I've been lurking around these boards for a few years now after aquiring the motorcycle itch, and picked up this PA barn stored ca77 2 summers ago. Busy with other projects I hadnt' had a chance to do anything other than aquire some essentials ( a battery and lotsa knowledge) until this past month. started tearing into it the beginning of march, got it fired up and running smoothly in a couple after-work sessions. clutch very frozen, but wasn't overly concerned about that. My initial intent was just to clean it up abit and drive it for the season, but after seeing so many pics of beatiful dreams it seemed a disservice to drive mine around leaving a trail of rust behind. So i tore it down and started cleaning. I wanted to get my restore post up and going so i wont elaborate any further for now, i'll just post a few pics and punch in some more later.
Also though, wanted to send some thanks to the many people here who are willing and , mostly, seemingly happy to share vast amounts of vital knowledge. loud mouse has answered sooo many of my questions unknowingly it's abit ridiculous. i think i've read through every post here at least twice and many half a dozen times.
a little background - 34yo father of 2, husband of 1. Production/Engineering/Quality Manager at a small (20 person) CNC production machine shop. Can run most/all typical manual machines and most/all CNC. Spent several years rebuilding automatic transmissions. 2/3 of a BS in mechanical engineering, 2/3 of a BS in computer science. drummer. first motorcycle project . . . and having a blast !
barn-find dream
barn-find dream
more picssome more project progress pictures, in no particular order
started out with small wire brush wheel, moved on to scotch-brite and elbow grease. followed these up with 'light' sugar blast to get the stuffs i could reach with the first 2. degreased then followed with acetone scrubdown. lotsa dry air blastin' throughout. praying that the adherence gods are smiling upon me. all paint is duplicolor 500' engine paint w/ceramic. prime coat/2 color coats/1 week cure/2 clear coats.
thanks joe ! yep, i did clutch while i had the side off. original frictions had no chunks missing and lotsa notch depth so cleaned em out good and replaced the rusty steels. i love the wire retainers at the back of the basket. i spent a few years rebuilding automatic transmissions and never ran across such a thing, too cool. I measured the springs while i had 'em out too and they were well within' range. the whole clutch pack was solid when i tore into it.
sugar works good if you're blasting something delicate and only trying to remove surface dirt and oxidation ( not rust , more like oxidation discoloration). very gentle media and not nearly as annoying when you find some in your drink. i threw some sand at my spokes today and it cleaned em up quite nicely. tomorrow evening i plan to lather em up with naval jelly, hose em down real good, and dip em in epoxy paint. will be interesting to see how they hold up. i also made some neat little adapters for my lathe to hold onto a rim strip without damaging it so i'm hoping i can get it indicated tru enough i can some carbide in there and cut out most of the heavily pitted steel. i'll throw up some picks and let ya know how i make out.
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