81 GS550T in Co Sprgs

[pete]

Nice one Scott, I like that blue

[cowboyup3371]

Although the winds were howling this afternoon, I took a few minutes to repaint the top side of all three rotors. Diesel is back above $4/gallon so I need to get moving on this and hope I can work the budget right (still have to buy a new helmet) so I can cut back on my fuel costs.

[7981GS]

You are moving right along.
The finished product should look great!
How are those ribs doing? Sleeping better?

Daniel

[Flyboy]

Yes Scott, you making good progress there, you should be scooting around shortly, discs look great.
tell me about the price of gas, jeeez, its the highest here I have ever known it, the other night the girlfriend said she wanted to go somewhere exxpensive, I took her to the petrol station.

But hey, look at the scary side, every time I fill my car's tank it doubles in value.

[cowboyup3371]

Fork lowers are done now just need to wait for payday to put the new tires on and get the emulators from Salty Monk.

[Flyboy]

Now that is looking nice Scott, good job.
You have a very understanding better half, I see the pics all taken inside the homestead.
The only time I can use the oven to cure paint or the shower a as a spray booth is when I send the girlfriend to visit her mother on the otherside of the country.

[cowboyup3371]

Ha Ha. No, I just put the parts inside. I am not allowed to use the oven so any painting I do isn't baked on and is done outside in one of my sheds now that I cleaned it up again. I did the polishing downstairs inside but only when noone is home and I still have to clean up. All other maintenance is done outside on the back patio.

But she has been very understanding so I do have to applaud her for that.

[SVSooke]

Any sheds have power Scott? I use this for smaller parts baking

Saves fuming up the house.An idea that azr's wife came up with.

[cowboyup3371]

Yea I had thought of that too just hadn't had the spare cash to pick one up. But I still have the calipers and stator cover to repaint so maybe I can look again.

[SVSooke]

Picked this up at our clean up days.Azr picked one up in something similar.Scan free ads,don't need $ to get one.

[cowboyup3371]

Although I am waiting for payday to put the tires back on the wheels (Friday), buy the emulators from Salty_Monk (Friday), and receive a new airbox I bought on Ebay last night, I still found some time this evening to do a little more work.

One of my plans was to repaint my exhaust pipes due to battery acid on the left pipe from the PO. Based on the reading, my first job is to scratch up the pipes enough that the paint will stick to the chrome without too much hassle. So I started off with pipes like this:











After taking the pipes apart and running outside with the wire cup on my grinder and drill (cup on grinder fell apart after a bit), I managed to get most of the acid etching off and some of the rust. Then I ran some 120 grit paper over most everything I could.

So my pipes are starting to look like this:

I'm only showing the left side of the pipes as it shows the best part - the acid markings are gone





I also think I found my rattle problem that I would always hear coming from the pipe area - it seems the brackets holding the heat shield on the left pipe are busted. I tried to even remove the screws so I could remove the shield and work underneath and nothing budged. I'll have to throw some lubricant in there.

I'm thinking I'll run the wire wheel on the center pipes again tomorrow (ran out of daylight today), continue scratching everything with the 120 and then move to 300 grit, and then apply the VHT exhaust paint (1200 degrees) on Thursday, Thanksgiving, as we're supposed to have temps in the low 60s.

[7981GS]

What color and what type of paint are you going to try?

Daniel

[Flyboy]

Hey Scott, you coming along there, I know what a PIA it can be trying to sand in all those little nooks and corners, looks like you doing a good job.
Yeah, what colour are you going with for the exhaust, we want to know.
I bet you can't wait till riday to pick up all your bits, I know only too well about the looooong stretch between paydays.
Keep up the good work, I am enjoyng it.

[cowboyup3371]

It's the VHT Black Header Paint and I was wrong, it goes up to 2000 degrees


I forgot to add earlier tonight that my physical therapist said next Monday is my last appointment . It seems that my range of motion is finally back and as long as I keep playing with the rubber band and even start to get back into the gym than I can start riding both my horse and the bike. He did caution me though to listen to the ribs/muscles in case I overdo it.

[cowboyup3371]

I hate mother nature

After a few days of nice weather, mother nature decided to come with a vengeance last night giving us winds gusting over 55mph. I was able to get some things done the last couple of days and even had the opportunity to paint on Thursday as temps were in the low 60s. So, this much got done:

Headers:



Pipes after wirebrushing as much surface rust as I could:



And Apex Sports mounted my tires for me. I took the old sprocket I bought earlier this year off since I didn't align the wheels correctly and chewed up half of the insides. But I was able to polish the hub real nice so I'm happy with the way these turned out. It also took me a bit to put the hub back into the wheel using the NOS cushions from Blowerbike but I managed to beat it into place with my rubber mallet (wrapped each cushion around the hub and then beat the whole thing down).





But like I said, Mother Nature came with a vengeance. I can't see what winds topped out at last night but I know I couldn't sleep because they were that loud and forceful. They came from the north so I was more worried about my daughter's basketball hoop I'd anchored to our back yard tree. The basketball hoop is still in good condition but although my bike sat North to South on my Patio it didn't survive so well:



The winds are still too strong (25 gusting to 40 or so Weather.com says) to pick it up right now so I'm not sure what damage I'll be facing. I'll probably just leave it like that for today and pick it up tomorrow as the weather is supposed to improve.

Too bad I'm still a few months out money wise to either build or buy me a new shed to work on the bike.