Motorcycle Frame Refurbishing

Now that the engine was rebuilt, I started working on the frame.  I took off the few remaining parts, forks, tree, stem, and swing arm.  This view shows the frame looking at the bottom.  There was tons of dirt and grease all over 

To save time in cleaning off all the oil, dirt, and grease, I took the frame over to my buddy’s shop and borrowed his pressure washer.  I coated the thing with a whole can of degreaser, and then sprayed the thing down really good.  Even with that there were some really stubborn bits that required scraping with a scotch brite pad then repeating the pressure washing. Overall, this was a pretty easy way to clean up the frame.  

I brought the frame back to my workshop, cleaned up some of the smaller chassis parts, then set up all the parts for painting. 

I used the KBS Coatings rust seal product as the base coat.  This stuff is supposed to encapsulate any remaining rust and do a real good job of sealing off the metal to keep out corrosion.  It can be sprayed on or brushed on.  A little goes a long way and it flows out so no brush strokes are visible.  

The results with just the rust seal coat look really good.  The only problem is that the rust seal paint is not resistant to ultra violet light, so it will start to fade if exposed to prolonged sunlight.  If you don’t want it to fade, it needs to be top coated.  

I let the rust seal coat dry for about 6 hours so it was dry to touch but just slightly tacky.  Then I sprayed DupliColor gloss black enamel doing 2 light coats and finishing with a medium/heavier coat. 

Here is how the finished parts turned out. 

Ideally, I could have got all these parts fully sand blasted and powder coated, but using the kbs coatings rust seal method with enamel top coat is a pretty durable alternative to powder coating and it cost significantly less money being able to do it yourself.