Cleaning Up The Rust Makes Me Feel Better
In my previous post, I was talking about how I was kind of bummer out by how rusty my GS is. So since my carbs are away & I’m a little low on cash to get my tires mounted & balanced… I decided this weekend to make myself feel a little better & start cleaning up some of the rust on the bike. Plus, since the pieces are already off of the bike, it only makes sense to do it now, instead of tearing the parts off again later to do it then.
Well for starters, the swingarm looked pretty ugly as I took it off the bike. I know that the ‘81-’83 GS1100 swingarm is almost a direct bolt-on, that it is box-section aluminum & that I do want to put one on my bike. But that is not top priority right now, so for now, I’ll just clean up my original swingarm. Oh, & from my research, the aluminum 1100 swingarm has a larger pivot axle, so the frame either needs to be bored out, or a space made to use the smaller 750 axle in the larger 1100 swingarm. Plus the 1100 swingarm is 2 inches longer, so that means if I use my stock shocks, then my ride-height will be reduced, which I wouldn’t want… so that means I should use longer shocks with the 1100 swingarm. This is all cool & everything, but it’ll have to wait until the time is right financially.
So here is my After picture… I did some sanding, then primed it & finally painted it. I am only using spray paint… so it’s nothing like a professional paint job. But again, I am looking at this swingarm maybe only being used for about 1 year… so as you can see, this should look so much better on the bike then before. I do wonder how the color is going to look… I chose a “semi-gloss” black. I knew that I didn’t want a “full-gloss”… but I did consider a “flat” black, a lot of the current sport bikes use some kind of a flat black on their frames & I think it looks great.
The little cover over the starter-motor was heavily rusted as well. This piece is easily seen when looking at the bike, so that bummed me out as well. Here is the Before pic
And here is the After pic. I know that it is not an exact match in color, but it is close enough for me at this point. At a later date, I’ll be fully cleaning up the motor & can resolve the color then. For this color, I just went to the hardware store & guessed… it’s pretty close. This should be much better when looking at the bike.
The last few pieces that I cleaned up this weekend were my headlight mounting brackets & my top triple-clamp. From day one, my headlight mounting brackets have been bent, so I first put those in the vice & tried to straighten them as best that I could, they seemed to of come out pretty well, they should be basically straight now.
After that, then I sanded, primed & painted these pieces. Here you can see them with a fresh coat of primer. My lower triple-clamp is off at the machine shop being machined as- needed for the new tapered-bearings it will be receiving, to replace the old ball-bearings. So once that’s back, I’ll paint that piece as well.
