First off it gets a rub over with some wet & dry to take the sharpness off the finish followed by a good squirt with an air line. I've used pre paint surface cleaner to blow out the nooks & crannies and will use an etch primer before paint. The side casings and valve covers will come off for powder coating (or paint) separately but the rest will all get some sort of HT Silver. I was originally thinking of doing the barrels black but now I've seen it naked ally, I'll keep the barrels silver. The motor is going to be behind a full fairing but st some point I'd like to be able to run the bike with a half or cafe racer fairing without worrying about a gash looking motor being revealed
@gaz92 This is what I done when I painted my engine. 1: Removed old paint with paint stripper. 2: Sand all parts to be painted to provide a key for new paint. 3: degrease all parts 4: Wash with aluminium cleaner, then rinse with water (I used Wurth aluminium wheel cleaner) 5: Dry everything 6: Paint with VHT etch primer 7: Lightly sand between coats I'm definitely no expert but mine seems to have turned out OK.
When I rebuilt my motor 4 years ago, I agonised for ages over which paint to use - of the options around, they were either the wrong colour, or not petrol proof, or not heat proof, etc, etc. In the end I left the casings bare (stripped old paint then wire wooled metal). They get a wipe over maybe twice a year, but still look good, no corrosion at all.
No. The (stainless) wire wool gave a bit of a burnish, but nothing other than that. Bike doesn't get used all year round, so avoids the salt I guess, but we get plenty of crappy weather in the summer (like 3 days solid rain going to Moto Legend last year), so it gets its fair share of muck thrown at it, but so far so good.
I like the sound of this too. its looking pretty good as it is now I've given it some wet & Dry so I'm tempted to do same with painted or powder coated side casings and valve covers. If treated with ACF50 a couple of times a year I reckon it should do the trick. its going to be a daytime MOT'd trackbike so to be honest, its not going to get big miles in bad weather (I've got a standard 900SS for that )
