1975 BMW R90/6 - Rocinante

I need advice on removing powder coat. A while back I got a pair of crash bars (I believe they are Krauser) from the Lithopolis BMW auctions. There were three, one oddball that wasn't good anyway and a solid pair. They are covered in what seems to be a gray powder coat that my PC guy says has to go before he can cover them in matt black for me. I've mesed w/ paint removers, sand blast, and sanding. The sanding is the only thing that touches it but is pretty tedious. Does anybody have a better suggestion?

The plan is to have him do the exhaust heat shields, the crash bars, and a behind-seat rack in the matt black powder and mount them w/ stainless hardware.
 
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One of my powder loving friends uses Klean Strip. It is fairly expensive @ about $50 a gallon. He had a plastic tub and uses one or two gallons depending on the part size. Submerge the part and let it sit until the powder starts sluffing off. He said brushing it on doesn't work as well as the tub submersion.

Any powder guys in your area off thermal removal?
 
Rider52 said:
One of my powder loving friends uses Klean Strip. It is fairly expensive @ about $50 a gallon. He had a plastic tub and uses one or two gallons depending on the part size. Submerge the part and let it sit until the powder starts sluffing off. He said brushing it on doesn't work as well as the tub submersion.

Any powder guys in your area off thermal removal?
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Not that I know if. The guy here is the only one in town, probably the only in the county.
 
Hurco550 said:
Loctite 790. Amazing stuff. Removes powder like it's nothing. Same with carbon off of piston tops. I still have part of a can here you're welcome too borrow. It's a bit hard to get ahold of. Likely because it's still one of the few things that has stuff that actually works in it.

https://shop.tipcotech.com/tools-sh...white-1-part-paint-stripper-18-oz-aerosol-can
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Wouldn't want to use up all your stuff, but if it's a matter of spray on and wipe off it shouldn't take much.
 
I use Miles Gel powder coat remover. Expensive but I’ve stripped plenty of parts and a bunch of paint from the bus and still have half a gallon

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I'm so "small time" here that the purchase of Klean Strip or Miles Gel would probably last the rest of my life! Thanx for the info, though, both of you! Looks like I'm gunna drag them over to @Hurco550 's in a few days and pirate a little of his Loctite stuff. One of the bars is done 90% so there's just a bit on it and then the other one.
 
Well, OK, as I look again it's less than 90% that I've got removed. (The other side has more shiny and less black.) They were both the same color when I started so the gray comes off. Maybe it's paint and the black is powder. If I weren't going to try a chemical I wonder if one of those flap wheel sanders might be the thing to take it off?

BMWR90251.jpeg
 
Ive had good luck with a pint of jasco and a wire wheel in a grinder.
 
Flap wheels do remove metal, and as such will leave flat spots on the tubing, so I would not recommend. Wire wheel like doc mentioned might be the ticket.
 
adventurco said:
Flap wheels do remove metal, and as such will leave flat spots on the tubing, so I would not recommend. Wire wheel like doc mentioned might be the ticket.
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Was just out messing w/ it a bit. One of the wire wheels I've got doesn't do too bad. I had tried a wire wheel in the bench grinder that didn't do too bad but was really slow. Probably if I'd turn it around to turn the wheel in the opposite direction I'd get a bit more "cut" out of it. The grinder isn't great because of the guards and the strange angles of the parts involved, the flat wire wheel in a cordless drill has worked best so far.
 
ridesolo said:
Was just out messing w/ it a bit. One of the wire wheels I've got doesn't do too bad. I had tried a wire wheel in the bench grinder that didn't do too bad but was really slow. Probably if I'd turn it around to turn the wheel in the opposite direction I'd get a bit more "cut" out of it. The grinder isn't great because of the guards and the strange angles of the parts involved, the flat wire wheel in a cordless drill has worked best so far.
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I think you need the RPM an angle grinder can deliver, a drill is too slow. have you tried a cup brush? The Jasco also really helps loosen everything up but definitely wear eye protection - gonna have a bad time if that goes in your eyes.
 
doc_rot said:
I think you need the RPM an angle grinder can deliver, a drill is too slow. have you tried a cup brush? The Jasco also really helps loosen everything up but definitely wear eye protection - gonna have a bad time if that goes in your eyes.
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Yeah, no need to bark up that tree :), I've had cornea transplants so I am VERY careful about eye protection. Things are very well under control and have been for years but while others might just get an inconvenient or painful injury I could lose my sight pretty easily because any kind of repair would be so much more difficult.

