The CR125 Project: October 2012

Sunday, October 7, 2012

Fuel Tank Refinishing.

It is time to start working on the CR again, I started today with the fuel tank refinishing. I had done the fenders last winter and a few weeks ago I did the shrouds and side panels. Today I ordered the new piston kit and a new bearing for the top end, I have to save up a bit of cash to get the cylinder work done. With any luck and some good ebay sales it wont take too long.

The first photo is the untouched tank, you can see some of the scratches, they give off a glare in the photo.

In the second photo you can just make out the start of the finish process.
I started with a 320 paper on this tank because the scratches were not very deep.
Then used 400 and 600 if you decide to do this, don't make circles with the sand paper, they are harder to get out and show up easier. Use long motions in straight lines, cross your patterns every once in a while with each grit of paper.

The third photo is also before starting at another angle to see the scratches.

This is after the 600 grit followed by two coats of clear,

Same in this photo, after a good long cure (at least 24hrs) I will go back over the tank with 2000 grit (all sanding is done wet) then a final coat of clear.

Below are the shrouds that I refinished last week. Today I put the graphics on. Really happy with how they turned out.

The Back Story

This bike was originally purchased by a woman and her husband for some recreational trail riding. I have her name because its still on the title. They bought this bike (the 87) along with a 1986 CR125 (that I also bought) at the same time new in 1987. They proceded to ride the bikes for a couple of years as the story goes maybe three or four times a year. Then things between them went bad and they ended up divorcing in the early 90s. She got the bikes in the settlement. In 1995 She has a new boyfriend or husband and they decide to give the trail riding a try, they went out a few times but it turned out that they were over it. The bikes then sat in her garage untill Feb of 2010. Now the next owner comes along with his teen age son to purchase the bikes and use them for trail riding together. Neither of the new owner knew anything about bikes (and from the looks of just a few of the things on them I do mean they knew NOTHING about them) so the son takes off like he is invincable on the 1986 bike and procedes to ruin it from what I believe is running it without the use of pre-mix, ( I have not pulled the top end apart just yet). The son then decides to play mechanic and started pulling things apart without knowing what he is doing, so there are some small parts missing but was stopped before too long by Dad and saying they would have someone take a look at them. The 1987 bike was run some but at a much slower pace but probably still with no Pre-mix (it still has compression). So the bikes sit in a barn for some time waiting for Dad to have them looked at. It never happened, Son moved out Dad needs to move across country. After another year and a half in the barn now December 2011 I find the add on Craigs list and bang like that, I have two lightly used mid 80s CR125s for super cheap.