Post by erbuck on Sept 6, 2019 12:39:00 GMT -6
A year and a half ago I was given a 454 partly disassembled and missing some parts. It was in pretty rough shape, and essentially a parts bike, but somehow due to ego or excess pride decided to bring it to completion. It was very rusty and had many corroded parts. I can't find any pictures of it with the engine in the frame when I received it. This picture gives an idea of things after i had started the disassembly.
The forks were very corroded and I later found out one was bent. Fortunately, a couple weeks after I was given this project, a set of EN450 forks came up for sale on Craig's list. Once I bought these I started to feel the greater commitment.
I stripped it down to it's frame and was going to have the frame sand blasted to remove all the corrosion. I was already spending lots of time at the wire wheel removin corrosion from the nuts and bolts.
The sandblasting shop also did powder coating. It wasn't very hard for the guy at this shop to "upsell" me to have the powder coating done. I wasn't going to do just black as then it would be difficult to prove I actually had it powder coated. I went for Red. The red was more of a Fire Engine red than I had picked out. I wanted something darker, but I was happy with the job the shop had done because it is very durable and they plugged all the threaded holes. Here's what it looked like without the engine.
The powder coating included the triple tree, swing arm, foot peg brackets, the rear brake cover, and the belt spindle for the rear wheel. The powder coat guy let me throw in some extra things at no cost, so I went a bit overboard. Here's what it looks like with the engine in the frame. I did spend some time cleaning and spray painting the cylinders and head. The side covers were vapor blasted. Not sure if the vapor blasting improved things much.
So now I'm riding it around. Probably need to replace the 15 year old tires. The gas tank will need paint, but I haven't decided what to do yet.
Ride safe everyone.
