The Rear is in Gear

Well, it's not really in gear per se, but the back tire is on! And you were probably thinking that because it took me eons to get the rear brake apart that it would take me forever to get it back together. Well you were wrong!

The drawback of it taking so long to get the bike back together is that I had to do a lot of referring to the manual to make sure I was getting everything back in the right place. Fortunately, I only had to put the sprocket on twice. Also, I'm not putting the cotter pins or torquing anything down until it's all together and lined up correctly. In particular, it looks like getting the rear brake pedal adjusted is going to take a bit of fiddling. The good news, however, is that it (the brake) seems to work fine even after my taking it apart and cleaning it up.

The next step is to get the front forks back together and get the front wheel back on. Then it will be looking like a proper motorcycle again!

Getting the frame cleaned up

Last night I got some work done on the swingarm. When I started, it was covered in years worth of chain lube and dirt. Just to get the swingarm cleaned took a few hours of scrubbing with degreaser. After the degreasing, I went to town with my wirebrush mounted in my drill. That worked pretty well for the swingarm, but didn't go nearly fast enough for the shock mounting brackets, so I broke out the grinder with sand disc attachment. I had to be very careful as that disc tore through the metal pretty quick.

Here is the swingarm prepped for pain in my state of the art painting facility:


And here it is after painting. Notice the use of my high volume, low pressure ventilation system (garage door opened). It's critical when using high end paints (such as Krylon) to have proper ventilation. You can also see one of the shock brackets hanging in the upper right hand corner of the picture.


Here is the paint that I'm using for the frame:


I don't know how well it will perform, but it went on easy enough. I highly recommend the purchase of this little guy (I got one at Walmart for between $2-$3). It makes spraying from a can sooo much easier than pressing that little tendonitus inducing button on the top of the can.



Next up is the main frame of the bike.