REBUILD UPDATE

Rear end looking tidy.
Engine work in progress.

 

Wow. I am envious of your skillz.

 

Wow! Nice clean engine! How you manage that?

 

Looking good! What is it?

mikeg

 

1980 xj650

 

it was black, so paint stripper an an assortment of wire brushes, still a long way to go, once it is clean then it's got to be pollished.
still it's autumn here, coming winter, so plenty of time.

 

Looks awesome! Looking forward to more pics and product-used info.

 

Mother of Pearl...I'm impressed!

 

Make some block off plates for the intakes and plug any other opening into the engine. Then take it to someone that does baking soda blasting. It will come back to you looking polished. A heck of a lot easier then doing it by hand and a lot cheaper.

Sean Morley

 

Good tip Sean, I have never heard of baking soda blasting (bs blasting for short? lol).

That is a great looking engine. Good work.

 

That's interesting... So what's involved in BS Blasting? I've been thinking about getting a gravity-feed sand-blaster attachment for my compressor... Can I use that and just pour in some baking soda as the blasting medium? Is it the regular Arm&Hammer type baking soda?

 

The only difference I believe is the pressure and nozzle type. You can also use walnut shells which is better for thicker parts. Soda blasting works awesome on cars since the trim doesn't even need removed. It doesn't hurt glass or plastic in most circumstances. After starting this reply I am looking at various media. There is corn cob as well as other stuff.

Pics and Links:
http://www.soda-blast.com/

http://www.chesapeakesodaclean.com/page ... llery.html

Harbor Freight has media:
http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/D ... mber=92155

Here's other info:
http://www.consolidatedstripping.com/abrasives.html

http://www.eastwoodco.com/jump.jsp?item ... 243&KICKER

 

Hmmm... This is getting interestinger and interestinger! I may just need to look into this some more. I'll just have to convince the GF that used walnut shells make good mulch or something...

 

this soda blasting is quite new here in aus, but i have found a guy to do the motor, just got to get it over to him, bit of a treck.
i will post pics' as soon as i have it done.
if this works ok it will be a big leap forward, being able to blast the engine while still in one piece. he's charging $ 100-$120 bucks, its not worth getting your hands dirty.

 

see engine cleaning in xj chat

 

Nice work

 

I know a guy over here who had his motor on a GS850 in bits and he had them blasted in a waterblasting tank.... Worked EXTREMELY well but engine had to be stripped for obvious reasons

 

Just a warning about using Walnut shells as a blast media--THE DUST IS VERY TOXIC!!! If you want use Walnut shells as a blast media you need to have some way to reclaim the dust and use a good two stage respirator. You should also shave because any facial hair reduces a respirator's effectiveness by about 30 to 40%.
BTW- the bike is looking great

 

WHEELS AND MOTOR ADDED.

 

looking good.