Painting forks?

[mikerj]

Originally Posted by rich88

well to be honest iv not properly looked at what it would take to remove them, but like iv (possibly?) said im not mechanically minded and if i dont need to do it, then why do it and risk something going

You have to remove the wheel, brake calipers and mudguard anyway. from that point, removing the forks is quite literally an extra minute to undo the clamp bolts on the yokes and clip ons. You can then strip the old paint, mask up the stanchions and spray the lowers away from your bike so you don't have the ball ache of masking everything up on the bike to protect it from over spray. Honestly, if you want to do make a tidy job of it then it's a complete no-brainer.

Obviously you need to support the front of the bike, but you'd need to do that anyway to paint the forks on the bike. I use a lifting strap around the front of the frame and support it from an RSJ in my workshop, but people have used step ladders as 'A' frames to do this. The best solution is a proper bike stand that fits up into the yoke stem.

If you want the OEM finish, then the "5 wheel" silver spray and matching lacquer from e.g. Halfords is a virtually perfect match and very tough paint. Use etch primer first to get good adhesion on aluminium alloy.

[Nobbylad]

And if you're going to all that trouble to remove the existing front end, you may as well bolt on a Gixer front end in it's place.....

Originally Posted by Nobbylad

And if you're going to all that trouble to remove the existing front end, you may as well bolt on a Gixer front end in it's place.....

haha i knew that was coming!

Originally Posted by Nobbylad

And if you're going to all that trouble to remove the existing front end, you may as well bolt on a Gixer front end in it's place.....

So go on then, put d lad out of his misery, how much would a gsxr front end cost him and what wud he get for his own....?

Originally Posted by Nobbylad

If you take your time scouting for a front end, you can make money on the swap and it's not technically difficult.

Any idea what a front end would be worth from my k3? And how much would a gixer one cost?