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I wasn’t even aware you could create your own bike check. That’s great for me since it makes it easier to place all these builds I have to do in one area.
Your comments here are enjoyed and I believe lend greater credibility to my efforts. When you have members lending sensible comments and information to assist it really says a great deal about that member.
Spending the insane amount of time restoring these is very gratifying. But being able to share it here is what completes it.
Motor into frame..
I had the frame powder coated and used the color code for this year that is recommended. I have a screen shot somewhere of other members discussing it.
Found it. I want to give JT credit for his original posting of this.
Of course my powder coated didn’t have the color and so I had to special order it. It was worth it for sure.
I love powder coating since the outfit I use does an excellent job in their prep. I tried using Imron and painting the frame myself. Powder coating is worlds better as a finish. Durable and less likely to tear when mounting hardware.
The aluminum frame tab up by the steering head is easily removable and replacing back on the frame. Push out the 2 metal pins/nails and it comes off. Save those pins and it will go right back on.
I used the stock pegs since I am trying to not alter this from stock. Here in this image I am rewarded with the yellow dip on small key parts. Just looks for stock.
Straight forward on placing the motor back in the frame.
The stock carb was bead blasted and I cerakoted it. First time doing this. But it ties in with the refinished parts and I would do it again.
All the electrical was time consuming in clean up. Dremel again was used to clean rust. Small light steel brush works well. Rubber components are easily restored with wd40. I was able to use all the original rubber parts. Even the CDI holder/carriage that was cracking and falling apart. I used super glue to seal splits. No way will you find one of those in original form. At least I couldn’t find one.
I removed powder coating for the coil mounting poles. Just to insure a excellent ground.
It’s easy to overlook these types of items in a restore since they are covered. I will always spend as much time needed to get that stuff looking as good as I can.
Fit those radiators. I re-used the hoses but made sure to clean them throughly. Both inside and out.
I repainted the hose clamps after clean up and powder coat.
Even the original wire ties were used after clean up. I flattened the aluminum with a ball peen hammer on my vice.
Doc Wob and his restores and other- Press me
I’m not much of a tribute guy since I feel this more narrows your perspective client. Additionally no way could I reasonably recreate it without suffering great expense. Why suffer having it picked apart. But they are super impressive and I researched where to get the graphics and seat cover.
It’s late here and so tomorrow I will finish with this installment. Thanks for checking it out.
I got the chance to ride his WR on a hybrid track for the first time (part hair scramble course and part motocross) that had a huge supercross style whoop section coming out of a berm. There were two routes carved by riders who either took the whoop section or went around them using the sissy section.
The guy in front of me went around them, so I was thinking, dang am I going the wrong way? I didn't know what was on the other side of the first whoop. I thought it was a single jump, so I took it and once I crested the top, I seen the next 4 huge whoops in front of me, I instantly had the "oh sh*t" moment.
I was expecting to end-o into the face of the second whoop and bucked off into a near by pond. By fear and chance I stayed on the throttle and this damn thing went over the tops like butter. I stopped and had to get off the bike and go back and look at my path marks just to see how the heck I pulled this off.
I realized, I didn't pull it off, the bike did, lol. Once I got back to the camp area, I asked my buddy "hey man, you want to sell this thing?" The short answer was a "hell no" - lol, I got him to come take a look at this whoop section and he was like "dude your lucky you didn't smash up my bike and have to be air lifted out of here". I replied; well, that would of been one way to buy it from you. LOL! For a 50 year old rider, I had a pro moment for all of about two and a half seconds that day on a WR. Haha!!!
I will definitely keep an eye on your WR build. Looks like those Chesterfield's are circa 94-95?
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I remember at a local track when they redid the layout and added a series of close whoops. No where near super cross deep but deep enough for a local track.
My first aggressive run through it I looped it. I just got on the gas while just starting into them.
I quickly learned to enter them with some speed and hold it WFO. If you don’t practice these or spend a lot of time on a track it’s just not instinctive to aggressively power through them.
So I can still remember those and this goes back to early 90s. Great memories and that 92 Honda CR I had is what lead me into restoring so many years later. Thanks for bringing that memory back.
What little research I have done seems to validate that at least the 91 YZ was well regarded. I’m encouraged by the favorable info that is available.
