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That was me.
Covers were off, clearcoat was stripped off. All there was left to do was endure a crash-course in school-of-hard-knocks-learn-as-you-go aluminium buffing and polishing.
And I was ready. Sort of. I had the buffing machine from way back. Just needed new buffs, compound, assorted grits of assorted abrasives, gloves, face-shield, respirator, maybe borrow a sandblaster with some fine stuff for the first "hit" and a couple of "days" for the project. I had made a couple of attempts already. There were minor breakthroughs with chemical etching materials and a bunch of miracle time-saving products from the local autoparts store, which now sit on a shelf in my shop each clearly relabelled "SUCKER".
Then I saw the photograph of the valve cover and had my own "shining moment". The moment when fantasies of buffing competence were trumped by a flash of common sense.
Get a grip on reality, Grasshopper.
Sub 'em out...
They went out this morning. Probably back to me in about four weeks. In the meantime, I have the head off for a valve job, the zxr1200 carbs should be arriving from AZ any day now, the oil cooler is MIA somewhere in the Ebay Bermuda triangle, Bike Bandit has the full gasket set backordered, and, since noone in any parts store locally has ever heard of something called "valve lapping paste", that's coming in the mail too sometime.
So I have some time to exercize my incompetence in other areas while the covers get done.
There certainly has been an element of Mission Creep with this bike. Do one thing right and it upsets the Zen of the Whole Bike. The SF was putt-putt-ing along on two cylinders, in its own blue-black smoke of mediocrity, until I did just ONE thing to improve things.
Now the more I do, the more cries out to be done.
Cover-wise, I blinked and saw the light...
Look!!!.....Shiny!!!!
Gareth
Covers were off, clearcoat was stripped off. All there was left to do was endure a crash-course in school-of-hard-knocks-learn-as-you-go aluminium buffing and polishing.
And I was ready. Sort of. I had the buffing machine from way back. Just needed new buffs, compound, assorted grits of assorted abrasives, gloves, face-shield, respirator, maybe borrow a sandblaster with some fine stuff for the first "hit" and a couple of "days" for the project. I had made a couple of attempts already. There were minor breakthroughs with chemical etching materials and a bunch of miracle time-saving products from the local autoparts store, which now sit on a shelf in my shop each clearly relabelled "SUCKER".
Then I saw the photograph of the valve cover and had my own "shining moment". The moment when fantasies of buffing competence were trumped by a flash of common sense.
Get a grip on reality, Grasshopper.
Sub 'em out...
They went out this morning. Probably back to me in about four weeks. In the meantime, I have the head off for a valve job, the zxr1200 carbs should be arriving from AZ any day now, the oil cooler is MIA somewhere in the Ebay Bermuda triangle, Bike Bandit has the full gasket set backordered, and, since noone in any parts store locally has ever heard of something called "valve lapping paste", that's coming in the mail too sometime.
So I have some time to exercize my incompetence in other areas while the covers get done.
There certainly has been an element of Mission Creep with this bike. Do one thing right and it upsets the Zen of the Whole Bike. The SF was putt-putt-ing along on two cylinders, in its own blue-black smoke of mediocrity, until I did just ONE thing to improve things.
Now the more I do, the more cries out to be done.
Cover-wise, I blinked and saw the light...
Look!!!.....Shiny!!!!
Gareth
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