Greetings from Finland! I got encouragement to start project thread from another user here, so here goes.
I spotted the bike for sale on finnish classic bike forum at spring. At first I thought it's not what I'm looking for but after hearing the price and asking for few questions from PO I decided to buy it. First picture is on purchase condition.
At first I thought this wouldn't be nut and bolt restoproject, but my OCD kicked in pretty quickly. I wanted to get original green paint scheme, and it would have look out of place with patina at bike elsewhere.
Frame was in good shape and mostly in original paint, it went to powdercoating after documenting the warning label positions etc. In Finland there have been some idiotic law in 70s, that has forced sellers to weld covers to near steering lock on new bikes. I cleaned those off with grinder before taking frame to paint shop.
Bolts and springs etc. were also mostly original. After disassembly I send them to zinc-plating. I ordered the tank and side cover paints from cb-four.de, along with new instrument mounting rubbers and few other little things.
I sandblasted the tank to remove PO's black metallic paint. Noticed the bike had been originally gold doing that. I wanted to get Jet green scheme as mentioned earlier, because I think it's nicest of the original colors and goes better with chrome than gold. I sealed the tank with GPL-S epoxy paint and filled the couple of dings with filler. Right side cover was cracked and I ordered new from cb-four.de, left side was intact so it needed only quick sanding and primer. Then off to the paint shop they went.
I disassembled the gauges and painted the outer ring with satin black, faces were good with cleaning and wax on them. Wheels were also disassembled and aluminium parts cleaned of factory varnish and slightly polished. Rims I ordered from Cmsnl and David silver. ( Hint: DS is much cheaper option for front rim) I laced wheels with original newly plated spokes, have yet to order couple of rear spokes before truing.
Last picture is how the bike looks now, got the tank and covers back from paint shop and they did a splendid job!
Have to acquire new tank badges somewhere, PO had changed them to wrong ones. Side cover emblems were in good shape, needed just dab of black paint to the edges. Next i need to rebuild front forks, already have them disassembled. New boots, top caps and seals and they're good to go. Original headlight holders are little crusty, but bearable on outside. Have to clean them in citric acid and check if they would be OK to fit back.
