Amazing what a clean and polish can do

My '86 has been looking a little worse for wear (150-200 miles a week right now), so I gave her a bath today.

The big win was discovering that most of the scratches in the paint that have been picked up were "buffed out" by Meguiar's DeepCrystal cleaner and polish. I figure it just lifted the dirt out of them, but wow, does it make a difference.

washed, cleaned, polished, waxed, and then I touched up the black plastic bits with Mother's Back To Black, confirmed that Mother's Aluminum Polish wasn't going to do anything to the frame (clear hard anodized?) and swingarm, and then attacked the supertrapps, which were looking pretty worse for wear.

#0000 steel wool, in the direction of the brushing, followed up by Mother's polish to really give it a shine. The results are pretty nice (in my mind).

 

Nicely done. That looks pretty damn good for a 22 year old piece of machinery.

KC-10 FE out...
lane: :usa2:

 

Very Nice!!!

Action

 

Awesome! Honda needs to bring that bike back in a 600 size.

 

Nicely done, I usually give mine a super cleaning every winter, your Supertrapp exhaust brings back memories...

 

It's homelier than it looks in the pics. This is the side without the rash from having been downed by the previous owner.

And there's road tar on the front of the "scoop" at the bottom-front of the fairing that I have no idea how to get off, plus the insides of the fairings are a complete mess.

But yeah, the outside cleans up nicely.

The seat's rubbed up the paint pretty badly along the tank where it meets. Do people think that the 3M or the "Helicopter Tape" will help protect that in the future?

Long term, I'm going to fix up the fairings, and get them repainted (to stock). I happen to work next to a pretty good body shop. But $^@# is that old plastic brittle...

click on the pic for a link to the rest of the pics:

 

I have to give my old '83 a once over every 6mos or so. I do the same thing you did. You're right, the results are amazing!!

 

I love the sound of the Supertrapps. I was thinking I didn't care for them when I first picked up the bike. But then I took it over 5000 rpm... It's a wonderful sound thundering up an on-ramp, or going turn to turn at 6-8K rpm.

It needs to lose weight more than anything else. Every time I sit on my wife's '88 Hawk, I'm amazed at the sheer weight of my 700. 50 cc more, but 100lbs extra (and about 40-50% more hp).

 

Nice looking Vintage Viffer!

But you need a new clutch lever.:tongue:

 

The photo with the bent clutch level is over a year old. It was the newest photo I have of the rashed up left side of the bike.

I fixed that a while ago.