I can’t find a head seal for the rear shock but I did order a complete graphics kit for it last night.
Once I am done with posting on this 86 I will begin the Yamaha thread.
So the radiators are on. Fortunately the guards were in good shape. The plastic had taken a set due to the the damage from a crash. Setting it out in the heat helped relax it.
Shock in and swingarm. I did clean up what I found to be just sloppy manufacturing actually. Lots of areas that looked rough. I glass bead blasted it along with the linkage and cerakoted it all. Bearings were in great shape so I cleaned up and re-greased. I carefully cleaned seals inside and out. Even cleaned out lips with a dental pick.
All the original hardware was used. To include screws and bolts. I would suggest 98% of all the original hardware was used on this build. I was fortunate that Don had done an excellent job of maintaining the originality of this bike.
Forks on. I reverse bled the front caliper. Used a syringe and forced the oil upward through the system. This worked fantastic. First time using this method. Prior was bleeding by pulling oil down through the system with a vacuum pump. Reverse gives you strong braking action with minimal pumping.
Sprocket cover was from 90s era. I didn’t bother trying to find one on eBay. The sprockets were Sidewinder brand in excellent condition. I removed the anodizing from the rear sprocket and cerakoted it. Rolled a new chain onto the sprockets. Stock gear shifter used but mold lines removed and I tightened the tip back up.
Don had purchased a new Honda brand swingarm pivot buffer and a new under swingarm back chain guide. Having these items and many others new from Honda but un-available today were key in the final shape of the bike.
The airbox was super cleaned. I pulled the boot off and just made sure to get every spec of dirt off of it. Shot some adhesion promoter before spraying with Cerakote. Off to the oven. Plastics can be done with the oven cure. As long as it’s not super thin it will not deform.
The silencer was also in great shape. I repacked it after exterior clean up and Cerakote.
I didn’t have a mid pipe. Facebook CR owners page came to the rescue. A member there hooked me up with 2 of them. Cheap too. I’m pretty sure I tipped him since he wanted so little.
They both needed interior clean up or de-carbon. The sheer volume of carbon inside these was significant. Definitely they need servicing.
Every season for a few years, I had to dig mine out and use a punch and hammer to loosen that stuff up. My ole man used to haze me by saying it was just a simple carburetor adjustment that was needed. Once I showed him the half pound of resin that came out of the pipe and stinger, that shut him down on that theory real quick. LOL!!
Question, are you going to flip it or keep it?
What will I do with it..
I plan to sell it and use the funds as a donation to a non-profit foundation that was created by my GF and I to memorialize my daughter who was killed this year.
Her foundation will actually make the donation so that it will be in her name as giving it.
So I have no interest in riding it. That aspect will belong to the new owner if they choose.
Plastics…
With the past bikes I just ended up with either replacing or painting plastics. I did have a gas tank restored by a professional. Frankly it has always seemed intimidating.
The struggle was always getting the shine back.
Fortunately I was able to replace the front and rear fenders as Honda still offers these. The front number plate comes in all white plastic.
So all I had to deal with was remove some slight bleaching on the tank and restore rad shrouds and side panels.
Don had a set of new Maier plastics for this bike. If you are familiar with this brand you know they would be fine if just looking for replacement stuff and care little about appearance.
I purchased some DC replacements and was faced with the same challenge as the Maier.
So it looks like I will attempt restoring the originals.
I did not restore the fenders thankfully.
This image actually helps the plastic look better than it actually is.
I started with the radiator panels. I spent several hours sanding with 400 and got up to 1200 grit. I mounted them to a board to make it easier to try and polish.
The next picture is what I used to bring shine back. I watched a video of a guy doing just that. No paste/wax/polish. Just the wheel dry on a drill.
This is just the beginning of bringing the shine back. I actually kept trying to sand out the scratches when the wheel would just whiten those areas.
Finally I discovered scraping with a razor blade as the key to removing surface imperfections and follow up with polishing. This worked so well that going forward I would concentrate on the scraping followed by the polishing only. I used this method on the side panels to remove old bleached plastic. If you are careful it only removes a a very thin top layer. Keeping the blade edge flat to the surface as if you were going to cut straight through. Pulling that across the surface you want to clean up in a scraping motion was much more effective than sanding.
I used a relatively high speed corded drill to polish. I bought the wheels off Amazon cheaply.
