Lovingly restoring the worst bike I've ever ridden.

[datchew]

mmmmmmm. eye-talian go fast stuff. mmmmmm

[Mullet5]

Originally Posted by Treadless

Just a tip here FWIW, using a wire wheel for stripping paint while it works well, burnishes the material (the aluminum in your case) closing the "pores" and inhibiting the adhesion of the paint shortening the life of the job, and that kinda sucks (IMO) after putting so effort into bringing it back to life.

Crap. I've never heard that before, but I can see it happening as I go along. In the open areas where I am using the bigger, higher speed wheel especially. in the little crevices where I am using a smaller bit not so much. Is there anything I should do to prep this thing for paint? Like rough it up a bit?

Thanks for the tip!

[Treadless]

Originally Posted by Mullet5

Crap. I've never heard that before, but I can see it happening as I go along. In the open areas where I am using the bigger, higher speed wheel especially. in the little crevices where I am using a smaller bit not so much. Is there anything I should do to prep this thing for paint? Like rough it up a bit?

Thanks for the tip!

As it appears that since this project is budget driven I would suggest following up at this point with sandpaper (without seeing the surface, maybe start with something around the the 220 grit range) to throughly scratch up the surface and maybe also use a course scotchbrite to more easily get the nooks and crannies.
If it is really necessary to remove the paint you might try paint stripper on areas not yet wire wheeled, ONLY after carefully masking off all openings. Most strippers can rinsed off with water and if you use scotchbrite while rinsing you are preping for paint while cleaning up saving time and elbow grease and that's a plus in my book.
If you know someone with a soda blaster that would be the easiest way of all for doing the engine. If someone offers a glass beader for the engine politely (or not) decline.

Hope some of this helps. Feel free to either post or PM with questions.

[GHO100]

What about trying a soda blasting? I've seen it done in other threads before to sand and clean engine blocks.

You basically attach an air nozzle to a piece of clear tubing stuck in a baking soda box, and go for it. There's some posts around....


Here's one: http://www.aircooledtech.com/tools-o.../soda_blaster/

[YZman]

Originally Posted by Treadless

If someone offers a glass beader for the engine politely (or not) decline.

Common... you really think a little glass dust inside that motor is really going to affect the way it runs....

[Mullet5]

A friend has some kind of gravity fed blaster that I will borrow tomorrow, so maybe tonight I will work on something else. Maybe the rear cowl, try that stencil...

[rtwdoug]

Originally Posted by GHO100

What about trying a soda blasting? I've seen it done in other threads before to sand and clean engine blocks.

You basically attach an air nozzle to a piece of clear tubing stuck in a baking soda box, and go for it.

well damn, I knew Id been doing something wrong.

so it doesnt involve shaking up a can of warm Coca Cola?



Doug

[mike54]

Originally Posted by rtwdoug

well damn, I knew Id been doing something wrong.

so it doesnt involve shaking up a can of warm Coca Cola?



Doug

Dr. Pepper man. Coke is for birth control.

[rtwdoug]

Originally Posted by mike54

Dr. Pepper man. Coke is for birth control.

I dont waste Dr Pepper!

[Hughlysses]

Awesome thread. Whatever else you can say about these bikes, it looks like they didn't skimp on the cooling fins. That 125cc mill looks huge!

[Mullet5]

I have a long illustrious history of doing stupid things. As a child, it started with things like jumping off of the roof holding an umbrella to see if it would slow me down (it didn't), and jumping my mountain bike into immovable objects. I was more concerned with the jump itself than what was directly in the landing path. Once it was an apple tree, another time a closed garage door.

Later, while living on Nantucket, the harbor froze, so I did what any wicked smaht brain-box kid would do: walk on it, with no adult supervision. Fell through. Cold, etc.

I've fallen off of my house, towed more than one 5000lb vehicle with a 4 cylinder S10, been bitten by a rattle snake, driven a decrepit '84 Mitsubishi Starion LE Turbo to L.A. and back in one day, and last but not least, imported 3 Minsks into the U.S.

I bring these things up because I think I have just raised the bar.

A few days ago a friendly gentleman said I should try soda blasting my parts rather than using a wire wheel. It seemed like a reasonable idea to me, so I borrowed a blaster from my friend Deniz, went to Costco and bought 27lbs of baking soda, and went to work.

I started the project outside, but after less than a minute of blasting I noticed the immense white cloud of dust going into my house, out into my driveway, and worse, over into my neighbors house. Being the polite gentleman that I am, I decided I should find an alternative to coating the entire neighborhood with a fine white powder.

I remembered painting my old car trailer in my garage some time ago, and that worked fine. I stripped it all down to bare metal, resprayed it, and then when I was all done I just blew all the dust out with compressed air. No problem...

Having put a good 9 seconds of thought into this decision, I dragged my air line back inside and went to work. Dust mask, safety glasses, hearing protection, compressor thumping away trying to keep up. Soda blasting is awesome. It strips off paint, rust, and that strange shmegma made up of 2-stroke oil and fossilized dust without hurting the aluminum, or even the seals.

This concludes the cheery bit of my soda blasting odyssey.

I was having so much fun soda blasting that I didn't really pay attention to what was happening to my garage until I ran out of baking soda. When I had a look around I realized that this was nothing like when I repainted my car trailer. Stripping the whole trailer probably created 60oz of dust, whereas I had just distributed 27 pounds of baking soda evenly across everything in my garage. Oh boy...



Then when I went outside I realized that I had a pretty serious nose bleed; apparently a fair amount of baking soda was getting through my flimsy paper dust mask.

After taking a good look around I decided that my garage was such a wreck that I might as well just go buy more baking soda (and a real respirator) and finish the project, it wouldn't get any harder to clean up.

So the next day I finished the engine, then lightly blasted everything else. I used 40lbs of baking soda, on top of the 27lbs from the previous day.

NOW the garage was ruined. It was more than an inch thick in places. Even though I had closed all the drawers in my tool boxes and closed the doors of the chemical cabinet, they were both full. It occurred to me that it would probably be easier to just move to a new house and forget this ever happened.





On to the good part!

Everything came out great. Here is the engine in primer





While waiting for the engine to dry I made some brackets for the new foot pegs







Frame with engine, swing arm, and foot pegs!



Things are finally happening





I should be able to have wheels on this thing reasonably soon...

[Treadless]

OMG! what mess

Some lessons are harder learned than others.

[Bendernz]

Holy s***

Your commitment to entertaining us out here in interland is unparalleled.

[johnjen]

"a friendly gentleman said"

JJ

[GHO100]

+1 on the HOLY SHIT



I'm at work, trying not to laugh out load....

I think I might have mentioned soda blasting in this thread...oops.

Originally Posted by Bendernz

Holy s***

Your commitment to entertaining us out here in interland is unparalleled.