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A FEW
MEASUREMENTS ON THE FRONT FENDER
When I was getting ready to finalize the bodywork I received an
email requesting some measurements from my front fender. These are
taken in reference to the top mounting hole, which bolts into the
forks. All measurements are center to center.
Lighting holes: First, the
starting point fender mounting hole is a 3/8 hole. Measuring to the
front of the fender, the first light mounting hole is 10 and ¼
inches away. It is a ¼ inch hole. The hole where the power goes to
the light is 12 and ¾ inches from the center mounting hole. It is a
½ inch hole. The forward and farthest away lighting hole is 15 and
5/16 inches from the center mounting hole. It once may have been a
5/16 inch diameter hole. The hole where the wire goes down to the
light is located 3/4 inch to the rear and 2 and 5/8 inches to the
left of the mounting hole. It is a 7/16 inch hole.
Trim measurements: The two
center trim pieces are 4 and 1/16 inches apart center to center. The
holes are located 2 and 1/32 outboard of the center line of the
fender. Starting from the center mounting hole, my first two holes
are 2 and 7/8 inches forward. The next set are 41/2 inches from
them. The third set are 4 ¾ inches from the second set and the last
set are 4 5/8 inches forward of that.
EXHAUST SYSTEM
Bobs Indian constructed my exhaust system. There are two pieces: a
header section and a muffler and tailpipe section. At the same time
they made the shield that runs under the muffler and mounts to the
floorboard. These items fit properly as received. There is not much
else to say about this – it’s an exhaust system. I was very
satisfied.
PAINTIN’ PLACE
 The
sheet metal was ready to paint. But before I got into that, a good
location was needed. Normally I would just go outside and spray it
in the front yard. That was not gonna work this year because we were
actually having winter weather for once. Even I know that paint won’t
go on well when it’s snowing!
The paint booth had
to go in the garage, and there needed to be as little as possible
paint odor in the house.
I have a basic colonial home with a 2
car attached garage. The garage doors are downwind from the
prevailing breeze. The air in the paint booth needed to be as dust
free as possible. I ran furring strips along the ceiling of the
garage and down the walls, splitting the garage in half. The “dirty”
side was the side with my workbench. The “clean” side was the
side normally occupied by my Camaro project car. When the paint
booth was in use I rolled the car out in the driveway. The two sides
of the garage were separated by a continuous sheet of 4 mil plastic
that was stapled to the furring strips and weighted at the bottom by
being stapled to two by fours. Access to the dirty side was by
lifting a part of the sheet at the garage door end (See picture
5).
The air supply was
from the house. In order to keep dust out of the garage, I built a
filter bank for 3 20”X25” furnace filters out of 2 x 4s and
furring strips. It is located alongside the 2 steps into the garage.
About that time my secret weapon showed up. A long time friend,
Gonzo, had agreed to spray the paint as he has done a lot of it. He
also swapped air compressors with me so that we could use his oil
free one instead of my older model. Together we built a construction
door to seal off the filter bank area from the house. Air removal
was by 2 24-inch fans. The bottom panel of the garage door was
detached and when we needed the fans we lifted the top three
sections, removed the bottom section installed the fans and a block
off section, and lowered the door back on top of the fans. We got so
that we could do this very fast and without loosing much heat while
the garage was open.
When you are sucking
air through the booth, you have to have a make up air supply. My
make up air was by opening a basement window. Of course this air was
in the 30 s or sometimes less, so I opened up the return duct to my
heating system. It pulled air from the basement, heated it, and we
sucked the heated air out of the house, via the paint booth. The
basement would drop to about 50 degrees sometimes (from 65) but the
house stayed pretty warm. We also preheated the air going into the
paint area with a kerosene heater. When additional heat was needed
in the garage, we blasted off with a propane heater that will cook
you out in a few minutes!
Before Gonzo sprayed
on the color coat, we blew down all surfaces with air, swept the
walls, floor and ceiling several times and then blew the whole place
down again with the fans sucking the dust out the whole time. Then
we fed a hose in and wet down the floor for dust control. There are
two additional steps we neglected to take. We should have gotten a
Tyvek painting coverall, and misted him with water. We also should
have grounded the parts (would have been easy to do as we hung them
with number 12 stranded wire green even - for you electricians!).
