Petrol head thread!!!

[Dark Lightning]

Too true!

[billy rubin]

well, im farther along on my 1968 watsonian sidecar project:

ive got a rolling chassis:



ive got a motor, or at least all the pieces:



and ive still got the sidecar:



and now i have more time to work on it, since ive decided an old age of financial impoverishment is preferable to one of riches and emotional emptiness.

sp stay tuned. i have to paint the motherfucker now, and then put the engine together.i want a running motorcycle to break in before the snow flies.

[Dark Lightning]

Cool beans! I'd like to have that acreage, so that my wife has room to hoard more sh...tuff.

[billy rubin]

i built this warehouse at like 70 by 40 feet, so i could use it as a honey house for the beekeeping business.

but the bees have faded somewhat, althugh i still have around 2000 supers in there. and my extractor is 30 feet long.

so right now its a pretty good space for motor vehicle activity. the wife doesnt accumulate stuff the way i do, so we re good.

[billy rubin]

painting! perfect weather-- no wind, 80 F or so. i have shade n the west side of the warehouse until afternoon, so i hit it all in the moring.



ive got a 1970 norton commando with a fibrglas tank that wont let me run ethanol fuel. i recently got a great deal on a high-quality taiwanese steel tank to use instead, but it comes in bare metal, so i had to paint it.

ive also got the 1965 triumph TR6/T120 bitsa to pull a sidecar, and all the tinware needed paint. so today i put primer on everything.

two-part epoxy isocyanate paint now comes in aerosol cans! that are easy to spray! and expensive! so far six spray cans have cost me US$216.

but getting one cup of custom-blended roman fireflake purple for the commando was US$140, so its not so bad. i was originally not a fan of the purple norton, but i confess the paint has grown on me.



anyway, these spray cans have two-part epoxy paint similar in forumaltion to the old bulletproof imron i used to use.



theres a reservoir of catalyst inside that you break open, and then the can is good for 96 hours. one can will put one coat on a motorcycle tank, two mudguards, two sidecovers, and a chain guard.

so i sprayed the parts and now i have to wait until im ready to do the colour coats, for which i bought canned paint to use with a conventional spray gun. then i have more areosol paint for a clear coat.

paint technology has changed a lot since i did bodywork for a living fifty years ago. back then i made US$20 a day to sand and do bondo.

but painting the TR6 will get me closer to putting a running motorcycle on my sidecar, and theoretically that will help out with my deteriorating hip joints.

i can still kickstart everything okay except the norton, but i couldnt kickstart that even when my hips worked correctly. so thats not saying anything. but the sidecar outfit  cant fall over if my hip joint gives out.

[Dark Lightning]

Digging that color! Is that some ghostly painting on top of that tank, or a reflection? I recently had some paint repairs made on my Kia Forte. I can't stand for a long enough period to have sanded anything back and painted the parts. I would have used that catalyzed paint, too.

[billy rubin]

just reflections. that metallic purple was the hot ticket to sophistication back in 1970.

the two part paint is nice stuff. used to be we painted in nitrovellulose lavquer, and then buffed the paint until we clearcoated on top. not any more.

we ll see how the tank comes out. so far it all looks good