Oil pan finish?

[jfmerk]

Well my '78 standard restoration project has some life again and I have a question.... From the factory, does the oil pan have any coating on it of any kind? If it does does anyone one know what the finish was; did it match the case half color? Or???

Thanks !

[CatatonicBug]

My MNS oil pan is just plain aluminum. I don't think it has any coating on it at all.

[Incubus]

If anybody ever sees it I think you will have much bigger problems on your mind than how they like the finish....

Patrick

[dbeardslee]

The heads and the jugs have a coating, but the pan doesn't - not sure about the cases. Gotta agree with Incubus, though - best to keep the shiny side up and the rubber side down .

[crazy steve]

The pan is painted the same 'aluminum' color as the rest of the motor. The interesting part is I don't think the 'gloss' on parts of the case is from gloss paint per se, but it appears that Yamaha painted all the whole motor (including the carb boots) except for the underside and the cylinders/head with clear coat after assembly. Although after all these years, it's tough to tell on the cylinders/head; there does appear to be a coating residue on the rubber insulators between the fins, so maybe that has just dulled from the passage of time and heat exposure. I know I found clear coat on the allen bolts that attached all the covers. One exception seems to be the oil filter housing; that looks like it was painted separately and clear-coated.

'78E original owner

[dbeardslee]

I found out about the coating on the motor when I was using gasket remover on the head. I got a little sloppy and got some on the sides of the head. After about 5 minutes the finish bubbled up and I wiped it off with a rag. Had the pan off some weeks later, for what appeared to be the first time ever, and I coated the whole thing with stripper. Nary a bubble, cause there wasn't anything there but aluminum. Of course after 30 years, who knows what might have been done since they rolled off the line.

[latexeses]

As per something my father told me once when I was fretting over the finish on my cabinet kick boards.

"If someone's down there lookin' around, kick'em in the @$$ and ask 'um what the're lookin' for".

Seemed to clarify things for me.

[crazy steve]

...Had the pan off some weeks later, for what appeared to be the first time ever, and I coated the whole thing with stripper. Nary a bubble, cause there wasn't anything there but aluminum. Of course after 30 years, who knows what might have been done since they rolled off the line.

Or what detail differences there were between models, or even production dates. I know mine has original paint, because I'm the original owner. But I ran into another 'detail difference' when I got my '78E 'parts bike'. I of course still have the original 'emergency' kick lever that came with mine, but was pleased to see the other one still had one fitted. But where mine (an earlier serial number) was chromed (with a rather lackluster 'polish'), the other bike's lever had zero polish and was zinc plated. So Yamaha obviously started looking for ways to cut costs as time went by, so the later bikes may not have had painted pans. I looked at the parts motor pan, but it has suffered weather exposure as well as higher mileage, so short of cleaning it off to see if any paint exists, who knows...

'78E original owner

[dbeardslee]

That's a very good point. I was actually hoping mine had a coating as I was planning to strip it off and refinish it. The coatings I've seen tend to discolor with age, but the material under it is nice and clean.

[jfmerk]

Hey thanks for the feedback everyone! My goal is to put it back to factory condition, or at least as close as I can get. As dbeardslee mentioned not seeing any action from having stripper on the pan, it came back to me; I seem to remember the same reaction with mine so I think I'll just go with no finish. I can always add it later.