The story so far... [Dial-up beware]

[BillyC]

Right, as some of you may know, my bike has been in bits for some time. Fortunately for me, and it, this is a voluntary situation, not caused by any disastrous crash thank goodness.

The main reason, was due to the total failure of the existing ermax undertray, which resulted in a days riding around Kent and Sussex without any numberplate.

Finally last week, my replacement bit came from Ermax. This was for the K4/5 model, but the fit appears to be identical - more on that another time.

So, all the panels except my new tank have been primed:


The tank is a bit big to be done with Aerosols, so I'm leaving that to the capable hands of my Uncle.

So, with the bike sitting doing nothing, and just past its 2nd birthday, it needs a few things checking. So, the tank has come off, which was a bit fiddly, but I'm sure experience provides speed on this matter. Undoing the fuel hose was a pain though. Anyway, I need the fuelpump, so that had to come out as well:


The removed tank has a dent in it, but should be reparable at some point. Emptying out the fuel was a bit of a pain, but managed it in the end:


As for the rest of the bike, it's looking a bit sad and neglected at the moment:



Finally managed to get the valve clearances checked today, which is SO much easier with the tank off, easy to see why:



More to come at some point, probaby around xmas. But have plenty of other things to do before this'll be running again.

[northwind]

I hope you don't end up as stalled as I am I've been setting up for the respray for about a year, and halfway through for about 6 weeks...

[BillyC]

Originally Posted by northwind

I hope you don't end up as stalled as I am I've been setting up for the respray for about a year, and halfway through for about 6 weeks...

It's been 3 months already... another 3 I reckon

So, what's your plan for paintjobs guys?

I'm looking for inspiration myself.

[northwind]

First, allow at least a year This worked out quite good for me though- my spraying's average, but my prep's superior Also, that gave me about 20 opportunities to change my mind, which in the end has definately worked to my advantage. I was going to do gun metal... Then orange and black... (glad I didn't... Orange is good for a naked, rubbish for a faired...) Then just black with a black frame... Then red with number boards and maybe some decaling... Then black and silver... Then a sort of orange/black sunburst, which would have looked mint but taken forever... Then it was going to be silver with a black frame, to be a perfect negative of the original. Now it's going to be something different.

This isn't going to be my bike's final colour, if it survives the next year or two- eventually it'll be naked and very different. But I think I've come up with something really quite clever, and unique in my experience. And maybe some time in the next 6 months I'll finish it and post some pics

PS Orange, and the best looking SV in the world: