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I still have to get a new pin, but the side stand fits a lot better now:
Because I had to build up the stop, I'm not sure of the correct angle when the stand is raised. Does this look right? I could file the stop to raise it if I have to.
EDIT: I just realized the two rivet holes are for the side stand bumper, so it should line up between them! duh
The weather finally got to where I could paint the frame, almost 70 today. First thing I had to do was a quick repair on the swing arm, I didn't notice this until the other day.
This will help keep the back wheel where it belongs, and the ugliness can't be seen when the wheel is on.
I spent a few hours sanding the entire frame and swing arm, getting into the nooks and crannies the wire wheel couldn't reach, and giving the metal some 'tooth' for the paint to stick to. The directions on the reducer say no primer, so the metal prep is very important.
Last picture for today is the spray booth. The local hardware store sells LED bulbs subsidized by a state program, and yesterday they got 4-foot shop lights for $5, so I bought six so there will be plenty of light.
The paint sprayed out very nice, one wet coat flowed out beautifully. Tomorrow when I get home from an AMCA ride I will take pictures of the results.
Spring means doing a lot of things that kept me from the bike, not all of them bad. Put the pontoon boat in and spent a lot of time on it.
FWIW, I could smell paint in the garage for a week after spraying, so the paint takes a long time to fully cure. Good that I wasn't anxious to handle it for a while.
The next step before assembly is clean up a set of shocks I bought a few months ago. They are 12-1/2" eye to eye, which is the same as the originals on my first 82 FXR, but longer than the ones the previous owner had on this bike:
A guy on youtube had a tool to compress shock springs with a hydraulic press, so I copied it using scraps I had under my workbench:
This way is a lot easier than using 4-speed clutch disks and all-thread would have been. I didn't want to put my fingers in there, so long needle nose did the trick:
Some people say FXRSs had longer shocks than FXRs, but this seems to contradict that theory.
Notice how grungy the shocks are. I spent all afternoon cleaning them up.
Old timer trick is to use aluminum foil and chrome polish. The foil makes doesn't scratch the chrome, but makes a good scrubbing tool that can be formed to get into nooks and crannys.
They still have some wear and scratches, but look pretty good now.
The springs were the most tedious to clean, but came out good.
It was time consuming to do all the little parts, but worth it.
Now I can start putting the bike together! I'll have to buy some new top bolt covers, one is pretty rusty.
Very nice to have that hydraulic press and being able to make your own shock compressor unit.
For those of us without your definite skill set it becomes much more prehistoric...all-thread, nuts, washers, and two clutch plates.
Interesting to see that your rear shocks are from Japan. I wonder if that was just for FXR series or if MoCo switched to Japan to supply all shocks for HD models by that point (1982).
My 78 FXE rear shocks were madce by Gabriel and came out of Canada.
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