Bonneville America Forums Forums Technical Forums Accessories Back from the polisher

Just got back home from picking up the fork shrouds and the lower fork legs from the polisher. Outstanding! The pic doesn't show the quality of the work, but trust me, it looks just great!

A funny thing, the shop is so low-tech it would have looked the same if I stepped in there forty years ago, but the guy knows his trade:

Wow.. looks real good. So how long did it take to do the polishing? Can't wait too see it all back together.

Matt

Outstanding piper. How was the price vs. a chrome job?

Whoah!!!
Bengt, What a beautiful job! Now I gotta do it.
Ride Safe,
Dennis

Looks Great Piper, Heres a Pic of my parts I did myself at home with a Black & Decker 6" bench motor fitted with the cotton polish wheels plus lots of sanding and three different grades of rouge. sealed with Zoopseal and put back together. The best enhancement on my bike to date. Enjoy your new look. Tmax

Man those look nice. My chromed lower legs don't look any better than yours!

Thanks Matt! He had the parts for three weeks, but I guess he took care of some other stuff before mine Didn't ask him about how much time he spent, but I had stripped all the powder coat off before he got the parts.

Thanks Blackdog! I payed him 1200 SEK - about 150 USD for the job. Well worth it IMHO. This also would have been done if I was to chrome the parts, and chroming is very expensive in Sweden. Don't really know how much that would have cost me. I believe that chroming aluminum and stainless isn't too easy either.

Impressive Tmax, doing that yourself. My own experiences with buffing are limited to smaller stuff and I don't think I could have got the same finish myself. Your pieces are blinding. They also told me what to do next winter. One question though - what is Zoopseal? Is it some kind of coating to prevent the aluminum from oxidating (sp)?

Thanks Dennis! But when are you going to find time to do it? You don't suffer from winter as I do!

Hey Piper, Thats correct! its an aluminum sealer. Here's the link:
http://www.zoopseal.com/zoopseal.asp
Ride safe! Tmax

wow, that looks awsome piper. any tricks on taking them apart?

I think I heard of that zoopseal stuff on TV, guys coat their rims with it to make it WAY easier to clean off brake dust, right? How much does that cost? Is the process easy? Seems like it would be a good idea for any aluminum part, even if it's not mirror polished! Just to make it easier to clean.

Thanks Joker! The only thing that was hard when taking apart the forks was loosening the damper rod bolt. I managed to brake one of tem loose, but for the other I had to take it to my dealer (who did it for free). The problem is the damper rod spinning insode the fork leg. I believe there will be no problems when mounting, since I have a tapered broomstick to hold the rod, and that should be enough.

Tmax,

How does your finnish hold up? How long has it been since you buffed and coated? Looks awesome!

maybe I'll do it too, but all needed tools at home made that stuff before not difficult job looks great
Grzegorz

Hi Ed, It's been a year since polishing and coated with Zoopseal, They still look good. just wash with mild soap and wipe dry, I do apply car wax it helps with water spotting which happens to chrome also. Tmax

Can any of you guys who've done this tell me how to get the top shrouds off? The lowers i can get to on the bike, and yes, i know it'll be a bioth but i have my ways. I can't however get to much of the top ones so i need to get them off. I have a bike jack but no sure how to go about it. Any help out there?

G,day Dale, to get the shrouds off you drop the front wheel off then losen the allen head bolts on top & bottom triple tree then the pull forks down through triple trees.
The bottom shrouds bolt to the bottom triple tree.
The top shroud pulls straight out from between the triple trees sideways.
Hold the speedo hub in place when tensioning up front axle so it dosn't spin and wreak the cable.
Tools you'll need.
Allen keys: 5mm, 6mm, 8mm, 12mm, 19mm plus a 12mm spanner or socket. Have fun.

Bengt,the trick to getting the damppening rods out is to break the rods lose befor you start to take the forks apart.That way the spring will hold the rod till you can losen the bolt alittle.

Great looking legs!

Okay, for us hapless garage mech wannabes, what's involved with putting those forks back into the lower legs? Did you have to buy new fork seals? Any other parts that need to be ordered from the dealer?

I guess it might be best to replace the seals when putting everything back together, but I didn't. The only thing I did was to soften up the damper rod copper washer to make it seal better. You know the old trick where you heat it up with a blow torch and then quickly cool it down by throwing it into cold water.

That really does look awesome!

How did you strip the powder coat?

Thanks! I used a gel paint stripper. Brush it on, leave for twenty minutes and then use a soft wire brush to remove the paint. Real easy.

OK, sorry about the short write-up... If you have the workshop manual it's noo biggie. The only thing I had trouble with was one of the damper rod bolts that just kept spinning when I should remove it. I had to take the whole leg to the dealer and it took the mech all of 20 sek. to brake it loose. I've learnt since then that you need to loosen the bolt before taking apart the rest of the fork leg and let the fork springs help holding the damper rod still and not spinning. There are lots of info here as well. Search both the new threads and the archives. Hope this helps!