Polishing wheels 6 inch Amazon- Press Me
You can see the damage that I wasn’t able to completely remove at the top of the rad wing.
Now this wasn’t scraped prior to polish but sanded. The side number plates were scraped.
I also bought vinyl for the number plate backgrounds.
Removing the stock or original painted backgrounds was insanely difficult. I tried the known or popular methods and none of these worked.
What worked for me was some heat and the razor blade again. Here I used the blade at an angle to lift the material.
The vinyl looked like crap on the backgrounds. I ditched it.
Choosing to paint the backgrounds in of course came with its own issues. Tried laying down some primer to fill in. This just wrinkled my top coat
I will end here since it was a maddening process of having to deal with non-compatibility with the paint I was using. It was actually comical how long it took to finish those.
What I leaned…
Scrape with a razor blade sun bleached plastic.
Soften scrapes in plastic with a razor blade.
Watch your pressure with the polishing wheel. You can burn/melt the plastic easily.
Make sure your wheel is spinning in a direction as not to grab an end/edge of plastic.
You do not need any agent to help bring shine. Friction alone does this. Heating the plastic to a temp too hot to touch did not work for me. Some have suggested this works.
One thing I started using during and after final wet sand and starting the wheel buffing process, I used NOVUS plastic polish. This cuts down on sanding and buffing times and the results are better in some cases, but it can cut down on over all time spent on hand labor. Depending how much gouging you have and what type of scratches you are dealing with, NOVUS can save you time on your manual labor for sure. Instead of using water as a sanding lubricant, I use NOVUS in place of water. Try this website:
https://www.novuspolish.com
At the end of the day, it really depends on condition of the PE plastic you restoring, the more severe the condition, the more you realize different methods have to come into play. Moderate to severe UV damage (bleaching) always ads hours to any restore. Give NOVUS a try and see if it enhances and reduces restoration times as it did me. I got to tell you though, that radiator shroud looks fantastic using your method. It's not over polished and looks like an OEM sheen.
I also did the DC Plastic and Maier route, but if your using some OEM and aftermarket plastics together on a higher end restore, forget it. Color matching is problematic, fitting, drilling and installation times adds to the headache, then the over-all difference between OEM injection molding and aftermarket Vacuum Formed plastics has very noticeable difference in design between the two.
God bless you man! Send me your paypal or something and I will drop a donation to your daughters foundation. My loved one is dealing with ATAXIA Type-1, it's like Lou Gehrig's disease... Really nasty stuff, it's a gene mutation that creates enzymes that's eating her cerebellum away, it's causing her thoughts to disconnect with muscles (motor skills) and will lead to eventual organ shut down. She's 10 years younger than me and it's reduced her down to, having no use of her legs and very little use arms and fingers, barely able to speak. It's made me a better person supporting her, but like you, no matter how hard we try, pray and wish and hope, it doesn't go away. Just humbles the hell out of a person in ways that only a few understand... Many Blessing my man!!!
Is your vitalmx messaging set up? or do you have an email addy you can shoot me? I got a plan to reduce plastic restoration times drastically and want to talk to you about it...
This individual was involved in a gang and while running from a vehicle stop blew a light and struck her vehicle drivers side. Killed her instantly.
It was an easy decision to try and help those who want to help themselves have a better direction in life.
Talk about a challenge for you. I have nothing to pull from to understand watching a loved one fall under the affects of a disease. Horrible to know that it will ultimately take her.
That is insanely generous of you my friend to offer a donation. Thank you. I will send you a link to her web site.
My vital messaging is functional. I will give you a direct way to contact me.
The items not original to the bike.
Front/Rear fenders/Front Number plate
Rims/Tires
Bars/Clutch lever/Front brake lever/Grips/Cables
Chain/Sprockets
Decals
Carb overflow and Fuel line
All seals/bearings/gaskets/piston/rings/wrist pin and bearing all Honda manufactured.
I doubt I will ever be able to restore another so completely using original parts mostly.
This bike should run and feel like brand new.
Here’s mine ready for some action.
I will eventually sell it and start it for the new buyer if they choose.
The monies will benefit a non profit foundation I set up on behalf of my 19 year old daughter was killed this May.
Those funds will be donated to a organization involved in gang life alternatives.
Pit Row
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