Brake caliper & wheel re-finishing

[pl2112]

Hi all

New to the forum. I'm currently doing my first ever restoration project on a 1979 GS1000S (Wes Cooley replica I believe to our US cousins). Wondered if anyone out there has any recommendations to re-paint the brake calipers and wheels. I want to keep it as original as possible so want to retain the original gunmetal grey finish on the cast part of the wheels. Any suggestions greatly appreciated

Cheers!

[Agemax]

hi mate welcome to the site. calipers are not an easy option, i spray mine with plasti kote paint and not had any probs. wheels i would ONLY recommend powder coating. they can do pretty much any colour you want nowadays

[Turtleface]

Out of curiosity, is it possible to anodize the stock five spoke style wheels?

[hampshirehog]

Hi and welcome to the funny farm. You'll have to put some piccies up of your bike so we can have a look at it.

Agemax is right about the powder coating the wheels - it is tougher than paint but if you're only going to be a fair weather rider (like me) painting will be fine - as well as more correct.

Vauxhall paint colour Charcoal grey (or it might be Graphite black or a combination of either - my memory is getting worse but name is linked with carbon...) is pretty much spot on.

For the calipers either powdercoating, rattle can black (if you're real careful with the brake fluid when bleeding) or Halfords caliper paint (though I haven't seen it in black for a while - don't know if they still do it).

Don't get too hung up on the originality of a SN. We got loads of bikes over here new that had the 'wrong' bits on them - brakes, indicators, fuel taps etc. plus the dealers and Heron mucked about with them as well.

What colour have you got by the way? I hope it ain't a blue one 'cos everyone knows red ones are faster...... (though it is the reverse for CB1100Fs - might be a clue in there about the colour of mine ).

If you need any parts I've got a few bits - just give me a shout if you're stuck. Plus don't forget that a lot of bits were fully interchangeable with the rest of the GS range.

[Nessism]

I painted the wheels on my 1000ST using Por-15 paint. It looks good but the paint is not as durable as powdercoat. A good two part urethane auto paint would be more durable. For the calipers, again some two part urethane paint would resist the brake fluid better than most other paints, not as good as powder coat though.

Check this thread for details about my wheel painting experiment... http://www.thegsresources.com/_forum...d.php?t=145175

[jakeolsen]

If you didn't live so far away, I'd offer to powder coat them at work for you. The only color options that we really have though are black, cat yellow, John Deere Green, beige, or charcoal gray.