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Drew's 850 L Restoration

I copied this thread under a new title. It was called "The makeover begins!" I feel that title is no longer appropriate as I've progressed a bit further than simply a beginning. Still a very long way to go though.
 
That is the same color scheme that was on my wife's bike when we got it about 10 years ago.

Looks a bit different today, you can click on the link in my sig to see how it looks now.

.
 
Steve said:
That is the same color scheme that was on my wife's bike when we got it about 10 years ago.

Looks a bit different today, you can click on the link in my sig to see how it looks now.

.
Click to expand...

Quite different for sure. Mine will be mildly custom as well. How does that seat feel, and where did you get it?
 
Picked up the frame and swingarm from the powdercoaters today. I'll post pics this weekend. It's what they call mirror black. Looks great, I'm very pleased.
 
Well, here she is! They really did a nice job. I'll be taking my exhaust to these guys too for their jet hot coating when the time comes.

 
jsandidge said:
Well, here she is! They really did a nice job. I'll be taking my exhaust to these guys too for their jet hot coating when the time comes.

Click to expand...

thats really nice, congrats on such a good finish! When I restored my 850L I painted the frame and I was so so about the finish...it wasn't as glossy as the factory, but yours has that nice gloss look to it!
 
Nice and shiny! Careful...it can become an obsession. You're catching "the sickness."

 
Wow. Yes nice work indeed! I have the exact same bike and will be swapping the motor and harness into my 81 850G, and vice versa, then doing a mild cleanup on the frame, wheels and forks, guess I'd better do the carbs and engine while I'm at it.

Care to share the details on your polishing techniques?
 
another Wow, when you started I thought you were mistakenly doing "The makeover begins!" on the wrong bike, LoL.
............(Polishing techniques ....... Yes Please)
 
Thanks for the kind words guys. I'm really happy how that 1st fork leg came out. Honestly, it was a ton of work. I originally started with 220 wet/dry sandpaper (what I had on hand), before I told myself that it was taking too long. So, I went to a 100 grit dry paper which worked much more quickly to remove the fine pitting. This still took a couple hours or more. From there, I went through the stages (all wet) from 220-400-600-800-1000-2000. Probably could have skipped a couple of the steps, but they each only took about 20 minutes or so. After that, I used a sisal wheel on my bench grinder with a red tripoli bar. Lastly was a cloth wheel on the bench grinder using a white rouge bar. I started the initial sanding on the 2nd fork last Sunday. I'll finish it Friday since I have the day off.
 
Can you guess which one I've been working on?



Stripped the whole wheel, polished the spokes and rim, masked it off with high temp tape, then powdercoat. Still have to put the final polish on the shiny parts. No, that's not an oops at the bottom, it's a reflection!
 
Last edited:
More progress! Powdercoated the rotors and calipers. Got the front end assembled, finally. Also have the motor all sealed up to scrub down for paint. I'll post some before and after pics of the motor. It looks awful now.

 
Looks great. I will be doing this on 750L #1 in the near future and will be mimicking you quite a bit with the polishing and powder coating.
 
Finally got the engine on a stand today to start the cleanup. There must have been 1/4" of crud in the starter cavity!





These are before pictures. I'll be scrubbing with Simple Green tomorrow. All I've done so far is scrape and vacuum that starter cavity.
 
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