Gas, tires, oil.

Here’s the ‘55 with the front end installed (enough to drive around anyway):


And it tilts (it just doesn’t stop tilting):

Last time I showed how to french in turn signals in fiberglass. I used the stock lens to shape the tunnel, but I decided not to use the factory socket and base. The sockets were in pretty bad shape and the contacts no longer made a good connection to the bulb. Because the tunnel now defined the lens shape, I can use any turn signal that is bigger than the stock one. First I made a flange for it to sit on. I coated a piece of cardboard with release wax and taped it to the end of the tunnel.

Then I laid fiberglass strips over the tunnel and the inner face of the cardboard. I went to the junkyard and found some front turn signals from a ’80s chevy van. In spite of their size they are extremely light. They use a socket that just twists out from the back. This socket is replaceable (the same one as on millions of chevy pickups). Because the housing is plastic, it’s already equipped with a ground wire (very important for a fiberglass front end). For now I attached it with foam double sided tape, but I’m going to get some aluminum or fiberglass threaded rod and bolt it one also (I just can’t stand the thought of the hardware weighing more than what it holds on).

Here’s a pic from the front, it needs some more spot putty and sanding, but it gets me back on the road. The amber color is solely from the bulb (which is not on).

I’ll post in the future about mounting the headlights and making the front end tilt.

In order to get the ‘55 going again with the new fiberglass front end, one of the things I needed to do was to get the turn signals mounted.

Here is the turn signal on the stock fender.

Since the stock turn signal bezel was pretty corroded and the bulb sockets had given me trouble in the past, I decided to french in some new turn signals. First I used the lens as a template to cut out an opening.

Then coated some heavy paper with release wax and rolled it in a tube. Then I used the lens keep it the right shape.

I wanted to fill around it, so I made some filler out of white gel coat and glass micro-balloons. This sort of filler is much stronger than the bondo-types that use talc.

Here’s a shot from the inside, I used some tape to hold the paper in place and prevent filler from dripping through.

Next I coated the part of the tube on the inside of the fender with some gel coat and a couple layers of fiberglass cloth. Also shown is a piece of fiberboard that cut to fit over the tube. This is a guide so I can trim it down evenly with a die grinder.

If I was just frenching the stock turn signal, I’d just make some mounts to hold it as shown below. The thin fiberglass tube actually fits around the lens and between it and the housing.

Next time I’ll show the new turn signals and how I mounted them.

Turns out that St. Patrick’s Day is now a school activity staple (google “Leprechaun traps” to see examples), so my wife pulled a few pranks on the kids and blamed the leprechauns. Now the kids blame leprechauns for everything (the 5 years got a bug or spider bite one night, I asked him what bit him while he was sleeping and he said “It was a leprechaun!”). So one night after the kids went to bed, we pulled the front sheet metal off the ‘55.

The next morning we had the kids look out the window and said “Look what those leprechauns did to the car last night”.
But the next night, they were good and replaced the front end:

The new one is a one-piece fiberglass front end I got off of Craiglist.

How much did it lighten the front end? I haven’t weighed it yet, but the suspension is at the top of the travel, you can see the rubber bumper against the upper A-arm in the pic above. Next I have to mount the headlights, turn signals, radiator and bolt the whole thing down some how. If the suspension hasn’t come down, I’ll have to cut a coil off the front springs. Now I just need fiberglass trunk lid to balance out the rear (of course then I’ll need ‘glass doors to even out the middle).

So, let’s finish up this paint job (part 1, part 2). I thinned the paint for spraying, I think a lot of people have problems using spray guns because the paint is too thick. Most automotive paint has specific thinning instructions and there are tools for measuring viscosity, but here is a good rule of thumb: thin until when you pull the paint stick out of the paint, the paint running off the stick breaks into two streams (instead of one).

I thin in a separate container (necessary if it’s catalyzed paint), you can buy disposable plastic containers just for this. This way you strain thinned paint into the gun.

Double up the strainers to make sure you keep dirt out.

Here’s the paint on the trailer.

Harley front fenders are known for having problems with the rivets holding them on the bracket. On my trike, I drilled out the rivets and plug welded the holes and even welded the the edge of the fender to the bracket. But on my daily commuter ‘89 sportster, I first tried tightening up the rivets, but it didn’t last long. The parts that I peened over just broke off. As an emergency fix, I used a couple pop rivets and washers. Then there was the adventure with the new larger tire that caused me to remove the entire fender.
But now rainy season is approaching and I need a front fender. First I need to make sure it doesn’t rub against the tire. I adjusted my vise to the width that the bottom of the bracket needed to be to mount to the forks. This also prevents the bracket from just “veeing” out when I spread it. Then I used a hydraulic spreader and a portapower to bend out the top of the bracket.

Next I drilled out the rivets.

Then I replaced the rivets with stainless steel 10-32 screws and nyloc nuts.

Here it is mounted:

Still not looking forward to riding in the rain though.

After scuffing up the surface, I taped off the stripe. This was made easier by this masker that I found at a yard sale for $2.

You put in a roll of tape and a roll of masking paper, as you pull the paper out, it puts on the tape with half over the edge of the paper.