I've got an angle grinder out there that I usually forget about, certainly would be faster. I've got a couple of flat brushes and three different cups and the cups weren't terribly effective.
 
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Dropped these off w/ the powder coat guy this morning:

BMWR90254.jpeg


The exhaust heat shields have been w/ him since last Fall; he's been holding off, waiting for the crash bars. He was going to get in some powder that would handle the higher heat the heat shields will be exposed to. I'm hoping the bill doesn't necessitate a home equity loan!
 
Not much to add but now that the "clean and reorganize the shop" project is almost complete I'm trying to get at other little jobs.

Last fall I got that MC dolly from HF and made some modifications. I didn't like the idea of having the airhead stored for long periods on the side stand and the dolly shape/size wouldn't allow use of the center stand. I came up w/ the idea of using a tie down system to keep it upright in storage:

BMWR90247.jpg


It only sorta' worked because the metal bars I used were too flexy to make me feel confident that it would all stay up so I needed to come up w/ something else or something to augment. The bottom of the ramp is only an inch or two off the floor so there isn't any way to use angle iron or something else that's stiffer. (Yeah, there's probably something available out there but I'm trying to use what I've got on hand.). I had more of the same material on hand so I decided to see if I could reinforce what I had. I ended up w/ this:

BMWR90255.jpg


There's still a small amount of wiggle, but nothing at all like it was. At least there's enough to have me feeling more confident that it would stand up to what it would endure while in storage here. If needs be I think I can find a guy who welds and can attach a couple pieces of 2X2 square tubing on there for me.
 
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Last Summer I had decided the shop project for the winter would be The Shop. I try to keep things picked up in there, put the tools away, and use the shop vac on a regular basis, but it had gotten pretty cluttered after trying to get Rocinante back together and running. My shoulder replacement surgery was at the beginning of December and then my wife had an injury at the end of December. Fortunately things went very well w/ the shoulder so at the time of her incapacitation I was able to take on being chief cook, dish washer, care giver, and dog-taker-outer, as well as continuing to recuperate and go to PT myself. Then it turned cold, and stayed really cold. I did use the down time to plan, though and I knew I needed to try and better utilize what little space I've got. I found a deeper-than-usual metal cabinet at an auction in C'bus, got it pretty cheap, and @Hurco550 and I went down to get it. Not the prettiest thing but it's solid and has a former BMW shop history.

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After a cleanup it holds a bunch (more than this shows) and goes a long way toward getting things together.

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The next area of improvement was tool boxes. I've got lots of tools and I hate having drawers full of tools just jumbled together; my little brain needs more organization than that. I searched for another box like one of the largest one I had and about the time I was going to give up and buy a new one a guy who was only 12 miles away answered my Craigslist ad and named a very good price if I'd come get it that afternoon. Different color than the one I had but what the heck. I could have gone w/ something different that would have had room for everything but I waned to use the wasted space under the workbench and having two gives one for Metric and one for SAE. I fitted them up w/ metal legs and they're just right.

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I've had my soldering irons for nearly 40 years and have been wanting something new for a while. The big old Weller will be kept for bigger jobs but I've had my eyes on a HF model w/ adjustable heat for a while. I've been wanting to set up a soldering station so this seemed like the opportune time to pull my soldering supplies from different locations and get them consolidated. One of the Kennedy boxes was available after the tool re-org so it seemed like the right choice.

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