New LC project.... Restoration... I know, I know...

[D6lc]

Nice work on the wheels, its pretty amazing with some hard work how well these wheels clean up

[JonW]

Thanks mate, I know you also know the pain of that job :)

[JonW]

Following on from the previous page where I talk about cleaning and polishing the wheels (with pics)... Next stage on the front wheel was to paint it...

Amusingly this being a 250 wheel the paint on the non-disk side was very solid and not as faded as the other. Brake dust is nasty stuff and remember back in the day it contained all sorts of nasties, and probably still does, the medical profession just hasn’t identified them as nasty yet. Anyway, compared to the rear wheel the paint was decidedly average, so it was time to get busy...

(For those who don’t know, the 250 only had a front disk on one side, the other had a blanking plate that covered the holes. The actual wheel is the same part between the two bikes)

First it was back to cleaning with the ‘big Aldi toothbrush’ device using a ‘pro prep’ type degreaser... not only to remove the polish but this time to get into every crevice and fold to get the last of the dirt out. I also used some wire wool to remove the last of the bigger dirt and also any oxididation, plus provide a gentle key in places on the old paint. The wire wool was particularly good for removing the ingrained dirt on the polished Italic parts as it does not remove the machining marks, just cleans them up. I would absolutely advise that if you have some to clean up.

I wiped everything down one last time and started masking... I usually hate masking up wheels, if you just have a roll of masking tape then it can take hours and hours... but I had a new plan... Go a bit more ‘pro’...

One of the great things about the internet is that plenty of pro masking tape is available on there and you don’t have to look like a fool trying to find a paint supplies place the other side of the city who will be unhelpful and sigh when they realise youre not a pro... Yeah we’ve all been to those places. Anyway, I picked up some 6mm wide line tape a while back for painting something else and it came in handy for the Italics on these wheels as its about the right width and the (minimal) overhang isn’t an issue as you mist enough paint around these areas. The pro lining tape is also flexible enough (its plastic like electrical tape) to conform to most shapes and curves and goes onto the rims edges well too. Masking was a much quicker process with this tape compared to how I did wheels previously. I would say it saved 30mins+ per wheel, halving the job – I have mentioned before how time consuming wheels can be haven’t I? FWIW a roll of tape is 55m, an LC wheel uses about a quarter of a roll. Obviously once the spokes and rim edge were done with the good stuff then good old cheapo masking tape was used to cover the rest of the polished rim and the other parts that did not need to be painted.

For paint I used a simple satin rattlecan (White Knight Squirts for those who always ask, yes you LB! LOL!) from the local hardware store. I did a couple of coats and in this case they sit on top of the solid OEM paint that’s squeaky clean with very minimal marks in that coat, its just faded. So these layers keyed in well and I’m not worried about it flaking off as the surface on the wheels is not even or flat. The beauty of this type of paint is that you can easily clean up with thinners and dries very quickly, and recoating is simple if its needed. While I wouldn’t deliberately drip solvents on them I’ve found that once fully dry that they can be quite safe with fuel and brake fluid if wiped up and not left to stand, but few paints survive brake fluid anyway. I’ve actually found paints of this price range from the hardware stores to be very good, they dry well and do not chip like the cheapo rattlecan stuff that everyone moans about and if you need to you can match them later you can with another from a different batch. Ok, yeah its not pro, but I’m not riding through salt and leaving my bikes in the sun for years on end and costs are minimal, half a can will easily do a wheel and I would use a clear primer if you can find it, that way when you clean up the edges you wont see a grey line smear.



With the paint on and almost dry the tape was pulled off and it came of very cleanly leaving a neat edge, that’s what you pay for with this pro stuff LOL.



Only the tiniest amount of cleaning up with a small (inch square) cleaning pad of thinners had the rim edge overspray (minimal in this case but (you can see a little bit at about 10 o'clock and 3 o'clock in the pic below where the masking tape didnt stick perfectly on the polished edge) and the overspray on the disk faces that I forgot to mask very quickly sorted (not in the pic, I did that after) – one of the reasons you do this when the paint is still quite fresh, it cleans up much better than when its set hard. I used the same small square of pad with an edge and my finger to gently tidy the edge of the paint to the polish, this smooths out any small deviations (there are no bleeds with the pro taping if you press it down properly) that you did when laying down the edge as its notoriously difficult to run the tape round that concave bevel.

(not much difference, but up close you can tell... Not that anyone gets up close to a wheel very often!)




I wish I had done a pic of the same wheel at that point before i started really... it would be quite a difference...

I will run the wheel back thru the balancer to give it another coat of polish to protect the rims and also clean up the bosses on the brake disks. Ive since noticed that some of these are black and some are alloy colour, perhaps its a 250 vs 350 thing due to the lack of disk on one side. I will lightly sand and grain it on the balancer like I did the rims as I think that will look good, if its not right I can always paint it later of course.

So... the original plan was to paint the front wheel and keep the rear OEM with its good original paint. But you probably all knew I was having a laugh really, no sooner had I pulled off the tape on the front wheel than I could instantly see the rear now looked like a shoddy mess... Well, not that bad, but it looked like it needed doing... So, of course, I got on and did it...



