December and progress has been a little slow due partly to the holiday, but mainly as my wife has broken two fingers which means garage time is limited! I am having to do jobs I don’t normally do! I have managed a couple of small jobs… made some adaptors for the manifold for the vacuum fuel tap, mounted the speedo sensor on the back wheel in place of the original hall sensor (hope the magnets stay in place!) and finally made a new “T” peice for the carbs as I didn’t like the very short connector on the original plastic one. This needed to be accurate, so out came the micrometer, which my Dad gave me when I was about 16… that was 47 years ago. I have more modern measuring stuff, but this is still the default measuring tool I go to. its still checks out accurate! I have started the bike, but I have a problem in that I only have a spark on the vertical cylinder... this seems to be a problem with the Ignitech ignition. the guys there are looking at it for me at the moment
its going to be streetfighter style. a bit retro, light as I can, steel tank (ST4) with minimal electronics. the seat and tank already divide opinion! I usually sell bikes on, but I want to keep this on, hence for once building what I want, rather than what I think will sell!
I bought a 1994 gsxr 750. Stripped it. Ran it to check engine stood 19years in a garage. 6800 miles. Ran fine after carb rebuild. Polished frame . Bought all paint for new scheme. That was a year ago. Still strapped on stand. So many projects.
pic of the project. I'm surprised after a year it's still shiny. Keep posting those pics looks really good .
Nice bike Steviegtr... Progress is still slow but I Managed to sneak in the garage for a while... I have had to drive her shopping 4 times in the last week!. cooking, cleaning... changing beds, roll on when the plaster is off! There is still some wiring to finish off, and I have replaced the ignition leads with some new copper core wire. Been years since I made some up, they seem to last well on today's cars and bikes. as I need to get the pins out of some of the loom connectors, in particular the handlebar switches I used this set of removers... they were only a few pounds but over the years they have been used time and time again! They fit the majority of connectors and allow you to remove and replace the connection pins without damage.
A little bit more progress... the original mudguard protected the chrome stanchion from stone chips... hence the new alloy protectors. I have also made up some alloy frame plugs in place of the black rubber ones.
Now the bit I am not too keen on… painting the tanks and seat. not because I don’t like that actual work, its the mess it makes in the garage. There are two tanks as I initially bought a Carbed Monster tank, but it simply didn’t fit, which is a pity as I prefer the shape. Thought I would paint it at the same time and sell it on. Its almost new, the guy I bought it off said when his monster was new it fell over and dented the tank, so he bough a new one. this has been in his loft for almost 20 years! The monster tank will be red… I already have some paint… As for the tank and seat… we will see!
Have you thought of running string through eyes from the rafters then using a tarp to create a very small booth just for the temporary use of a small spray booth?
Done a lot of painting myself. The small booth idea is good but the main problem with painting, especially the clear coat is dust. I used to have a great big extract fan in the wall at my previous address, but the problem was that it created a negative vacuum in the garage & sucked dirty air in. In my new garage I was building a clean air environment with a filtered inlet & then a water filtered extract to keep my neighbours happy. Other projects & still not got round to it. Previous wife stole & sold all my paint guns etc. Bloody bitch, don,t get me started on that one. Just recently bought 2 Devibis gti pro 1.3 & 1.4 guns. Some say any gun works but I found the devilbis to be the cream of the crop. There is another couple I was going to try called Iwata & Sata. Was always proud when a full paint job was done & it looked like snot on a wall. I mean shiny & smooth. Good luck with the paint job.
For small and infrequent jobs, I used to use an old cooker extractor hood with a tumble dryer hose tube vented out in a temporary booth. This meant I could use a very mild extraction to avoid the negative vacuum. This was for smaller bits, no bigger than a tank size though.
Brilliant idea. Amazing what you can up with with, My son in law & his dad has a large garage & service centre + bike tyres. They have a spray booth to die for. I think they paid over £60,000 for it 10 years ago. Takes commercial size vehicles. Fully heated vented & anti static. Awesome. My son in law paints a lot of motorcycle race team bikes & sidecar outfits. Very good at what he does.
to be honest I tried the plastic booth in the garage years ago, its such a faff and still made a mess. its not THAT bad, as I have a fan in the roof of the workshop to the side of the garage, that pulls air from the roof space, which I vent by opening the skylight which is above the fan. I then open the garage up and over a couple of inches and get a nice flow through of air through the garage. this also keeps all the dust out of the workshop area and my machines. I initially used a 240 v fan, but it was not powerful enough. in the end I tried the pair of fans from a Range Rover, which came in a neat housing, and run these off a 12V battery. the volume of air they shift is AMAZING! if I have the garage door shut, and both fans on, you can see the door bowing! I normally only need one fan on! dust is a problem, I can minimise it by giving the garage a good blow with the leaf blower before I start. heres a few pictures of when I painted our MX5 a few years ago...
on the subject of sprays guns... I have a Binks Bullows 230 which my dad bought me second hand when I was 20... over 40 years ago! I have replaced it over the years with new guns, but always went back to it. a few years ago my mate had a gun which he loaned me... it was brilliant! I asked him where he got it and he said off Amazon... £18! so I bought one, it comes with three different nozzles as well! been using it ever since. I agree with the Devilblis... fantastic, one day perhaps!
Thanks! I decided that as I had not used this particular paint system before I would do the Monster tank first as I wont be using that... Have to say the paint is really good and goes on really nice! anyone want a Monster tank, its up for sale soon!
finally decided on the colour after much deliberation.... Orange. The tank and seat divide opinion, some like it, some hate it... may as well do the same with the colour! have to say this paint is really good... but so is my new spray gun...
