Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Triumph Bonneville Update

I bought this bike back in April of 2010. It was advertised as a 99% complete restoration. Powder coating, chrome, rebuilt engine, just needed a seat and a few bits to get it finished. The guy said he needed money and at 2500, it seemed like a steal. I saw it at night and it looked great...

Over the next few days I found chipped and peeling chrome, chipped and "orange peeled" powder coat, areas where grey powder was used without cleaning the black out of the gun leaving a dirty look to the finish etc... After finding the oil reservoir was full of sand blast grit, this project went on the back burner. I tried and tried to flush the sand out of the frame but it just kept coming. This week I've had some time off so I broke down the bike, pulled the engine and did what I should've done from the get go, a complete teardown and rebuild. I flushed the frame with an auto-parts washer at different angles for 24 hrs, than rinsed it with water until I didnt see anything coming out of the frame. After that I rinsed it another 5 times. I quickly dried it with compressed air to avoid rust and it's ready to go.

As for the frames powder coat,I decided to touch up the areas by removing any rust from the bare spots with sand paper, cleaning with acetone, and using some gloss black touch paint and clear coat. Its barely noticeable and I'm so over the fact that this isn't the show bike I thought i was buying last spring. 













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