Nightster Winter Makeover
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Road Master
Joined: Jul 2011
Posts: 1,166
Likes: 7
From: NY
Biggest issue noobies have is wrist control. Keep it loose. Most beginners lock the wrist and as they move their arms to paint and lay a coat light-heavy-light. Keep your wrist fluid and the nose of the gun at an equal distance to your tins at all times. Also your subject is small. Start and stop each stroke off of the tin to avoid any build-up areas that could lead to runs.
Here's the progress for yesterday.
Prepped the tank and fender - lots and lots of sanding, a little bondo, lots of sanding, a little more bondo, and still more sanding.
Installed the new clutch and front brake cables. Installed the front caliper and I just have to add some brake fluid and bleed the line and it'll be good to go.
Just got home after spending about six hours working on wiring. God it's tedious, but it's almost done. We finished up by installing the new lithium battery and testing some of the lights and wiring. All the dummy lights work along with the headlight (high beam is blown so I have to go buy a new bulb tomorrow/today). Still haven't wired up the turn signals and tail light. Tried the starter but got nothing - starter didn't make a sound. Don't know what's up with that. We're getting a funky error code on the speedo but I don't know what it means or how to cycle through the codes. I'll try to look that up tomorrow.
All in all a pretty productive day. I took pics with my phone (which usually works well) but for some reason they aren't uploading to photobucket. Sorry. I'll try to sort that out today as well.
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Road Master
Joined: Jul 2011
Posts: 1,166
Likes: 7
From: NY
Thanks. And welcome to the forum.
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Road Master
Joined: Jul 2011
Posts: 1,166
Likes: 7
From: NY
ps - Beware. Once you start with mods...you can't stop...
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Road Master
Joined: Jul 2011
Posts: 1,166
Likes: 7
From: NY
The "mud" was a bitch. I had a couple of smallish areas to do, one on the tank between the speedo and the filler hole, and several small spots on the fender. Took forever to get it semi-right. It ain't perfect. Must have been the cheap bondo.
I apologize for the lack of pictures. Wife took the camera with her and for some reason my phone isn't connecting to the internet so I can't upload the pics I took with it. I'll post them in a few days and update my progress. Everything is primed and ready for the first color coat.
And I forgot to add - I heard from Ozzie today. He stayed up after I left the shop last night at 2:30am and got the wiring pretty much sorted out. Engine turning over, dummy lights work, speedo, headlight (I bought a new bulb today), horn, all working. We still need to wire up the turn signals and the tail light but it looks like we are on the downslope with the wiring.
Last edited by Ergonight; Jul 7, 2012 at 11:36 PM. Reason: Added update
Thread Starter
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Road Master
Joined: Jul 2011
Posts: 1,166
Likes: 7
From: NY
Been painting. Wet sanding and painting. It's a long process, mostly because of the wait time between coats. So here's the status update:
Here's everything drying after being primed.
This is after the second coat of grey. Here, the tank and fender are drying outside while I'm inside painting the side covers black.
And here are the side covers drying after the second coat of black.
Like I said, I'm wet sanding between coats. It takes a full two days for each coat to cure, so I'm just waiting now till Wednesday to sand and do another coat.
- Tank and fender have been filled/mudded(??)/bondoed, primed and then two coats of the first color. There are three colors involved - Orange, Black and Grey, just like the stock Nightster. For those who don't know, there's a grey pin stripe between the orange and black, along with grey lettering. So the first color coat is grey. Second will be orange and I'll finish with the black.
- The side covers have been primed and I just finished the second coat of black.
Here's everything drying after being primed.
This is after the second coat of grey. Here, the tank and fender are drying outside while I'm inside painting the side covers black.
And here are the side covers drying after the second coat of black.
Like I said, I'm wet sanding between coats. It takes a full two days for each coat to cure, so I'm just waiting now till Wednesday to sand and do another coat.
Tourer
Joined: Apr 2010
Posts: 340
Likes: 12
From: Ontario
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Thread Starter
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Road Master
Joined: Jul 2011
Posts: 1,166
Likes: 7
From: NY
btw - Talked to Ozzie a few minutes ago. He decided to work on the wiring last night and got everything functioning.
