Montreal Manchild with an '81 Honda CB750K

farmer92 said:
The amount of jealousy i feel right now
Happy st-jean!
I know mate, I’m a lucky guy. Carb cleaner in open cuts and a pile of parts to polish - if I wasn’t me I’d wish I was


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Meanwhile, somewhere outside Frelighsburg, QC...

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Man I wish I could've take all four. Sat there for about half an hour and saw one car, beautiful spot, not quite the middle of nowhere but not far off.

I took the road straight ahead mate =)
 
Early days but it looks like a win for SharkHide. Finished up the polishing last week and gave all the covers a couple of coats of the stuff, looks great. No problem with the application, just have to make sure all polish is removed with lacquer thinner first. Not the best pics, I'll get some more in better light -

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- absolutely night and day to what they looked like before. I also replaced the clutch cable with a brand new Motion Pro cable, and spent a few hours messing about with the adjusters and cable routing - it's much softer now which is bloody marvellous. The old cable was routed in such a way that it was definitely binding - pulling the lever was pretty hard going in traffic after a while.

Now that Rhonda's got snazzy looking engine covers, the tank is crying out for an overhaul. I used a gloss clear coat on my KLR tank which looks great, and I've also figured out a few tricks for preventing rust from forming. So looks like the tank is next on the list - rather than satin clear I'll go gloss 2K.

Took her out over the weekend - I swear the drum brake on the CB works better than the disk on the KLR. Speaking of which, took the KLR out for a ride up north, but didn't factor the wind into the equation. Got on the highway and man it was blowing a gale, had to bank the bike into the gusts and then felt like the whole thing was being lifted off the asphalt. Truth be told the experience was a little alarming, quite frightening, frankly fucking terrifying and I couldn't get home soon enough. Really high centre of gravity on this bike, with a bit of wind I'm essentially a human sail on wheels.
 
Ya, looks nice.

You know I never liked the discs on the back of my 900F or 1100F, they lack feel and during spirited riding they lock up too easily.

Brian
 
Thanks fellas, thing is now that the covers are looking good it makes the rest of the engine look a little, er, tired. It's painted a flat silver (which I think is factory) but it's peeled and chipped all over the place. I'd like to touch up those little spots ideally with a heat-resistant touch up pen or brush - does such a thing exist? Or would good old fashioned VHT flat silver from Canadian Tire do the trick?

I used VHT aerosol paint for the recessed Honda emblems and Made In Japan writing on the covers - I sprayed some into the can's cap and used a brush to paint it on. Think the same approach would work for the engine too?
 
The Jimbonaut said:
I used VHT aerosol paint for the recessed Honda emblems and Made In Japan writing on the covers - I sprayed some into the can's cap and used a brush to paint it on. Think the same approach would work for the engine too?

Yep I've done this quite a few times. Works pretty well just sand down the hard edges of any chips.
 
Took a fair bit of mental wrangling to get to this point but getting ready to sell the bike now. I've had a absolute whale of a time working on and riding this bike but the time has come. Before I do however I wanted to strip the tank down and re-clear it for a couple of reasons. This is the first -

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These strange hairs of rust that have appeared under the clear. The above is perhaps not the best example as this particular spot happened at a chip in the clear. There are however multiple other "hairs" that have appeared at places where the clear isn't damaged at all. I'm of the thinking that the rust has not been caused by moisture getting through the clear, but moisture trapped in the steel leeching out over time underneath it to make these weird rust trails. On the KLR tank I heated the hell out of the thing before clearing it in an attempt to drive out as much of this moisture as possible, and it's holding up a lot better - there's no rust whatsoever after 6 months or so. So that's the new plan with Rhonda.

First step - using the other CB as a workhorse - strip the old clear. If there's one thing that really grinds my gears it's buying something that has one job to do - which it fails at. Like rolling papers that don't stick, or ballpoint pens that don't write. This paint stripper, however, was not one of those things -

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- it worked with aplomb. Once the clear was off I then sanded back the entire tank, this time with a coarser grade paper (180) to give the tank a more brushed look -

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- and then hit the thing with some 2K clear -

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The other reason for stripping the tank was to clear it with gloss. The first time I did it I used satin, which looked good but kinda flattened the brushed effect. The KLR got the gloss treatment and really popped so I used it again. Happy.

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Oh yeah - I also found out the hard way at the beginning of this season that the tank had a pinhole in it, down near the petcock. When I took the dustcover off the bike back in March the clear had yellowed at the pinhole from the gas, a patch about the size of a quarter. So this time I patched it with some JB Weld and sanded it down, hope it'll do the job.
 
If not, G/Flex will. I've used G/Flex as a permanent repair on a pinhole repair on a tank before and it has so far lasted for years. I embedded fine fiberglass mat into the epoxy when I did the repair.
 
Good to know Irk. What colour does it cure? I ask because the tank isn't painted (the clear is directly over the steel) and the JB Weld cures to a darkish grey, not a million miles from the colour of the steel.
 
It's a light amber. Certainly would be noticeable on a bare tank, I would think. But, it's a fuel resistant marine epoxy, so it has some good uses.
 
Buttoned up, pretty happy with the new gloss look for the tank -

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- and the coarser grit sandpaper made for a better brushed finish I think too. Bars got a little adjustment too along with the levers, and thanks to advCo's suggestion for an engine paint colour I also touched up the small scratches and chips on the casing. Few more little tweaks and I think finally Rhonda's as close to being done as she'll ever be. That is, until I decide something else needs doing if I don't end up selling her first.

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Awesome. I wish those headers weren't wrapped though. Chrome headers rubbed down with Scotchbrite would be sweet on this bike.
 
I hear you Irk. Wrapped pipes are pretty polarizing, and seem to have become the Marmite element on custom builds. (Marmite's an English spread we put on our toast - you either love it or hate it. I'm a lover ;D). It's been done to death, but it's kind of a guilty pleasure. For me anyway.

The headers on my F are in great shape - they'll stay naked, or maybe get a ceramic coating. But on Rhonda it was always gonna be the wrap.
 
It's not about a dislike of pipe wrap. It's because you're showing off all that bare metal- tank, fenders, the motor, etc. then you cover up the pipes. You have brass accents and then cover up the bare metal headers with titanium pipe wrap. It's like mixing warm grays with cool grays.
 
I think that's the beauty of custom bikes, we all build them to tick our own boxes. Personally I think the pipes on this bike are like The Dude's rug, but of course you make a valid point.
 
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