OMG - A NEW POST

Update: Well I don't know what I last posted but here is where it is... The motor is finished and I decided to paint it to look clean and new. As such I decided to go all black (the valve covers were polished grey) since I'm planning on painting the tank grey. I didn't want grey tank over grey-ish valve covers over black motor. A little too striped sounding. After painting the motor (which came out awesome) the frame was looking pretty beaten and battered.... soooooooo.... frame painting time!

I removed a bunch more stuff from the bike: tail cowl, rear fender, battery box, voltage regulator. All that remained was the airbox, coolant overflow tank, most cables and hoses, and the wiring harness. I pulled most of it up to the top of the frame and wrapped and taped the whole top section (see pics at picasa below). I decided it wasn't necessary to paint the upper parts of the frame since they were ing good shape and it's covered and out of site. Also because I didn't want to pull what remained.

At this point I decided to paint all the metal parts I removed. This included the kick-stand, center-stand, passenger peg supports, battery box parts and the foot peg parts. This would keep the bike looking more uniform when done. I set up a ridiculous paint booth up in the garage to try and minimize the over-spray on other stuff in the garage. I had planned on shooting it with the door open but by the time I was ready to do it (prep takes WAY longer than you think) the temp had dropped and was too cold to paint. So I reconfigured the setup for "garage door closed" operation. My little space heater could maintain the plastic box at about 65 degrees so it was good enough. The downside? ZERO VENTILATION! I had to run up to the store to get more paint (and a respirator) at 11:15 and was the last customer to leave the store. :-) When I got home Merry informed me that the entire house smelled like paint... BAD! I quickly shot the 3rd coat on and opened the garage door high enough to put a box fan exhausting out the front. (I showered and cleaned up for bed and then ran out and killed the fan and closed the door in my skivvies!).

Sunday was a nice day too so while the weather held off (it was supposed to rain) i pulled a big section of my paper floor in the driveway and prepped and painted the exhaust. I think I'm gonna like the way it looks! It's got scrapes and war wounds but they're painted scrapes and war wounds. So they look good-ish!

I shutdown for lunch and then when the kids were napping I did the impossible: I got the motor back in without a hernia OR scraping the newly painted frame and motor. That was a pretty impressive feat. When I removed the motor I commented that the manual was kind of over doing it with their suggested two people, recommended 3 for removal. I think they had installation in mind. Like any tinkerer knows, its a LOT easier to take something apart than to put it back together! What made me successful in my effort was something I normally don't do. I used patience and didn't start wailing on anything with a hammer! That's where I left till after bedtime to have some daddy time.

After the kids were in bed I went back out to the garage (through in my coveralls this time so I A: was warmer and B: felt like a guy that knew what he was doing. That last part was helpful since the procedure for the evening was: Surgery! One of the threaded frame mount points was broken off. So I ground it down and drilled it out. I then measured the tread count and size of the other bolts and tapped it to accept a M8 1.25TC (8mm diameter and 1.25 thread count [per mm i guess] YAY METRIC SYSTEM!) bolt. You'll get the idea in the pics and I'll post finished photos later. Needless to say it's important because this is the back side of the removable frame piece but they also function as the mount bolts for the right foot peg. Two times important! (Weak Flushed Away reference there)

After that I just got all the motor mount bolts in and tightened up the frame mounts then I moved over and re-installed the battery box. The little threaded shaft that holds it together (its two peices that wrap around the battery. Pivot on one side and bolt on the other holding the battery secure and to the frame.) was stripped and someone though it was good enough to drill a small hole in the stripped shaft and put a cotter pin in there. I wanted something a little more secure. I carefully cut off the stripped shaft and filed it flat. I then drilled a whole through it and tapped it to fit a spare small alen head bolt I had laying around. Its from a pre-drilled mount on a bike frame for a water bottle holder or pump. It was the perfect size and works well. This was the last act of the night.

Finally I just dropped all my tools and went inside. It was 11:30 or so. My hands are shot from working, getting dirty and washing once with Goop then with regular soap time and time again throughout the weekend. Okay that's all for now, I need some more lotion! (what a pansy). The pics will be up at Picasweb soon in the Ascot album. You'll just have to browse toward the end. I think they are time stamped so you can look for the pics from this weekend.

Update: Link to where new pics start-The Ascot Picasa Album