78 GS1000 left for dead

Too close to slow down now...

Well the tank survived with no holes and paint still looks the same...it was a very solid tank.
Just a lot of crusty old gas and a bit of surface rust....and hopefully I've gotten the bad luck out of my bikes resurrection now...hopefully it's just 3 times
Although now I have to wait till I dig up another petcock somewhere and get it sent to me, before I can get the bike on its maiden voyage. That will give me time to go through carbs one more time, get seat back and on, go over brakes one more time...

...repaint fender...
....and so on...

should be be ready for first snow....

[steve murdoch]

Busa, bad things happen in 3s.
Now that the 3 tank sidetracks have occured it will be clear sailing to the finish line.

[dorkburger]

Well that sucks for sure, but I was fearing the story would end up with another bad tank, or damage to the paint....

Eating too much...

This is a long pointless story but...

I don't think I have ever had a bike I have had such bad luck with, as far as cleaning the gas tank/petcock.
The original tank was intensively rust filled...but I thought I would try to see if I could save it for a rat rod look.
I poured vinegar into the tank and let it set for several days, then I took it outside and shook the living !!!! out of it and loosened up what had been sitting. Sat it on my picnic table, and walked away for the rest of the day. I came back about 6 hours later and had about 35 or more holes ate through, and a picnic table covered in rusty vinegar.
Tried the same with this new tank I got, which had a slight amount of surface rust inside from sitting for several years. Poured some muratic acid in and shook it around and got the cleaning process started.
Poured the acid into a container then filled tank with vinegar to the top.
Sat the tank on top of the plastic container holding the acid...but somehow when trying to center the tank on the container....the container top caved in and 2 gallons of acid went on the floor....
Major freakin cleanup job...
Then today after finishing cleaning up the aftermath of the acid tragedy, I sat the vinegar filled tank on my picnic table as I realized it was leaking out of my petcock for some reason. Then seeing I also had about 3 gallons of vinegar that had drained from the tank onto the floor/carpet area.

So after emptying tank and finishing its final cleanup, I re cleaned the petcock... Took an air hose to blow it dry...
and blew holes right out of the obviously acid eaten aluminum....

Learn something new every day...

Things like this really make me wonder why...
....I don't sell all my old crap and just get a couple new bikes....?????

[nvr2old]

They mixed..SO..many colors for me, Chuck, I'm just not sure if they keep records of that or not. It was one of the last three bikes I did for OZ in Australia..and that's been over four years ago now. I just remember they had no problem mixing it and the color was right on the money. The guy who did those for me is a master at mixing, with many years of experience, and was able to compensate for any error in the scan..which may be why others have failed. He just knew what to do to get those colors spot on. He was able to do it as a single base coat, though.

[chuck hahn]

Larry, any chance the place you used would have a record of it from when you had it mixed?????

[nvr2old]

I did a GS1000 that same color and was able to have it mixed in a simple base coat/clear coat system. It matched perfectly. I know Chuck continues to look for this color, unfortunately I used all I had and couldn't give him the left over. But I swear, it can be mixed.

The fender I painted turned out just a bit too blue...there seems to be more of a green tint to the original color than I thought

try again next week....

Wheels are EPM magnesium.
Front 19x2.5 rear 18x3.5
I have another set restored for this bike when I rebuild it, that measure 18 front and rear with Kosman 13 inch rotors.

[dorkburger]

Interesting about the paint.
I recently found out that my 1150 is a candy color- silver base, blue topcoat, pretty much dashing my hopes of touching up a couple of panels at home. It's at least available, but I hear the topcoat is tough to do in regards to getting the right amount on to match the existing other painted parts.
I'd still like to try at some point. $33 per (small) rattle can x2 is a bit steep though.

What rims do you have on the other 78'?

Loose ends....

There's actually only a few hundred between them as far as the serial number goes...

Tank has metal rescue floating inside of it right now (jump started the process with some muratic acid) and the petcock has been rebuilt with factory parts...
Taking fender to work tomorrow to paint (original paint is a tri coat, which is why it's a bitch to match...and why no one has a code for it...) I got some blue candy apple at work and going to mess with some gold pearl mixed with blue/black for base...then a bit of purple pearl sprinkled into the clear to get the right side tone color...
We will see tomorrow how close I can get it...?

Seat is at a top and trim shop, getting the seat cover re shaped to fit the seat foam I carved out of original E model seat.

[dorkburger]

Great looking fraternal twins. Glad to see it coming along.

Almost done.... But not quite yet...