The Ghost has an oil leak from the transmission neutral switch and, the subframe is broken.  So Branden and I removed the old subframe, shocks, swing arm and rear drive and the transmission.   Well, he did the work and I watched 🙂

Removing the subframe is straight forward.   We removed the rear tail light and turn signal assembly earlier when we removed the rear fender for paint preparation.  To remove the subframe, we disconnected the wiring harness from the tail light assembly and pulled it forward out of the front hole in the subframe.

Then we removed the bolts connecting it to the frame, the swing arm and the shocks so we could take the subframe off.  You can see the broken section of subframe tubing Branden is holding.  I had it welded about 8 years ago, but it didn’t hold up.  Hence, the used subframe I scored on eBay.

Next we removed the battery and battery box.  In getting the battery box out, one of the lower rubber isolation bolts had a nut that we couldn’t remove.  It had corroded and rusted enough that it was in between a 10 mm and 9 mm wrench size.  So, we had to drill it out from top side to remove it.   It’s the one on the right.

At this point, I put a board under the front of the oil pan to help support the bike so it wouldn’t fall forward when we removed the rear drive, swing arm and transmission.  Then Branden drained the gear oil from the transmission, drive shaft and the rear drive.  He also removed the tachometer cable from rear of the transmission by loosening the bolt.

There are four bolts that that attach the transmission to the engine.  You can see one of them in the upper left in this picture.  There is a nut on the upper right used to attach the right side air cleaner housing and then two more bolts on the bottom.

On the bottom of the transmission is the clutch throw out rod.  Remove the clutch cable and then pull the C-clip on the top of the pin that attaches the throw out rod to the transmission.

Next, we loosened the drive shaft rubber boot to expose the universal joint.  It attaches to the transmission output shaft with four twelve sided bolts.  You can see one of them in the picture.  Use a box end wrench to take these bolts off. We found that sitting on the rear tire while pressing the rear brake kept the drive shaft from turning while Branden loosened the bolts on the universal joint.

Next, we pulled the swing arm nuts using a socket that had been turned down to fit inside the swing arm housing.  Then we backed out the bearings the nut secured so we could slide the swing arm and rear drive off the frame.

After that, we slide the transmission to the back and off the spline on the rear of the engine.  When it cleared the engine output shaft, we  pull it out on the left side.  It wasn’t too heavy, but both of us supported it as we witdrew it so we didn’t score the splines or put let the transmisson hang on them.

You can see the old transmission neutral switch on the bottom of the transmission (I turned the transmission upside down, so the switch is on the top in this picture) just above the shift lever.  The phenolic securing the switch to the nut had separated and I could spin the center of the switch inside the nut.  Yeah, that would let gear lube leak past the switch all right.

The transmission splines were dry and need to be lubricated, but otherwise, they look to be in good condition.  I had them replaced at about 50,000 miles when they failed.  I hadn’t lubricated them at 24,000 miles, so I deserved that 🙁  It looks like they can do with some molylube again.

Last, we removed the rear drive from the drive shaft by removing the four nuts that attach the swing arm to the rear drive.

I cleaned up the transmission, rear drive and the swing arm which was pretty caked with dirt and dried gear lube from the leaking neutral switch.  I’m going to paint the swing arm and also do some spot painting of dings on the frame which are a lot easier to get to with the transmission removed.

The pace picked up as the weather improved.  I focused on stripping the paint and getting the parts prepared for painting.  Everything is plastic on the R75/6 except the gas tank which is steel.  So, sandpaper is your friend 🙂

I found that sanding the short radius curved areas first prevented rounding off the profiles.  I used wet/dry paper and wet sanded to help the paper last longer.  I dipped the paper in water and cleaned out the paint accumlulation from the paper frequently so it continued to cut quickly.  As soon as I could see a good deal of paint flakes in the water on the parts, I’d wipe it up with rags so the paper wasn’t resanding removed paint flacks.

Brian told me to use 2 strips of paper, folding them in half, then inserting them so the seams are opposite each other.  For sanding flat surfaces, this gave me four sanding surfaces and I got two strong edges for sanding the grooves and tight radius contours.  With the paper wet, having the rough side of the paper under myu palm helped keep my hand from sliding off the paper.  Go slow in the tight radius areas and contours to keep the edges crisp and avoid rounding them off.  In the tighest areas, I used a small flat blade screw driver to crack the paint off.  The blade is thicker than the paint scraper so it doesn’t gouge or scratch the plastic.

I wet sanded using 220 grit to start. I stripped the clear coat, color coat and primer coats until I started to take off  the next to last primer coat.  Then, using 400 grit, I stripped the next to last primer coat.  This left a smooth surface so hopefully I wFon’t have as much sanding to get the new primer coats smooth.  We shall see.

I found a used R90S bullet fairing with mounting hardware and windscreen on eBay for a good price, so I picked this up and added it to the stack of parts to strip.

I saved the gas tank and subframe for last and used aircraft stripper to get the paint off.  I found that process was less labor intensive than sanding.  I found it took several applications of the stripper following each with a paint scrapper to get the loosened paint off.  The color coats and top primer coats would bubble up, but the lower primer layers required use of a paint scraper to get them off as all the stripper would do was soften them, not lift them.

After the paint was removed, I took a dremel tool to grind out any cracks that had developed in the plastic parts.  Then, I used fiberglass resin to fill in the ground out areas so they won’t crack again.  Any cracks will grow cracking the pain. The other impact is they also will soak up the paint and develop blisters, so you need be sure you get all of them ground out and filled.

After the resin had cured, I sanded the area where fibreglass resin had spread on the surface near the crack.  Then I used spot putty to fill in low spots and to smooth out and level the fiberglass resin filler in the cracks.

You need to keep the putty layers thin.  It usually hardens in about 3o mins.  I lightly sanded with 400 grit to smooth it out and if I needed another layer, added it.  This part of the prepartion is fussy work, but getting the surfaces smoothed out as much as you can goes a long way to having a high quality paint finish, so take your time.

I had a small crack in the dashboard of the R90S fairing between the cutouts for the two instruments.  Again, I used fiberglass resin on the back to fix the crack.  I found the fairing had been painted over the top of the original paint, so there was a lot more sanding required.  Along the seam at the bottom of the wind screen the paint build up was quite thick so I took it down to the plastic using the folded sandpaper sandwich.

I estimate it took me about 30 hours to do the preparation for two fenders, two side covers, a gas tank and the bullet fairing.  Patience is a virtue when it comes to preparing parts for painting.  By the way, your finger tips are very sensitive and good measuring tools to feel high and low spots.  Use them to check your spot putty filled areas as you sand them.  If you can’t feel the edge you have it feathered into the surrounding surface correctly.

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 Silver 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.