5

I am now tearing down the bike and cleaning, painting, or polishing every part I take off. I don't like this stage of the process, but the end product should be worth all the work.

I've decided to polish all the lower case covers, the passenger peg mounts, and the swingarm. I'm thinking that all the drivetrain will be polished, and everything else black.

Now that i've spent so much time on the swingarm, and it's such a crappy job, I'm wishing I would have left it with Bob, who is powdercoating my wheels. I guess we'll have to see how it looks on the bike. This swingarm has some sort of coating (I think it's annodized) but it shure is hard to get off. I have a new respect for the guys who polish every single part of their modern race replica bikes.

Here's an area of the swingarm that is covered by a rubber chain guard, but it shows the difficulty of sanding the anodized part off.

I have been grinding, polishing, etc., I took the bike out in the driveway and pressure washed it so I can start painting the frame. I had to throw on the old 1150 front wheel just to "wheel barrow" the bike out of the garage.

I stopped by the painter's shop to drop off the Suzuki decals and to check on progress. The purple paint had a candy finish, so the painter has to sand it down to the metal so the candy doesn't bleed through. He can't sand the plastics the same way, so we're going to take a chance on the candy soaking into the new paint.

There is rust under almost all the paint. this is the little grab bar under the seat that you use to put the bike on the center stand. I bought this grinder at a garage sale for $5, and it has taken a beating with all this polishing and grinding. Yesterday morning I had to give it a few spins with my hand to get it going.

Since I am not taking the frame down to get powder coated, I am going to strip down as much as I can get to, and just give her a primer/rattle can job until next winter.

All the little bits.

Once I had the chain lined up, it was still rubbing on the frame a little. Time for a little more grinding! Back in '82 Suzuki's precaution to dealing with 110hp was to just overbuild everything. It's worked out pretty well, since I've had to grind away some of that "over build" in several places.

The countersprocket cover was rubbing on the chain a little. No worries, just a quick trip to the grinder.

I'm not really sure how I'm going to make this part of the airbox look new. This crud scrapes off pretty easily, but I don't know if the sandpaper/polishing trick is going to work so well.

Part of my plan is to take off the side covers of the motor and clean them up. Since I've owned this bike, I noticed some clutch rattle. I figured I'd take apart the clutch while I had it open, and see if there were any problems. I was starting to take out the clutch plates, and I heard something drop.

Well, that might be part of the problem. I can't believe there wasn't more collertal damage from this. I guess there's not much room for these guys to move around, even if they're broken.

More costs:

New clutch and springs $99

Powder coating wheels $80

DynoJet Jet Kit $125