El Burro Reborn! Almost ....

This is getting exciting. Yesterday I got a lot of work done. Got the rear brake on and lubed the splines. Then I reassembled the whole back wheel. Wired up the rear fender and then --- holy Moses! It looks like a motorcycle. 

Actually, it looks more done than it is. Needs the gas tank sanded, plumbed and reattached, then I need to put the exhaust system back on and install the front brake ... Wow, it is looking good! 

I had to stop there and clean the garage - tearing down my temporary paint booth and using the plastic to protect the bike from a leaking roof. It has been raining cats and dogs out there and a slow drip had found the bike - luckily I had the cover on. Now the shop is a lot cleaner and the bike is nice and dry.

The front driving lights are all wired up. I've installed new grips with a boss crampbuster on the throttle. This is the third pair of grips I bought on line. The first two didn't fit. 

The wiring is wrapped with braided wire cover and looks tons better. I've also installed the battery with the quick charger wires tucked under the side cover so no more need to disconnect the battery to trickle charge. I just vented my gas cap -- a needed mod after removing my California emissions canister. 

What else have I done? Oh yeah, painted the engine with a high-temp black! Only snag so far is that my red brake light doesn't come on but I don't think that's a short. It might be something that's not connected. I'll have to dig further. 

You Can Do A Lot With the Stock Light Bar



Still need to wire them all up.

On the VSTAR 650 Classic, the stock lightbar is boring, but that boring can be dressed up with a couple of clamps and some aftermarket lights. (see my earlier post.) I bought a lightbar and lights off of ebay from China thinking that would be an improvement. Well, the result was that the bar mounting holes didn't fit - likely it was for a 650 Custom - since I've made that mistake before.

I had thoughts of drilling new holes in the lightbar, but instead decided to see what I could do with the stock bar. The result is kind of funky, but I like it. That describes a lot about this motorcycle. It ain't for everyone, it's for me. That's what customizing a bike is all about, right?



Sort of a Quadrafenia look.

 Essentially, I just clamped my old driving/fog lights below and added the China lights up top. Should give me a lot of visibility going down the road. Stock lollipop turn signals are still there.

Oh, and I shot the bar and light housing of all the lights with Appliance Expoxy. Shiny black is good.

Speaking of shiny black, here's a pic of the final drive and rear wheel. Just have to lube the spines and put the new brake shoes in, then I can put it all back together. Appliance Epoxy on the drive and VHT brake caliper paint on the rear drum. I don't know if the drum gets so hot that it needs the VHT - but it is also next to the pipes. Besides, I have all whole can that I bought just for the front caliper and why take a chance?


 


Fun with Spray Paint

Hammered paint with appliance epoxy over.
Doesn't look like plastic -- more like enameled cast iron. 

Cosmetically, I'm having fun with this project. The bike when purchased was red, purple and rusty chrome.

So I have set out to rectify the appearance of the bike by eliminating as much chrome as possible and getting rid of the purple. The great thing about the VSTAR 650 Classic is how much of the bike is steel rather than plastic.

Those big sculpted front and rear fenders are made of metal and so I can sand it down to the metal and start from scratch. That said, the bike does have some cheap plastic bits on it and I don't like plastic.

At one point I removed the decals and painted the side covers with Rustoleum Hammered metal to get rid of that too-smooth plastic look. It worked great, but now I want the side covers to be black. I could strip off the old paint, but again, I don't want it to look like plastic when I'm done.

So I tried painting over the hammered with Rustoleum Appliance Epoxy - a paint intended for painting refrigerators but used successfully by motorcycle folks to get that powdercoat look without the cost.  I used it on the smooth plastic speedometer binnacle and very very happy with it. I wasn't sure how it would look over the hammered paint finish. Turns out, it looks pretty good -- if enameled cast iron is what you like. Beats plastic. I'm also using the same combo of Hammered with Appliance Epoxy over to make the cheap looking plastic covering the neck frame look less horrible. It is not a look for everyone, but I like it.

You can also see I'm playing around with some graphic ideas for the El Burro - I like the type above, but I think I'll try to mimic the sweep of the side covers somehow. Early days yet.

Another part of the bike I wanted to change was the rear tail lights -- It is kind of a droopy mustache looking thing that broke when we were getting the bike out of the truck. I've repaired it but always kinda hated it - it was rusty and funky looking. Over time, however, I've started liking it. It is very distinctive of the V-Star model line, and I've found it a neat way to identify other Vstars the road or in pictures.

The rusty chrome had to go, however, so I sprayed it with Plasti-dip. It actually doesn't look that bad -- the plastic stuff hiding the imperfections and even the electrical tape holding the left side up.

Meanwhile, the rest of the paint is coming together. I really like the Regal Red as it the layers get thicker. The earliest parts have already had clea rcoat and I started sanding with 1000 grit and polishing with the Mequiars Ultimate last night. (as demonstrated by this guy)  It looks great -- amazing for rattle can spray paint. Can't wait to see the tank and fenders with this finish.