Here's a story of the rebuild of a bike that tried to dance with a deer.

We bought the bike knowing that it would be a project that my son and I could work on together.

Here's what it looked like when we first bought it.

 

Beginning the tear down...



After much unbending the mounting brackets for the radiator and fairing stay, we got it to where it was semi ridable.


A few more parts have come in. I kinda liked the red and white theme, but my son really wants a black paint job


A first coat of paint on the lower fairing


We finally found an upper fairing for a reasonable price:


It's starting to look like a bike again. Most of the front panels have been sanded down and are ready for their final coat of paint, but we keep putting everything back on to make sure it all fits together correctly. (We really had to do a bunch of bending on the fairing stay and the mounting brackets on the right side of the bike.) Now it just needs a headlight to be street legal...



Alright! The headlight is here. All of the panels are painted and back on the bike! Just need to let the paint cure for a little while and it will be ready for buffing. It's time to do a little riding!




You can probably see that the windscreen and front fender are a little rough, but since my son is on a student budget we are trying to do this as inexpensively as possible. The windscreen was in about 5 pieces when we started, but it came out much better than I expected. The front fender looks like hell, but at least it's functional.


Grandma says she's ready for a ride too:

 

Looks great! Congratulations! What kind of paint did you use?

 

Thank you. It's just a gloss black, out of a rattle can, but it is made for plastic. I'm not sure how well it's going to buff out, but we're going to give it a go. I'm hopeful, but even now it looks pretty good from 10 feet. It can only better, right?

 

really clean man!

 

Looking good man - I repainted all of my right side fairings using color-matched rattle cans from a auto-paint supply store. I clear coated, then wetsanded with 2000grit and polished with a ultra fine cut polishing compound. Came out pretty well.

 

Cool, that sounds promising.

 

Was the paint you used the "for plastics" kind like what wagzhp used?

 

I just found the spray can that I used. It's Rustoleum, Paint for plastic, indoor/outdoor. I do remember that I bought it at Autozone, assuming it was intended for automotive use, bumper rejuvenation in particular. Hopefully next week or next weekend we'll get a chance to put the buffer on it and see what kind of a shine can be achieved. I'll post more pictures after it's been buffed.

 

It was automotive paint mixed up titles like if it were being applied to a urethane bumper.

I also used a etch primer that was designed for use on plastics.