Suspension Meets Frame

Well some of it, I don't have it all cleaned and greased up just yet but I'm working toward that.

I had cleaned up and greased the swing arm a couple days back so it was ready to go on.
With the lower linkage and swing arm in place I will cleaned up the shock next and put that in place.

Chassis Build up Starts as well.

In this post  I have started the chassis re-assembly.  It looks so pretty with fresh paint.

First off I need to clean up the linkage and make sure the bearings are all good and spin nice and free, add grease here please.

Any one Remember these?  Needle bearings with no keeper, they just sit in a little race inside the housing.  These came out nice no grease to speak of so I am surprised they are not rusted. They will have lots of grease when they go back in.

The needles hold in there nicely with grease so you can get them in and all lined up. Packed with grease and ready for the pin.

This one doesn't look so good, its only 3.5 inches away from the other one and its full of rust.  The Bad part is its rusted, the Good part is it can be cleaned up and used.

There it is cleaned up and ready to put back into service.  Load up with grease and its good as new. I also did the lower dog bone linkage, it looked a lot like the first one in this post.

Re-Assembly Begins.

Having finally gotten the frame painted I can now begin that processes of re-assembling the bike.  This is the fun part. I still takes a while to do since most of the cleaning and lubing of old parts takes place just before they are put back on the bike, as well as any painting of parts that might need done.  There are always those things like motors that need painting and fixing before it will be really complete but I will take it as far as possible while waiting for motor parts or whatever else I might need.

Here is the motor with the clutch and the impeller re-installed. I also cleaned the motor cases with solvent then contact cleaner and smoothed out rough spots with  steel wool, then put a coat of hi-temp flat black on as a primer to the gloss black that will be next.

I know some of the restore purists are having fits right now because I didn't take each and every bolt out and split the cases just to do the paint.  Well the cases don't need to be split on this one and I would rather keep it all together.  Also the bolt heads are factory black anyway so its not like they were anodized and would look different.

Motor Check up.

Here is tonight's motor check up.  I got a photo of the motor with the repaired water pump inlet.

Then moved on to cleaning up the outside of the motor cases.  Followed by draining the oil and removing the clutch cover and the clutch.

The Clutch hub is in as good of condition as I suspected judging from the rest of the bike so far.  There is no wear on the edges of the basket which to me is one of the bigger signs of a motors use and abuse over its life.  As  you can see there is some oil left sitting on the hub, I cleaned the gearbox out with solvent and wiped the clutch plates clean before putting it all back together.

Next up tomorrow I will finish cleaning the cases then put a fresh coat of engine paint on even though the wear on the side cover is very minimal in its original state.

I also took a moment to put the sub frame on and the foot pegs.
There is a lot of distraction behind the frame so its a little hard to see.

Starting the Motor

Well not starting as in firing it up, but starting as in getting started on the work that needs done.

I started by pulling the water pump cover off because I could see some green build up from anti-freeze and figured there might be some corrosion going on in there.  In my typical fashion I forgot to take pics of what that all looked like before I dove in and started cleaning it up.  This would all be more interesting if I could remember to do that so you could see actual before and after photos.  So Here it is before but its before I even pulled the cover and you cant see into the water inlet to see the green stuff.  (actually thought I took that photo but, nope)

So here it is after I cleaned all the corrosion out of the impeller housing.

Thankfully the impeller came off very easily, the shaft didn't have any corrosion on it at all.  There is a small pit on the sealing surface at the bottom, you can see it just below the shaft.  There is also a hole corroded all the way through at the bottom of the pump input that is about the size of the tip of a ball point pen.  I cleaned all loose material and corrosion out scraping and spraying with solvent multiple times until all the white and green stuff was gone then used contact cleaner to get rid of any other impurities. Then using good old JB Weld filled in the pits and the hole.  In 24 hours it will be good as new.

Fresh Flash Red Paint

Well I finished the frame Prep and didn't take any photos of it, really not that interesting maybe or the fact that I didn't have the camera with  me and didn't feel like going in and getting it might have some thing to do with no photos.  I used 120 grit wet paper to sand down all the exposed and rusted parts to bare metal then used a worn 220 to go over all the painted areas to scuff the surface. Then cleaned the frame with contact cleaner to remove any oils or dust left over.
Any way I did take photos of the finished product.  I painted the frame outside where it is a damp 45* , out in the wood shed so I wouldn't get red paint dust all over everything in the garage. I didn't feel like going through the effort of building a makeshift paint booth.  Any way the moisture in the air left a chalky white film on the finish as it was drying even after bringing it into the garage with the wood stove going. I used the heat gun to warm the frame up and see if the white would go away when dried and yes it did.  Leaving a very nice glossy flash red finish.

I also prepped and painted the sub frame but have not taken photos of it yet, when I do I will post them on this post.  While I was in the Prep and Paint mode I sanded and painted the foot pegs to a nice glossy black finish.

Update for February , Frame Work

I have not been working too much on the CR, due largely to working on the 86 CR and dismantling and selling parts.  Its unfortunate to me to have to do that to a potential restore bike but at the same time that is where my finances are coming from for my other two projects.  I have ordered mostley parts for the KX with what little income I have had but I am mostley caught up with the other things going on and now can start cleaning up the 87 CR in preperation for puting back together. 

I found and ordered frame paint in the Flash Red color that Honda used in the mid and earlier 80's, it has not arrived yet but I have started sanding down the frame to remove surface rust and smooth out chips in the paint.  I know that most of the restore purists wouldn't do it this way but I don't want to strip it all the way down and recoat with primer and new paint so I am going to over coat it and see how it goes.  Especially since I am planning on riding this bike some, super great paint is not at the top of my list. I want it to look nice but also figure if I really don't like it I can re-do paint any time.