I know this thread doesn't get many replies, but bear with me anyway. I'm at a crossroads here, and it's frustrating because I fear I may have run out of motivation.
I've spent approx. 400 dollars since late May trying to get this thing back on the road. Most of that went to steering head bearings, new spokes (200 bucks), powdercoating rims, new brake parts, and a fervent love of Taco Bell. But still, it never seems enough.
The engine definitely needs painting. The casing has been yellowed from 30+ years of grease and there are quarter-sized chunks of missing paint all over. The rear is covered in mysterious blemishes, like the Great Red Spot on Jupiter. I didn't even realize the bottom was supposed to be silver until I started attacking it with Scotchbrite and Purple Power (my local Home Depot ran out of Simple Green
). So, here's another headache for me, and potentially another money trap.
The question now is,
do I take the engine to a shop or do I buy a can of engine paint and go at it myself? It's especially difficult because of my personal feelings - this is
MY bike, and
I want to do most of the work on it. This definitely shouldn't be a restoration driven by signing off checks: my blood, sweat, and tears should be noticeable on every square inch of the machine. I enjoy the pride of working on it, of polishing my master cylinder until it looks better than new, of tearing into new carb rebuild kits and getting my hands dirty on wheel disassembly until they look like they do in the previous post. That's what this project was supposed to be about.
But lately I've been writing bigger and bigger checks out of frustration and paranoia that I can't do it right, and I'll pay for it down the line. Granted, most of them have been for powdercoating and parts, but I'm questioning whether I should do the same with the engine. I haven't the slightest idea on how I would go about painting an engine; what parts I would need to mask off, what aluminum pieces I would have to polish afterwards, etc. I'm already starting to look up answers here, but I'm not so sure of my own abilities in the matters of painting such an important part.
I don't want to spend any more money, but I know that's just a farcical pipe dream. The only question is, how much do I want to spend? I already promised myself that I would tackle repainting the tank and side covers myself, courtesy of the
50 Dollar Paint Job. At this point, inevitably, I just want to get effin'
riding already, and my roommate's GS500F is seriously tempting me.
There's other parts of the project I can tackle immediately: my All Balls tapered steering head bearings recently came in, and I'll be pounding out the races sometime this week. I'm eagerly anticipating my rims to come back from the coaters so I can start rebuilding the rims, which will be fun (and truing them, which will be another big check I'll have to write). My self-designed gauge faces (that I'm really, really proud of
) are another matter. But the engine is, well, a rather important component in the game. So now I'm not so sure.
The damn upstate NY heat wave doesn't do me any favors either. Your thoughts?
Before today's polishing:
After:
Missing chunks of paint
Head gasket ugliness