(more pics will go here when I do them...)

So all up... Two wheels... Cleaned, dents and marks removed, inner edges cleaned, polished rims and paint... About 15 solid hours of work, and that’s quick... probably because I’ve done wheels before, I used a power tool to do the rim edges, the balancer to spin them and decent line masking tape for the paint. If you’ve done it and did it quicker with the same results, fair play to you. If you read this and think you can do it quicker and still get the same results, give it a go... :)

... oh and anyone thinks to ask me to do this for them, bear in mind my hourly rate... you cant afford me!

[uncledirty]

Those cleaned up better than I thought they would. Good on ya!

[JonW]

Thanks mate! yeah like anything, if you put in the time and effort it can be rewarded, they do still have a few blemishes that just couldnt be got out, you do need to know when to stop at times and also bear in mind that after 35 years they are allowed to look good but still speak about their past life/lives.

[JonW]

Last week perusing good ole ebay I found a wrecker selling a loom... Hmm... I was tempted but... it was in a bag and there was just the one photo...

I've bought used looms before.... Sadly most looms in Aus are really shot on our bikes as the sun here eats the connectors plus we Aussies use our transport to death so often looms have been cut n shut a few times to fix faults by now.... but when I enquired, he said it was ‘very good’. Hmmm.... again...

It was cheap, so I bought it...

And it arrived today... and you could knock me down with a feather, he was true to his word! Cooool!

This is what arrived:



Ok, yes it's a bit grubby, and would need a clean up. Here are some before shots:









The fusebox had seen better days with the connectors pulled out, but none were broken or overheated. It was missing its lid, luckily I have a few spares.



A gentle run thru the ultrasonic cleaner with some pro prep in it and a wipe over with Armorall and I now have this:





I rebuilt the fuse box after cleaning the plastic parts with more armorall, it just works so well on this stuff.



’’



So, was it perfect? well no... but its 35 years old! In fact there were only two issues with the loom, one brown wire had broken off at the near the tailight connector, probably snapped when something was pulled off and also the damage shown below, where the loom has been trapped in something, easily fixed with some white electrical tape as the wire is intact.



Actually all the connectors are very nice on this unit and the wires themselves have not oxidised like those looms you get when bikes have been left in the wet.

As you can imagine, this purchase has saved me a headache with an aftermarket loom like I used on my LC421, or the other choice which is to didg deapp for a seriously wallet lightening if i chose to get a nos one. So, very happy indeed, and proof that not everything on ebay sucks!

[hondaror]

Nice find. Looks solid.

[seahorse]

Nice one John and a nice clean up you have done on the wheels and the loom
Yamaha looms are best, It's all In the connectors
Your making nice progress well done
Ps I'll send a pic of the finished RZ, it's done

[L.B]

See what you mean,that loom was a real bargin!

[JonW]

Thanks guys! Yeah the loom was a bargain $45... amazing really. I got lucky, doesnt happen often. I reckon I bought about $100 of looms the past year and all were junk, I started to think that maybe i should raise my budget LOL

Just been thru my box of LC/RZ electricals and found a rear brake switch for this build and cleaned it up. We inch ever closer.

[JonW]

Slowly moving my projects on that have parts that I can reach in my crazy ‘too full’ garage... LOL.

I picked up another seat as part of a job lot of parts, this meant I could finally see how much of my original tang had been broken off (more like been sawn off I think looking at the damage. Hmm....). The’new’ seat which was in better condition is now for sale since I knew I could repair this one and be happy with it, but not everyone feels like that about repairs so the other one will be the one that is sold etc.

Anyway, it gave me the data on how the tang looks before I consigned it to the ‘For Sale’ pile and I recreated it with some molten plastic, whch its strong and flexible, like OEM. Not bad I think, right now its not pretty but I can tidy it up later, this was a very rough clean up with a die grinder.



Also realised I didn’t have a speedo drive which sucked... Until I found out the early RZ is the same. Actually the axle and spacer is too LOL. Easy to find for me as I have quite a few RZ parts still. Phew!

So while I was about it I stripped the speedo drive and cleaned out the old grease and other junk and serviced it. Im always amazed that no one cites maintaining this part as a way to make more power, they must sap a bhp or two when gummed up :(

Cleaned and repainted...

[speedjunkie_69]

I just reread your clean up of our rims since I started doing mine. I started with 600 grit wet paper and see that I will probably go out and get something a bit rougher or I'll be doing it till next xmas to get your results. Great job BTW.......

[JonW]

Thanks. yeah 600 is way too fine to start with, you need to go much rougher for some of the nicks and marks :/

[JonW]

Slow progress, but I did clean up and paint my horns... I still need one of the small brackets though, anyone got one lying around they wont use?

While I dont really intend to join the 'green passivate brigade' Ive been following this list for colours and finishes for this bike, I do sort of want it to be as close to a resto as I want to do, so it should be mostly right LOL

http://rdlccrazy.proboards.com/thread/2 ... e-rebuilds" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

(Xavier says he will put this on his site soon, which would make it more scessible i guess as not everyone is a member of norbos I spose)

[JonW]

From this:



to this (the lighting is harsh and they look better to the naked eye luckily):



Er... twice obviously....