81 GS550T Full Rebuild...In Ohio

[Guest]

Oooooh a nekid frame

Don't see one of them too often! Hope the powdercoater can get his mitts on it real quick for ya'.

 

[cowboyup3371]

Dropped the bike off at the powdercoater's today since he said he's willing to wait until the 18th for payment so at least it won't sit in the house too much longer. I also told him I'll bring other pieces over next week (swingarm, triple tree, side/center stand) if I can get out to the base and use their sandblasting cabinet on Saturday. The frame alone he thinks will run me $150 so hopefully they do a good job. At least he does plug holes as I saw one gal doing nothing but plugging them.

I also asked him about ceramic coating my pipes and he said he doesn't do that anymore as he could never get it to be right. Plus he never made any money on it. Supposedly, no matter what he did for prep or what kind of material he used the pipes would always look like junk after 6 months. He said something about ceramic coating being a liquid spray but I don't know.

Anyone here have experiences to share about the ceramic coating? I'll also post up a question in the exhaust forum.

 

[Guest]

All I can say is he must be doing it wrong... my pipes were just as good after over a year than they were to start with. The ding was the only reason for the re-coat and there's not a lot of difference between the header with the original coating and the header that got re-coated after the repair.

 

[cowboyup3371]

Made it out to Wright Patterson's auto hobby shop today and used their blasting cabinet on a few pieces. As I just now realized I'd left some stuff at home I wanted to do too, I'll probably head back over there tomorrow. It wasn't very hard at all and pretty cheap - only paid $5 for the two hours I was there. Of course I spent a large portion of that time watching the shop personnel try to remove the bearings from the swingarm. The right hand one came out fairly easily but the left side race just didn't want to budge after they busted the bearings themselves out. They also tried to heat the swingarm but actually deformed the hole a little. Fortunately, they promised to fix it for me when I install the new ones.

After a bit, I stopped working there and instead tried to remove it with a dremel and chisel here at home. Despite breaking some pieces off, the race just isn't moving at all. I'm not sure if heat will help anymore but will try to come up with something before I blast it.

Here's the pieces that are blasted and will be going to the powdercoater next week:

 

[cowboyup3371]

Yay success!!!!!! eldest and I did some more hammering with the cold chisel and it finally broke free

 

[cowboyup3371]

Sandblasted the lower triple tree and the side stand but the tip of the gun broke before I could finish the swingarm. I'll take that to the one shop who did my frame and hope they can do it fairly inexpensively.

 

[cowboyup3371]

I know this has lots of reads but am not really sure if anyone has been following it at all. If you have, I sadly have to report it will be going on the back burner for quite awhile as of today. Sadly, my truck's transmission decided to go postal on me on Tuesday and will need to be rebuilt at a pretty hefty cost. Consequently, I will pay for and pick up the parts undergoing powdercoating but nothing else will get done on it for at least the next three or four months.

Hopefully my thread won't be deleted and if I'm lucky enough to find some extra cash for the bike then I'll try to do stuff and post it up. I'm not going to be leaving here though as this is my second home when I'm not out doing other things.

 

[SVSooke]

Well I'm watching but not posting much Scott.Sorry to hear about the tranny going south.IIRC this is a no deletes portion of GSR so you are safe.

 

[Guest]

Aaah that sucks Scott! Sorry to hear it... life has a way of throwing things in the way of the fun stuff.

However, your thread (and Greg and I at least) will be waiting for the progress to resume

Even with no spare $$$ you'll be surprised at what little things here and there you can get done... I have nothing to put into my little Duc at the moment but I've still found I can pull the wheels apart, look into the 3 speed coaster hub, and other stuff.

 

[tkent02]

Rattle cans and elbow grease don't cost much.

 

[Guest]

Good call Tom!

 

[cowboyup3371]

True Tom and I can do that but the biggest portion I can't do is to put the engine back together. I don't have any of my engine gaskets yet so without those the project is dead anyway.

 

[Steve]

Rattle cans and elbow grease don't cost much.

Rattle cans are everywhere, but elbow grease happens to be $6.99 for a small tub.

.

 

[Guest]

Chin up Scott... every project has setbacks, some take longer than others to recover from... but you will get her done!

 

[cowboyup3371]

Like I said, I set the budget to still pick up my parts I'd already dropped off at the powdercoaters and that's what I did this morning. Course, it wasn't without some excitement as the guy told me a price of $219 on Thursday and then another guy tried telling me $279 today. The guy today honored the $219 but I think the first guy messed up by not adding everything up properly.

Here's the frame:

Upper triple tree, brake bracket, and headlight ears:

And the swingarm and brake stay:

Sorry for the black sheet but that was the closest thing I could grab right now. I went with the gloss black and it seemed at first like everything turned out well. However, I noticed a small nick on the frame already plus what the guy told me were shadows around holes that the hangers went through. I'm hoping they don't rust out but we'll see.

Sadly, i think I'm missing a piece and didn't realize it until I got home long after they closed today. The steering stem/lower triple tree is not here and I think is still sitting on their shelf. I hope I can get it Monday or I'll be looking for another one

 

[Guest]

They look great Scott, nice and shiny

Hopefully you get the lower tree sorted too!

 

[cowboyup3371]

Fortunately, they had my steering stem and side stand so I am lucky


But as they only taped off the upper threads and not the entire stem, will I have problems getting the new bearing on?

 

[Dogma]

Yes. You'll need to get the paint off of diameter the bearing will be pressed onto. The bearing will already have a certain amount of interference for a correct fit. The thickness of the paint will only add to that, if the bearing doesn't just scrape the paint off.

I'd get it off of the shoulder the bearing will be pressed against also, though it's not critical. My concern here is that the bearing has a clean, flat surface to seat against, painted or otherwise. If there are any high spots from a flake of paint or something, the bearing race may not seat squarely to axis of rotation. It will prevent the rollers from making contact all the way around the races. The bearing will not pre-load correctly, it'll wear out early, and you'll never get the right balance of drag in the bearing that allows the bike to track while still damping out vibrations. (This is what keeps the steering from wobbling when you let go of the bars on these neutral-handling bikes.)

 

[cowboyup3371]

Thanks Dogman. How would you recommend doing it for a powdercoated piece? Is it just as simple as taking a scraper/sandpaper/wire brush to it? Or do I need to sandblast it again and start over?

 

[Dogma]

Thanks Dogman. How would you recommend doing it for a powdercoated piece? Is it just as simple as taking a scraper/sandpaper/wire brush to it? Or do I need to sandblast it again and start over?

I've never had the opportunity to try removing powdercoat. A quick Googling brings up some unpleasant chemistry. If you have easy access to media blast, I think the thing to do is mask it with some rubber or leather and blast it. Other than that, maybe a soft wire wheel?

Who can tell us the best way to get this stuff off?