.  I thought putting a little oil on them would keep the paint form sticking.  That was not a good idea as the oil flowed down the side of the ridges requiring me to re-clean the parts.  Next, I tried axle grease very sparingly applied to the top of each ridge.  As noted below, that didn’t really work well as the paint became very sticky and was hard to remove. I primed the parts and then finished up with engine paint rated to 500 degrees temperature.  I taped off the base of the cylinder, the ends of the push rod tubes and the  top of the head where the cylinder gasket goes to prevent getting paint on these surfaces as they have close tolerances.  I also stuffed the cylinder bores with newspaper and taped off all the holes in the top of the heads.

Here’s the parts after painting.

I found that the best approach for cleaning paint off the ridges on the heads was to use a Dremel tool with a coarse sanding cylinder to remove the paint from the top of the ridge.  This also let me remove some gouges and pits in the aluminum. I masked off the covers around the ridges with masking tape to prevent mishaps.  After removing much of the paint with Dremel tool which really gummed up the sanding cylinders (I used 5 of them 🙁 ), I used a sanding block with 220 grit to get all the last bit of paint off and then finished up with 600 grit to polish the aluminum.  Here is the before and after pictures.

Finally, I baked the parts in the oven at 350 degrees for 20 mins.  I opened windows and doors to let the fumes escape. My wife, who is a saint, only mentioned that they were “stinky” as they baked …  “Nothings quite so loving as something in the oven” 🙂

I believe I have all the parts painted other than the fenders, tank, side covers and fairing which will be painted Smoke Silver.  That promises to be an adventure 🙂

I’ve been out of town more than usually over the past couple of weeks, so progress has slowed down a bit.  I discovered that the paint on the subframe didn’t adhere properly – ripples in some places and soft paint in others :-(.

I suspect the aircraft stripper wasn’t completly removed from the subframe.  I took the wire wheel and my hand drill and wire brushed the new paint off the frame.  Then, I washed it in the sink several times and finished it off with windex and paper towels to dry it.

This time I primed first and could see the primer was sticking nicely.  I did a light sand with 400 grit, washed it again and then shot it with several coats of the black gloss enamel.  When I came back from my recent travels, the enamel had no ripples and the subframe was looking great.

While I was out of town, the heads came back from Randy Long at Long’s Custom Services in Pennsylvania.  I originally sent him the head with the cracked fin to repair.  When he received it I called him to talk over the options for the repair.  Since the crack extended past the pin, I had Randy cut the pin off and fix the fin.  Upon closer inspection of the seats, Randy conclued the exhaust valve was buried too far into the head to be in spec.  I decided to ship him the other head and have him replace the exhaust valves, guides, springs and keepers.   Here’s a before, after picture set of Randy’s work.  Very nice repair.

Cylinder Fin Damage

Today, Sunday, Branden came over and we started working on putting the backend back together.  First, we cleaned the rust off the transmission input shaft and greased it with Honda Moly-60 paste.  The BMW greases don’t have a great reputation, but the Honda Moly-60 is recommended by many.  I used a toothbrush to put a light coat on the transmission splines.  It’s best to coat the transmission splines ONLY and not the clutch plate female splines.  This way, any excess grease is pushed past the clutch plates so any thrown off won’t coat the plates.  I also put a dab on the end of the clutch throw out rod to keep it and where it contacts the clutch plate from rusting.

Next, we put the transmission back in the frame and carefully inserted it into the clutch spline.  I put rags on all the freshly painted frame tubes to prevent scratching the paint job.  Here’s Branden getting it lined up.

He put the three bolts and the upper right nut back on and torqued them up.  Branden had to leave at that point, so I continued with the swing arm, rear drive and rear wheel.

I cleaned the old gasket off the rear drive and swing arm which took some time.  I found using carb cleaner and then working at the old gasket carefully with a paint scraper and brass brush finally got the 35 year old gasket off.

Next, I mounted the swing arm with the bushings and ran them in as evenly as I could.  Then, using a caliper, I loosened one bushing and tightened the opposite one until the gap was within .02 inch on each side.

Next, I torqued the bushings to the bearing preload torque and measured the gap again.  I had to loosen the bushings and readjust the gap slightly and then retorqued to the preload torque.  Then, I loosened the bushings and torqued to the final settings which are lower than the preload.  I measured the gaps again and they were within .01 inch.

Next, I mounted the rear wheel.  I found that sitting on the rear wheel when I took the transmission/drive shaft bolts off keep the shaft from spinning, so I figured it would keep the shaft from spinning when I tighted them.