SAFETY ISSUES
We did a lot of sanding. Obviously this generated a load of dust.
When it gets real dusty a respirator is a handy thing to have.
When reading the instructions on your paint, there is usually a
paragraph on safety considerations. Some paints require a respirator
while some call for a supply of breathable air to be provided from a
fresh air source. I purchased a ProAir 40 Niosh approved full face
mask system from Eastwood.
This may seem like overkill to some, but since I’m learning to
paint, and have another bike, a sidecar and a convertible waiting
for me to practice on, I figure let’s stay alive and enjoy the
fun!
We also protected
our hands from some of the paints by using latex “proctologist
style” gloves (available at finer auto supply stores everywhere).
PREPARATION AND
PAINTING
 The
first thing you want to do is get the parts to be painted down to
bare metal. I prefer to media strip so that there will not be traces
of stripping chemicals to remove. But don’t just send the parts to
a sandblaster, or they may be warped by some gorilla who turns the
pressure up too high. We have a local outfit “SoftStrip”
that does a lot with classic cars and bikes. They use various media
depending on what is being stripped. This is the kind of outfit you
should look for. I just dropped the parts off and when I got them
back they were ready for the next stage.
After everything is
clean, there are usually repairs to be made. Most of that has been
discussed already, but this is the time for any welding, grinding,
drilling etc. Holes for bolts should be one size over the bolt size
to allow for paint filling the hole.
The next step is
hammering things into shape if required. The hammers and dollies
available at some auto parts stores are not always of the highest
quality, so you may want to file your hammers to get them really
flat or whatever shape you are using. When you are shaping things,
you can run a file over the metal, and the low spots will not get
scratched. Then tap the low spots out or the high spots down until
it is as smooth as you can get it. There is no hurry in this. If
there is, pay someone else to do it because you will mess it up. The
idea is to get the part so smooth that no filler will be needed.
 Once
everything is as smooth as you can get it there will still be
repairs needed to area where there is no access for the dolly. An
example is the gas tanks. We used a two-part product called
Metal-2-Metal “metal reinforced body filler”. Fillers should be
used as sparingly as possible. You mix the stuff up and apply into
the low areas, then smooth off and go for drinks. When you return it
will be dry and you can sand almost all of it off except that little
bit that was required to fill the very few low spots that did not
respond to your dolly & hammer.
Now it’s time for
a coat of primer. Spray it on and sand it off. When you hit metal
that’s a high spot. You can smooth the piece quite a bit by
sanding and re primering. When you think it’s pretty smooth, mist
a contrasting color over the piece and sand again. Low spots will
not be affected, high spots will have the misted coat sanded off of
them. We sanded with 220 grit until Gonzo was a happy man. He did
not get happy too fast. It took a couple cases of beer and three
days before we go to the next step.
After the primer the
next step in our painting system was to use primer filler. This
fills up any low spots left from the previous step. We primered,
then sanded with 220, then primered, then sanded again. If you hit
the previous and different colored primer, it’s time to stop. If
you hit metal, it’s time to spot in a little primer. After the 220
we wet sanded with 400. Things were getting very smooth by this
time, and we could have gone on to 600, but the paint instructions
said color coat after 400.
There were still a
very few spots left. We used Dynatron Putty-Cote glazing putty. Then
we sanded, primered and wet sanded again.
Finally we were
ready for the color coat. We hung the parts and wiped them down with
prep-sol. Then I got out of the way while Gonzo laid on the color
and clear coats.
There are a few dust
spots that got by us, but they are minor and will polish out. I kept
the parts warm for the rest of the day, and then took them down to
the basement (also a fairly warm area) and left them alone for a
week and a half. This was to give the paint a chance to harden.
The process
described above took two guys a week to complete. That was for 2
tank halves, a chain guard and 2 fenders. We were pretty slow, but
it’s fun, right? 
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