Friday, December 21, 2018

Project XTracker: Tear down, frame paint prep & paint


The bike is now torn down and final weld out of added brackets done and shaving of the rest of the unused brackets like the exhaust hanger and steering lock below. Since I didn't have access to a big sand blast cabinet to fit the frame I went about cleaning it up with a wire wheel on a drill and a scotch brite type flap wheel on an angle grinder.




Since the triple clamps for the GSX-R I'm using dont make use of the steering lock, I decided to shave it off. Much cleaner look. 

 Here are the wheels and frame drying. I got the paint done at my current employer - Tigercat Industries (for free...) The paint is a 2 part epoxy paint that is used on heavy equipment for logging/ forestry. I figured that would be good enough for a motorcycle and the price was right. The finish is really quite nice - sort of a semi gloss.


I also cleaned up all the aluminum parts to have them ready to be anodized. I sanded down each part to have a nice, smooth brushed finish. Any scratches would only be exaggerated with the anodizing. I ended up getting the anodizing done through my previous employer DDS Automated Machinery Design. The majority of their parts are aluminum and get clear anodized so I was able to get my parts thrown in with one of their batches. Thanks Darren!

Everything back from paint. I cant wait to get this all together...

Some progress pics of the steering lock shave process