Masking is a whole art in itself, but here are a few hints. First, it is better to under-mask rather than over-mask. This seems backwards, but think about it like this: consider the trim around the windshield, if your tape doesn’t quite go the edge you will get a little paint on the edge of the trim. But this is hard to notice (you have moved the junction of chrome and paint just slightly) and you can remove the paint later with a razor. But if the tape goes over the trim on to the painted surface you will leave a little band of the old color (or primer). And this really looks bad and is hard to fix. Same goes for a stripe like the one I’m doing here. Better to let the paint extend a little farther than leave a strip of the old color on the edge. For really high end paint jobs, they unmask the car and remask it after priming it and before the final paint just for this reason.
I don’t have a pic to show the actual taping (it takes two hands so I could hold the camera), but let me try to explain it. You hold the roll of tape in your right hand and press it down/guide it with your left hand. Keep the tape unrolled a foot or more and hold the roll close to the surface. You steer the tape with roll, the farther away the roll is, the more acurately you can tape (it takes a large movement of the roll to change the angle of the tape). Masking tape is slightly crinkly and can be steered around some very tight curves in this way. First go around the edge with tape, then follow up with the paper. When going around corners with the paper, fold it over (like a christmas present), then tape all along the fold. You don’t want it to flap when hit with air from the paint gun, it might dump trapped dust on the wet paint. When masking really big areas (like the top half of a car) I use old sheets. You can pick them up at yard sales for cheap and they work great for areas that won’t be directly sprayed. Next time we’ll mix the paint and spray it on.

I decided to repaint the green stripe on our camper and I think it will serve as a nice example of how to do a “scuff and shoot” paint job. Now, many people have their own way (and order) of paint preparation and I will certainly not represent mine as the correct way. But I will try to provide the reason for each step, so you can make your own decision. First I wiped off the spider webs and dirt with an old towel. Some people like to wash with soap and water, which is fine for a long term project, but I was going to be painting later that same day. Then I wiped it down with a paper towel (Bounty) soaked in enamel reducer.

This removes wax, oil, grease, tar and other road dirt that would clog up the sand paper and later cause “fish eyes” in the paint. Now, if you were planning on stripping something down to bare metal, you don’t need this step. On a nice paint job, the vehicle would be wiped down again, right before painting to remove grease from fingerprints that happened during sanding and taping. But, in general, don’t touch the surface with your hands (at least not casually). I wasn’t doing any body work or sanding, but I did need to scuff up the surface so the paint would stick. I used a maroon scotch-brite pad.

The large areas just need a general scuffing, it’s the edges that need special attention. This is where paint will peel and lift, so you need to get right to the edge.
Next I used a blow nozzle on my air hose to blow the dust off and blow out any dirt trapped in the seams. This is extremly important. When you use a paint gun you are blowing on the vehicle with high pressure air. Sand and dirt (and possibly leaves and dead bugs and water…) can blow out from its hiding place and then stick to the fresh paint. You have to make sure nothing is going to break loose during the painting, so, before painting you blow on all the seams and cracks with a much more intense blast of air. Everything needs to be done, the inside of bumpers, inside of wheel wells, door jambs. Chrome and emblems that are going to be taped off instead removed need to be done. I put the blow nozzle right up to the edge and go all the way around it. And when you do this, you need to be using filtered air, so your not spraying oil (from the compressor) and water (condensed out of the air if it’s humid) on the the surface.
Next time: taping (masking) and painting.

So my front tire was bald, almost to the point of air showing through. I hate changing tubeless tires, so I brought it to a shop. On the way home, I thought I smelled something burning. Turns out the new tire was one size wider and was rubbing the fender bracket on one side. I decided not to argue with the shop, a wider tire is probably better and I needed to take the fender off anyway. I have previously shown the painting of the front fender and re-riveting it to the bracket. Unfortunately, it didn’t last, both rivets on the right side fell out.

I had put in a pop-rivet just so I could get to work one morning, but it really needed a permanent fix. Since it wasn’t going to rain for 6 months, I just took it off, planning on making a new bracket or getting a different fender.
So a couple weeks ago, I’m on my way home from work and I pull up behind a bus at a stop sign. It was one of those van-front, large bus bodies that the university uses around campus. Suddenly, I see the backup lights come on, it starts beeping and backing up. After staring in disbelief for a second (and when it became obvious that the bus was not going to stop backing up) I hauled back on the handlebars and backed up as fast I could. However, it was up hill and after a few feet the bus caught up with me. I hoped that the bumper would be low enough to push against the front tire, but it caught and grabbed. It rode up on the tire, squishing it flat with the weight of the bus. When it reached the forks I was sure the bike would be wrecked, but just then he stopped (maybe he finally heard the anemic harley horn blowing) and pulled forward. I wasn’t sure if the bike was damaged, so I rode up next to the bus at the next stop sign and yelled at the driver. We pulled off in a parking lot and took a look at the bike. Remarkably, there didn’t seem to be any damage, though I’m sure it didn’t do it any good. The driver said the car in front of him wasn’t moving and he was backing up to pull around it. He looked in his mirrors and didn’t see me (of course).
Now, if the front fender had been on the bike, it would have been smashed and made the bike unrideable till it was removed (at least). So was it good that fender wasn’t on? Maybe. But if the fender had been damaged, maybe I could have gotten a new rim and tire also. It could be that it’s actually damaged and is just waiting to blowout on the highway and through me under the wheels of a truck. I suppose that if I die in a horrible fiery crash we’ll know for sure.

After hooking up the bare minimum of wires, some oil the oil tank and some gas in the gas tank, I cranked up the motor to see if it would start after 3+ years apart. It did, though without linkage hooked up, I wasn’t able to open the choke quickly enough and stalled it out. But after cleaning the now fouled plugs it ran nicely. So at this point, its officially for sale. I’m going to keep working on it (needs the brakes hooked up before I can take it for a ride), but I put it on craigslist as is.

Why? Well, the house we live in is on the market, so we may have to move and finding a place with sufficient space for my tools is hard enough, without a big enough garage for 2 harleys.

And since this particular project has this urgency to it, I feel like I shouldn’t start on new projects until its finished.

You can post in the comment section if you are interested in it (there’s a remote possibility of a trade or partial trade).