Saturday 10 March 2012

Bouncy bouncy (part 2)

Now that I'm home after working very long hours away from home, I've managed some work on the silver Traveller. I've serviced it, tidied up some of the electrical mods I've done over the years, and repaired a few small things.
Now it's time to continue with improving the suspension, as mentioned earlier. the fork sliders were starting to look a bit tatty, with a number of stone chips that had allowed water to cause corrosion on the surface. Now, had the Skorpion been like a Japanese bike, I would just have stripped the forks and sent the sliders for powder coating. But, as any of you who have tried to take Skorpion forks apart knows, that easier said than done. The forks will jut not come apart, and it got to the stage where I thought something was going to break before the sliders and stanchions separated.
Time for Plan B: Mask the stanchions to prevent damage and 'overspray', and repaint the sliders myself. I had intended stripping all the old paint, but even several attempts with Nitromors couldn't shift the original paint at all. So, if this paint won't come off readily, why not leave it in place? I removed any loose paint with a scraper, gave the forks a good wirebrushing to remove any corrosion. then smoothed down the surface with some 'wet and dry'. I sprayed a coat of primer onto the stanchions to make it easier to see the craters in the surface caused by missing paint and corrosion, then filled them with body filler.







I'll leave this to set overnight, then smooth the surface with 'wet and dry'. If any of you intend doing this on your bike, and do it indoors (one of the advantages of living on your own), then bear in mind that P38 filler in VERY smelly! Think I'll leave the window open overnight!
Although I thought it was smelly, my cat Misty didn't seem to mind as she watched closely what I was doing, 'supervising' my work. I thought the smell would drive her from the room, but it didn't seem to worry her.
She also likes 'supervising' what I do on my computer, especially choosing what to listen to on iTunes:


I'll start smoothing the filler down tomorrow, and if it goes well, give the sliders another coat of primer in preparation for the paint. Watch this space!

1 comment:

  1. Misty looks like a very severe boss! What a lot of work on your bike! Anyway, quick note, I´ve not been able to add my brother Thomas to Admin on the blog we´re writing (Glasgow Guitar Guy, thanks for promoting it!) so he´s not been able to comment on your blog yet. But we´ll get to it, and hopefully we´ll get as many hits as you get, your blog´s going great guns! Ah, btw, how about you update to my new blog, SpainStruck when you get a mo??? (Instead of Staying Sane in Spain, which I gave up on as impossible!).

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