Painting Bike parts

[Burque73]

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BTW, the steps in the OP were not even close to the actual steps I ended up following.
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I've been lurking on this thread, hoping to gleen enough from all of the great discussions to tackle a paint job sometime soon. What steps did you omit or add to your original plan?

Yours is looking great, btw.

[jdub6092]

I've been lurking on this thread, hoping to gleen enough from all of the great discussions to tackle a paint job sometime soon. What steps did you omit or add to your original plan?

Yours is looking great, btw.

I changed the OP to reflect the procedure I actually followed after being further educated.

For tank and fender, I started with 80 grit sanding of areas to be filled, then 180 grit for the rest, 2k epoxy primer, wait a couple of days, then sand with 320, then 2k primer/filler (4:1:1). Block sand smooth with 400, then 600 grit and the rest is the same as plastics.

[Burque73]

I changed the OP to reflect the procedure I actually followed after being further educated.

For tank and fender, I started with 80 grit sanding of areas to be filled, then 180 grit for the rest, 2k epoxy primer, wait a couple of days, then sand with 320, then 2k primer/filler (4:1:1). Block sand smooth with 400, then 600 grit and the rest is the same as plastics.

Nice. Thank you!
I built a spray booth, or room rather as it's almost 200 square feet. There's no heat or AC there so I'll have to find time when the temperature is within reasonable range to work in. Right now it's almost 90 in there. I Used a 550 CFM negative air machine for exhaust and made two inlet openings fitted with furnace filters, and an old storm door for the entry. It's vented through the roof where an old shop heater was. So far I've only sprayed doors and trim in there, but it'll be fine, I'm sure.

20250520_112318 by Roger, on Flickr

I;m interested in how you got your decals placed in the right spot. I'm painting a tank for a GK, which is two tone brown. I haven't decided whether to go with one of the colors on the whole tank, or try to match the original two tone. Honestly, it'll probably wind up being one solid color. Either way it can't look any worse than it does right now, so it's a good one to learn on. I was quoted $650 by a local paint shop to do it. Think I'll take a crack at it and learn a lot instead.

[jdub6092]

I took measurements on the side covers, but not enough and didn't do a great job with them. The tail section was not hard to figure out. I found an NOS tank, so I took dozens of measurements from the bottom of the tank and Suzuki emblems to the edges of the decal. Then measured the distance from the decal backing to the decal edges and used masking tape to butt up against the edges of the backing with pencil markings on both to line it up.
A lot of prep to plan it out.

If you dont have a reference piece to measure, try to find a photo of the bike and do your best. I did that with my fender and just did my best to center it. Came out pretty good.

There are a lot of videos on YouTube that will help.

[jdub6092]

Nice paint booth. I made one out of plastic sheets with a box fan and furnace filters on both sides.
Eventually got tired of putting up and tearing down and did some painting outdoors.

[Burque73]

I took measurements on the side covers, but not enough and didn't do a great job with them. The tail section was not hard to figure out. I found an NOS tank, so I took dozens of measurements from the bottom of the tank and Suzuki emblems to the edges of the decal. Then measured the distance from the decal backing to the decal edges and used masking tape to butt up against the edges of the backing with pencil markings on both to line it up.
A lot of prep to plan it out.

If you dont have a reference piece to measure, try to find a photo of the bike and do your best. I did that with my fender and just did my best to center it. Came out pretty good.

There are a lot of videos on YouTube that will help.

That seems pretty straightforward, but very tedious.The decal on your tank in particular looks perfect to me.

I really like the decal in my '83 850G, as opposed to the '82 GK so I may mix it up a bit. Thankfully, I am able to use these tanks as examples. I think they're the same exact tank other than color scheme too.

Thanks for posting this stuff. I'll get to my project soon, but in the mean time keep poking around the interwebs for other useful tidbits as well.

Cheers!