More painting - CB750 tank and XS650 teaser shots

I came back from Texas to find the weather here in VA had warmed up significantly.

Last couple days were perfect temperatures for painting so I decided to take advantage of the nice weather.

I started (re)painting Joey's K3 CB750 tank and finished up Tommy's XS650 motor. Here's a couple teaser shots:

First coat of metallic cast iron went on really thick (and kind of runny).
I'll be sanding it all even before the second coat.

The paint area as it sits currently.
That's the XS650 left engine cover in the way back there.

Decals for the fuel tank and sidecovers.
I'm still considering something else instead.

Oh yeah, they're REFLECTIVE vinyl. Pretty cool right?

Custom mixed a gold/bronze-ish metallic
engine enamel for the YAMAHA inlay.

It's really hard to properly photograph the metallic paint.
So here's some more pics.

It looks slightly more gold in person. 

This is the side engine cover before.
It's funny how just a slight difference can really make the motor  pop.

There's more to come very soon. I'll be posting the other side of the XS motor as well as the final product of the K3's gas tank and matching sidecovers in the near future.

XS650 Motor Paint - Part Deux

Tommy's motor is almost done being painted. There's no new updates since the last post other than I spent 4 hours sanding the left engine side cover (alternator cover). However, I was slightly less than lazy last night and decided to take some pictures. Here you go:

The first attempt at painting this went horribly wrong.

So I stripped it all and sanded it down.

I wish I had taken some before pictures to show the
nastiness and discoloration / pitting of the metal.

After about four hours of sanding and steel wool-ing to a mirror finish,
I realized the paint would NOT stick to that surface.
So, I had to rough everything up with a wire brush.

The motor hung like this for the majority of the spraying.

At one point the motor came down to spray around these areas
where the straps and motor mounts got in the way.

There were a lot of very hard to reach areas on this motor,
making it very difficult to apply paint evenly.
It took 4 coats and a LOT of sanding to get it right.

Sanding the fins on the head and bottom case between coats was tedious. 

Spraying between these fins turned out to be harder than expected.
Most of the difficulty was due to my over-sized HVLP spraygun.
It was totally inappropriate for this level of detail and crevices. 

I even tried to sand off the tiny little bumps;  imperfections left from
the casting process. This proved to be insanely difficult
so I just left 'good enough' alone.

I'm not sure why, but the paint went on a little thick right here.
No worries though, that spot is completely hidden by the starter motor

To be frank, the top of the motor
turned out a hell of a lot better than I anticipated.

Miraculously I managed not to get any paint in any of the threaded holes
that I forgot to mask off.

This should give you an idea of how evenly the paint was applied,
even after four coats.

We're not out of the woods yet. I still need to CAREFULLY peel off the
tape from all the masked areas.

Painting the socket cap screws without taking them completely off
was hard but somehow worked.

Surprisingly this turned out to be the hardest part of the motor to paint.
It still doesn't look quite right. The metallic flake in the paint seems to
want to stick to itself and run down the side in this area.

Also, because of all the gouges and scratches that wouldn't sand out,
the paint was applied unusually thick to hide them.
It's not my best work, but it doesn't look hideous.

Teaser shots: Sex-cess 650 motor pre-paint.

Well the motor is almost done being painted. There are a few little spots that need to be cleaned up, and the left side cover is going to get re-sprayed completely so that the shift pattern is still visible. I also still need to go over all the gaskets, joints, and edges with an exacto knife.
The majority of the painting is done, I just don't have any pictures of that yet.

Meanwhile back in the internet, certain people have been beating down my door to post some updates. To appease my blog's vast audience (hopefully all 3 of them), I'm posting some updates:

 So, without further ado, here's some pictures of the motor before paint.

Hang 'em high.

The motor is hanging from some motor mounts.
I removed them for the second round of paint so I could get better coverage.
Once the mount points and hard to reach spots were sprayed,
the motor got strung up again for rounds three and four of paint.

After all that media blasting and scrubbing (oh my god the scrubbing)

the motor turned out so fresh and so clean (clean) it almost seems  

shameful to cover her up with paint.

On a side note, A drill and wood-spade bit is the best thing for mixing this ceramic paint in small cans.

The auger bit was used to gently scrape the sides of the can. 

Paint stick scraped the ceramic material from bottom of can while the drill
bit folded it into the paint.

Wash and media blast the XS650 motor

Here's something you haven't seen in a while. Tommy and I pulled out his XS650 motor from the shed and hosed it off. After it dried, I nailed it with the soda blaster to get all the rest of the gunk, rust, and corrosion off.

The majority of the gunk got scrubbed off with Simple Green.
The harder to reach spaces got the soda blaster.

I wish I had taken 'before' photos. This motor was all sorts of dirty.

In order to get the whole motor I had to remove the starter. I quickly found out that doing so means the motor is going to void itself of oil through the starter gear hole and had to rush to put the motor over a catch pan.

Impromptu oil change, when I noticed oil spilling out of the starter hole.

Next step is paint prep and paint.

Cleaning BS-34 Carbs From the '81 XS650

Alright kiddies listen up. This is why you don't leave gas sitting in your carbs for years.

Fortunately there is a solution to remedy the error of your ways; the ultrasonic cleaner!

And You Thought I Only Cared About Honda's.

Tommy's xs650's.
The black one with no front end is the project bike, the other is a parts bike we picked up the other weekend.

Looks like the remnants of a bonfire in the parts bike motor. 

Front wheel bearing assembly apart.
New bearings for the Lester Mags are en route from All Balls Racing

It's always worse than you thought.

Most of the glue was on the carb on the left.
Note the large yellow line of gunk dripping from the top center of the carb body.

I pulled the (horrible) Mikuni BS38CV carbs off of tommy's xs650 on Saturday.
I thought it would be bad, but not this bad.

It only took me about 2 hours to scrape off all the gorilla glue from the outsides of the carb bodies, the throttle linkages, float bowls etc.
The insides didn't escape the previous owners glue fetish either. The vacuum boot for the slide was nice and coated. There was glue in the needle jet, venturi and float bowl. Although, I am forced to admit that he did a good job of plugging those pesky pilot jets as well. Not a problem if you live life at wide open throttle.

Everything is clean including the disturbing amount of rust and oxidation inside the carbs thanks to my new ultrasonic cleaner, a brass brush, and a lot of patience.

If I ever see this bikes previous owner again I'd like to kick him in the teeth.

4/09/10 update: I'm still finding glue bits.
4/20/10 update: Even more glue found all over motor and in between cooling fins.