Project DR is underway

[cheese]

try Baileys in Hawera (I think) or atomic in auckland. If you find something at Atomic, I could ptrobabyl pick it up for you adn ship it on our work rates ($9.95 to nelson for 15kg)

[kro]

I tried Baileys, they sent me a dud, it had allsorts of bits missing. A head fromAtomic was gonna be half of what I paid for the whole bike 6 months ago, and I could not really afford it.
I'm not trashing Baileys by the way, very helpful, and good communication.

[oldguy]

Good luck with your project mate, I,m pissed with mine at the moment, for the life of me I can't get it going. so it been sitting in the shed where I dont have to look at it. Hope you find your bits you need, will keep an eye out for bits for yeah.

[kro]

Sorry to hear bout the DR oldguy, I want to eventually own a mid to late 90's DR350, I have ridden a couple, and they just feel good, and are a good old low maintenance air/oil cooled thing.
Gonna do an update tomorrow, I stripped a few bits off the bike, and got em painted today, so I'll do a couple of before and after photos.

[far queue]

I was wondering whether to make the frame dark blue, or leave it black, I haven't quite decided yet. I think because it's not a full cradle frame, I may not get a good effect by painting it blue, like a later model DR, what do you think?.

How about Metalic Dark Grey, like the current DR's?

[kro]

Not a bad idea. I am concentrating on getting the frame prepped for repainting tomorrow, and weather depending, getting a coat or two of primer on it, so I'll have to decide very soon I guess.

How hard is it to take the forks off a bike. I just want to remove them to make it easier to get the frame painted. The last set of head bearings I touched was on a pushbike, and were a bugger of a thing to reset, to get the tension just right, without crushing the bearings, or leaving it too loose, and getting play.

Help a rookie out yall !!!

[Ghost Lemur]

Don't know about putting back together. But pulling the forks off is easy.

[Danger]

Kro, you could remove the front wheel and the forks but leave the tripple clamps on the bike if you wanted to and just mask them up and paint around them. Or its probably a good idea to service the headset bearings anyway and remove them. One step at a time, remove the wheel, then the forks, then the tripple clamps.

[kro]

Thanks heaps Danger, I followed your instructions, and all is going according to plan, although, I am getting very carried away with painting, and the likes, I think this is going to turn into a very thorough rebuild, the bike is going to look MAGIC when it's finished.
More pics later this afternoon.

[kro]

I got a fair bit done today, but forgot to photograph some of it, here is a before shot of the middle section of the exhaust, and the after shot is both the header (duh), and the middle pipe.

The third shot is an experiment, it's the alloy lever from the front brake, which I cut back to a high shine, and covered with a paint which gives a very cool anodised effect. I will probaly regret it, but I cut back my entire top clamp, and painted it with this stuff, and man oh man does it look awesome. I will post a pic of it tomorrow.

[Ghost Lemur]

That blue looks mint. The frame would look very cool in a metallic blue, particularly if the plastics are going to be a more neutual(sp?) colour. Remember the guy floating around a while back with the custom kwaka, silver (with some sort of sparkles) plastics with a metallic blue frame. That looked mint.

[kro]

I looked at the idea of making the frame that same blue colour, but the paint requires an absolutely perfect clean, oil free, and dry surface, which looked like it was going to be a mission on a huge surface area like a frame, so I am going to strip the frame back today, and see what I decide at the end of it.
I think for practicality's sake, I should really use a good hard enamel, and for that reason, I think I'll just primer it, and stay with the original black frame.

More photos later today.

[kro]

Ok, first picture is the frame, nearly all taken back to metal, took about another half hour to take it all back. I wasn't going to take it all back, but after discovering a few bad rust spots, I decided to go the whole hog on it, then I know she's all good.

2nd pic is the grand unveiling of the KTM-esque black hub, with black spokes. I am going to autosol the rims to death, but after I get the wheel back in the front assembly, as its way easier to just spin the wheel, with ya polishing rag pressed against the rim. I was forced to paint the spokes, as they were all rusty, it took ages to get the worst of the rust off, geez was I cursing by the end of that job.

3rd pic is the original top clamp, sprayed in Duplicolor brand Metal-Cast paint, which gives a very nice anodised effect. I found out though, that this chips easily, so I will have to clear coat it too. Hopefully it can be clear coated, otherwise it will look pretty beat up before too long.

Pics of a fully primered frame tomorrow, courtesy of VHT primer, and a few minutes of breathing paint fumes, which is always fun on an empty stomach.

Dinner time for me.

[kro]

Here is the primered frame, looking very nice indeed. It spent hours last night perched on top of a gas heater to dry properly. Swingarm is being polished, and having the nicks and bumps smoothed out. I was hoping to jam the front end back together today.

[cheese]

Shit hot mate! you're going to make that old bike look like new!! That blue stuff looks awesome!!! I'm getting tempted to do my bike now. I'll wait till I send my cyclinder off to get re-nikasiled.