Cylinder head cover: from grotty to gleaming

As I wrote in my second blog post, the paint dear old Ruby's engine covers had not faired well from being left outdoors. The cylinder head cover in particular looked like it had the mechanical equivalent of a severe skin problem.

A previous owner had made an attempt to tidy it up a bit with silver spray paint from the timing side but without removing it or the fairing - hence the overspray on a fairing infill panel.

Well anyway, that makes for an interesting challenge, thought I. With all those grooves it's bound to be tricky stripping it clean. So off it came.

I wasn't wrong - it needed three treatments with paint stripper and some Scotch abrasive pads. These pads are a plastic alternative to wire wool. I have found wire wool clogs quickly and rusts in paint stripper. They worked well - it was easy to swill the painty gunge out under a tap and then to rub some more. After a good hose down, I cleaned up some pitting on the embossed Triumph logo with wet-and-dry abrasive paper on a  rubber sanding block.

 Another hose down and then time for paint. I used VHT silver in approximately five light coats (left picture), followed with a two light and then one heavy coat of VHT clear (right picture below).

VHT is heat curing. I knew it would be ages before the bike would be ready for me to run the engine so I *carefully* suspended the cover from a hook in my garage ceiling and then heated it up a bit at a time with a hot air gun. This is a tricky business to do - too hot too fast and the paint will fail and flake off. It all worked out well. I'm very pleased with the finish I have achieved, as hopefully the photos show.

These pictures were taken at different stages of the other work I've been doing with the rest of the bike, especially to do with the swinging arm and rear suspension.

T300 CEV indicators

There's not too much to say about these indicators, other than that they are pretty well made by the CEV company. I had six all together: four from my Daytona and two from the Trophy. The Trophy had two odd replacements of unknown origin on the back. 

The indicators don't look sided at first glance but they are. There is small rectangular hole at the lower leading edge to allow water to drain out - if it gets in. All were pretty dirty inside so were treated to a nice warm bath. 

All were in reasonably good condition except one, which had a big crack down the side and showed lots of evidence of corrosion on the fasteners and also the flash-chromed reflector had crazed. Most had lost chroming around the edge where the amber lens bears down on them.

 I decided to use some Plastikote silver enamel paint (called 'chrome' but is more of a shiny silver) to seal the edges of all the reflectors, mainly to prevent the real chrome from being eroded further. I also painted the main surface of the reflectors that had suffered the most.

 I also coated the bulbs with an amber lacquer intended for fog lights, just because I'd had it for ages and thought, well, why not?

Main stand after painting

Here it is with the weld to reinforce top tube and lower curved sections. Sorry it's so horrible - it was difficult to get  a clean run because of the rust still in there. Oh well.