I mounted the rear drive to the drive shaft.  These splines are lubricated by the gear lube in the drive shaft so you don’t need to grease them.  I rotated the drive shaft until the splines lined up, slide the rear drive on the shaft splines, and then put the nuts on the studs.  There are no torque settings so I tightend the nuts to a reasonable level.

As I don’t have the BMW tool for torquing the bolts that connect the drive shaft to the transmission output shaft, Clem suggested I use some thread lock and tighten with my 10 mm ring spanner until tight.  The bolts and washers are “use once” and get stretched when tightened, so they can’t be reused.   I put the rubber boot on that goes between the swing arm and transmission and then pulled the drive shaft up to the transmission.  Then, I put locktight on each of the new bolts and finger tighted them onto the tranmission output shaft and then leaned into them while sitting on the back tire.

Finally, I pulled the rubber boot over the swing arm and used the large ring clamp to attach it to the swing arm and used the second ring clamp to attach the other end to the transmission.  Here’s the pictures of the bike with the back end reassembled.

I finally got decent weather for painting this Sunday, low humidity and temperatures in the low 70’s.  I had prepared the frame, sub-frame and swing arm for painting over the past two weeks during the evenings after work.  I used body putty to fill in where the paint was chipped from stones and where acid from the battery had removed the paint when the bike tipped over. (Would anyone who owns a bike for 35 years and never had it tip over, please raise their hand?  Hmm, is that a hand up way in the back? 🙂 ).

It was hard to sand the putty on the tubes since they are round.  I found using 400 grit paper and just curling it around the tubes and using light pressure worked.  I had to apply the body putty several times to fill in low spots and holes so this took a couple of nights to get the frame and swing arm prepared.  Since I stripped the subframe down to the primer, it was ready to go.

I built a paint booth in the garage.  I used several plastic drop cloths and stapled them to the joists to create an enclosure around the frame with enough room to paint the swing arm and subframe as well.  I taped the seams between the drop cloths in several places to help seal them.  I didn’t tape one seam so I could get into the booth.  I used clothes pins and rolled the edges of the two plastic drop clothes together and fastened them from the inside with the clothes pins to seal the entry.

I removed the cars and the other bikes before I painted as spray paint sends small droplets of paint everywhere even though I was painting inside an enclosure.

Prior to painting, I used windex and paper towels to clean all the surfaces and remove any dirt or oil traces.  I wore nitril gloves to keep finger print oil off the surfaces.  Then, I wrapped all the surfaces on the bike that I wasn’t going to paint with newspaper. Finally, I covered the floor with newspaper as well.

Sunday, I taped off the bearings and covered the ends of the rear drive in the swing arm with newspaper and hung them from the rafters.  I used wire for the swing arm since its heavy and string for the subframe.  I had left enough room inside to hang those behind the bike and could walk around the front and back end of the bike to get to all the parts.

I used a hat, mask, nitrile goves and a long sleeve shirt when painting.  It gets all over you, so covering up is a good idea.  I also recommend wearing safety glasses to keep the paint out of your eyes.  I opened the back door and cracked open the garage door to get some air circulation to remove the fumes, but not enough to have to worry about dirt and dust getting on the parts.  I painted each part with about 4 coats of gloss black enamel paint available at my local auto parts store.  I painted 2 coats in the first pass and let that dry for about an hour.  I filled a small butter tub with Laquer thinner so I could clean the spay head in between uses to eliminate paint globs.

As I painted, I found the newspaper got very sticky and I was pulling it up when I walked on it.  Perhaps, using some wax paper on the bottom of my shoes fastened with duck tape might have prevented that.   I’ll have to try that next time when I prime the tank and fenders.

I inspected everything using a drop light after the first two coats and was amazed to see a half dozen places that didn’t get covered well.  When painting black paint on top of black paint, its hard to see where the coverage  is thin, and it’s especially hard to see when painting tubing.  I painted the final two coats starting with the areas that were thin from the first two coats.  I kept the final 2 coats light but made sure they wet all the painted surfaces.

Despite covering up, I got paint on my cheeks and forehead, so taking a shower right after you finish painting is a good idea as the enamel takes several hours to really dry and a shower seemed to remove most of it from my skin and beard.

Here’s a picture of the mask I wore after I finished painting.  This is a pretty graphic demonstration of why you don’t want to paint without a mask.  Most of that would have ended up in my lungs.  I suspect that’s equal to a month or two of a 2 pack a day smoking habit 🙂

I’m letting everything dry for two days before touching them.  Enamel takes awhile to harden, so its good to be patient and avoid touching the parts so you don’t get finger prints in the paint.