Another week another severely neglected and rusty item goes onto the bench to get brought back to life!
This week the item in question is a SEVERELY NEGLECTED MOTORCYCLE WHEEL that has certainly seen better days.
Now before i begin the description i would like to take a moment to say this wheel is NOT going back on the road so please dont flood the comments section saying that i never used new bolts for the brake disc or torqued them down to the required lbs/ft or removed or replaced the bearings etc etc you get the idea.
Also let me know what you think of the editing on this one, ive tried to cut it down and speed up the more boring sections to keep the overall time down as i know lots of you guys wont have a good hour and a half spare to watch a wheel being refurbished at normal speeds. If you think its to fast and choppy please let me know and ill revert to the longer and less choppy cuts.
Anyway.....
First thing is first the obligatory before close up and as you can see from it the wheel is in a very poor condition, sitting in a muddy corner for years and spiders living in the centre hub have certainly made a monster out of this once lovely wheel!
The first job on the list was to get in on the tyre machine and get the beads broken to allow the shoe of the machine to lift the tyre off, then while it was clamped in the machine i thought this is a perfect time to remove the brake disc bolts while its clamped down to a solid surface as these bolts can be a right pig to remove if they have been over tightened and flooded with thread locking compound. To my surprise they broke loose fairly easily.
Next on the list was getting it on the workbench and getting it torn down completely first out were the cushions for the drive sprocket (actually in very good condition for the age and the weathering they have been through!) then off the the old valve neck and wheel weights.
The brake disc and bolts were then put in a DEOX C bath while i worked on the rest of the rim.
To clean the surface grime and muck from the rim CONCEPT CHEMICALS MASTER CLEANER was used at a low dilution ration then agitated aggressively with a VIKAN brush after soaking for a few minutes it was time to pressure wash it clean and get a look at what i actually had to play with. It wasn't too bad but definitely did require a lot of attention to get it looking its best again!
Out came the PAINT PANTHER for the next stage which was to remove the old nasty paint to reveal the lovely diamond cut alloy edges and shot peened hub and spokes, Not being a fan of polished metal it was at this point i decided on an all paint finish but at this stage i wasn't sure about colour.
After a bit of wire brushing with the dremel and a good hand sanding it was time to get it masked up and into primer.
First came 2 light coats of U-POL ETCH PRIMER to give the high build primer a solid base to grip onto.The HIGH SOLID HIGH BUILD PRIMER went on in three coats with sufficient time left between coats for maximum build. After that was dry a bit of wet sanding was required mostly in the centre of the wheel to eradicate the shot peening marks so that the rim would have a uniform gloss finish when done. PREPARATION IS THE KEY TO A FANTASTIC FINISH!
For doing the base coat and lacquering it is necessary to make some sort of rig so that you can get at both sides of the wheel instantly, if you only try to paint one side of a wheel and then flip it over to get the other side all you end up with is one side that looks passable and the other that looks shockingly bad! Before i could begin painting it was necessary to do a few touch ups with a little aerosol primer where i had to sand quite far down to get a uniform smooth finish after that was done and dried it was time to spray my colour choice REPSOL ORANGE
After the base and clear was done i took the mad notion to run a single pin stripe round and im glad i did i really like the way the silver pops out from the REPSOL ORANGE.
Then it was simply a case of cleaning up a few bolts and re-assembling the wheel.
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