More paintwork

So all of the parts have now been brought back from Whitchurch and safely stored in my shed, ready for reassembly to commence. The poor Kawasaki 500 workhorse  has been relegated to living under a cover outside.

Now that the base coat has had a week or so to cure, I flatted it all back with 2500 wet and dry paper and then gave it a good rinse down (in the shower again!) Then I applied some very subtle 3mm silver pinstripes to the side of the tank and to the nose fairing.

Finally time for lacquer. I decided this time that I couldn't stand the cost of the 2-pack clearcoat (almost £40 a can once P&P added!!), so I've gone with Hycote Petrol Resistant lacquer, which seems to get good reviews. I applied 3 coats, 20 mins apart and initial reaction is that it's a beautiful finish straight from the can. 

I'm loving the colour, now that it has clearcoat on - a really deep inky blue/grey. It will be interesting to see what it looks like with the satin black accents on the bottom of the tank and the fairing. Once the lacquer has had time to cure, I'll mask up and spray the satin black and then give it a polish back with cutting compound, but it certainly looks like it's going to meet the "good enough" criteria.

My son has described it as starting to look like a "stealth" bike. There's certainly a dark theme going on with the black painted engine, gearbox and wheels. I think it's going to look subtly different from a standard v50, especially if I get around to spraying up the panniers to match and fitting those.

Let’s hit “PLAY” again!

In the last update, I mentioned that I was pausing the restoration in April to do a major refurbishment on my new house. Well, it's now New Year's Eve 2024 and the work on the house has reached a point where I can have a more sensible work/life balance, so I'm hoping to spend some time over the next couple of months getting the V50 largely finished and on the road.

I bought all of the "bodywork" back from my temporary storage place a couple of months ago but only just managed to make a start yesterday. I had quickly sprayed some top coats of colour on in April, mainly to protect things in storage, so was expecting some more prep before finishing. I'd fillied in a dent on the petrol tank but the swage line wasn't quite right and was quite obvious, so I rubbed the paint back, refilled and re-profiled to arrive at a much more acceptable result.

I have decided that I really didn't like the colour that I'd chosen, so took the opportunity to change it. It was way too bright for the style of bike and I instead chose a classy dark pearlescent bluey grey VW colour (Blue Graphite). This has gone on very dark but I do like it. It may lighten up a touch once the clear coat goes on - time will tell.

There were quite a few small pock marks on the various bits so I used some stopping filler and rubbed back down. 

Then I rinsed everything off in the shower! (One of the advantages of living alone!)

The tank, rear mudguard and fairing all needed some additional priming: I did all of the areas to avoid a patchy finish.

Here's the finished result for now. I'll let the paint harden for a few days now and then I need to apply silver pinstripes to the tank and fairing, before applying clearcoat.

Then I need to mask up to spray in some satin black accent panels on everything except the mudguards.

Next week I'm visiting my friends who are kindly storing lots of things for me and will bring all of the bike parts back with me so I can get started on reassembly. Too exciting!

...and, pause...

So that brings things up to date. As I update this (August 24) I am knee deep in building work on my new house and the Guzzi is waiting patiently in storage for me to get things to a decent stage so that I can finish her off. 

Apart from finishing the paint and doing the electrics, it should be mostly an enjoyable assembly project now. Famous last words or what?! Anyway, hopefully we can have things completed in time for Spring 2025, just 12 months late!!

Repairing the Centre Stand

The "feet" of the centre stand had completely worn through with use and the mud etc that had then compacted in the open tubes was set like concrete! I managed to clear it all out and then cut back the thin, corroded tube further until I reached sound metal.

I shaped up patches for each foot, using the same tube I'd got to reinforce the frame repair joints. That was a lot harder than it sounds, as the end of each foot is a compound curve. Once they were clamped in place, I welded the long sides and then did loads of small tacks to build up weld in the toes. 

This repair was much more challenging than the frame repair, as the steel was relatively thin, but I got there in the end! Again, the sanding disc was used to grind the welds back and give an acceptable finish, especially as it will hardly be seen once on the bike.

The frame, centre stand and a few odd bits were then sent off for powder coating. The original red powder coat had to be acid stripped first. Everything arrived back on the day I was moving house, so it had a cursory inspection to check the right number of parts were there and then got thrown in the shed with all the other parts! 

Reinstating the frame rails

The previous owner hacked off the back 6" of the frame to make a "brat" look. Hmmm. I needed it reinstating to carry the rear mudguard and rack mounting points.

I'd got hold of an old frame and chopped off the missing parts. I found some steel tube and cut a couple of 3" long pieces to act as sleeves inside the frame to reinforce the joints.

You may recall that I'd bought an old welder to try and use, but I just couldn't get it to weld consistently. In the end I bit the bullet and bought a new welder - talk about chalk and cheese! Within 15 minutes I was producing decently strong (but maybe not very pretty!) welds.

I mocked up the replacement frame horns, temporarily fitting the mudguard to get everything in the right place and then I clamped it all up, before putting a couple of tack welds in to hold it all together.

Once it was tacked up, I dismantled the mudguard and clamps and welded the joints all the way round, doing lots of small tacks so I didn't overheat it and risk distortion. A few minutes with a sanding disc in the angle grinder got the welds ground down pretty flush. 

I was so happy with how this turned out - I'd been dreading doing it, but was determined I wanted to have a go myself. When I measured it all up afterwards and compared it to the factory frame dimensions, everything was spot on within the +/-1mm tolerance they gave!

Painting the engine and transmission

I'm going for an all black look with this bike. The engine and shaft drive would have been silver originally but I reckon this will look good and it's my bike so that's how it's going to be!

The engine and shaft drive were both pretty filthy so I spent a couple of hours with degreaser and a wire brush getting it all ready for paint.

I've used Holts Engine Enamel in a satin black finish - it looks more glossy in the photos than in real life. Again, I've found this engine enamel to be pretty durable on the Crusader and it doesn't need a primer which is a big advantage. I'm going to clean the paint off the rocker box covers and polish them back to the bare aluminium, but that can wait till it's all done sometime.

Painting the bodywork

I sent the petrol tank and rear mudguard off to a local sandblasters to have all the old paint and filler etc removed.

They turned out to be in remarkably good shape with just a small dent in the lower part of the tank to repair. I got a couple of coats of red lead primer on them to stop any rusting while they went back into storage for a while.

Before:

After blasting and priming:

All of the other body parts (side panels, front mudguard and an original fairing that I bought from Italy) are plastic. A month or so later, once there were some warm days, I got everything out again to get it all primed and with a couple of coats of the top coat on, just to protect it all till next winter.

I'm using Halfords Enamel paint again. It proved to be pretty durable on the Crusader rebuild and this bike is being restored to be used rather than being a show bike. I've chosen a bright metallic blue colour, which might be a bit TOO bright - we shall see. It can always be redone another time if I really don't like it. I warmed the paint up in a bowl of hot water as it was still coolish outside where I was painting.