The Dream is ready for the Naples Concours d'Elegance
[quote="jensey"]Hi,
One of the nicest resto's I've seen lately. What was your goal ? Build it up as new ? as original ? The colour is very close to the original, nice ! And... why polishing the engine side covers ?? (my opinion) Jensen[/quote] I wanted to keep it pretty close to original, except for a very few minor changes. Most notably, and as you mentioned - the polishing of the engine cases. I know it is a departure from the original, but I simply couldn't resist. The beautiful curves in the cases were begging to be polished, rather than anodized in battleship gray. I agree with you that keeping a restoration as original as possible is best, but I did this knowing that I can always anodize them again and bring it back to complete original. I may yet do that - not sure. For now, I think the polished cases look pretty good. As for the color, I buffed the original paint down to where I reached the original color, then had it color matched with a spectrophotometer. It should be pretty close to original. As for my goal in doing this restoration, it was a gift for a very good friend. He bought this bike new in 1964 when he was 16. He is 66 years old now, and has kept the bike for the entire 50 years since new. It was a huge part of his childhood, and it meant too much for him to throw it away after the engine seized and the rest of the bike was consumed with corrosion. It's not often that you find a 1-owner bike that is 50 years old - quite a provenance. Seeing his reaction after he saw his childhood bike completely restored was priceless. It was as if he was 16 years old again. And, to see his how proud he is of the bike when it is on display in the bike shows is pretty special.
[quote="brewsky"]Quite a friend!
Any reason the speedo cable is not clamped to the fender brace?[/quote] Glad you asked! I always thought the speedo cable looked a little odd, but didn't know how or if it was supposed to be attached to the fender brace. I'm probably missing a bracket of some sort. Do you happen to have a close-up picture of how it is attached? I would really appreciate it.
[quote="brewsky"]It goes under a small screw-held clip on the fender strut, behind the chrome fork brace.
I can get a better pic later today.[/quote] Excellent! Thank you VERY much. I just found the part number for that clip on CMSNL & found one on eBay. It's on the way. When I do a full restoration, I make it a point to take detailed pictures of EVERYTHING before dismantling the bike. Unfortunately, this bike was partially dismantled when I started, so I didn't have that luxury. It made this resto a bit more difficult than it otherwise would have been. But, having great support on this forum certainly helps. Thanks again!
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