Last October I picked up this K3 GSX-R1000. I found it on craigslist listed as a "running wreck". The price was right and it was just over 200 miles away, so I persuaded my dad into driving me out to pick it up. The blurry craigslist pictures left a lot to the imagination...
Let me tell you, this thing was raunchy. The PO hit a deer with it. He claims it never went down but the rashed up slider and bar weight tell another story. The broken headlight was rigged to hang onto the mirror stay so that he could keep riding. Judging by the amount of dirt, animal fur / guts and bug splatter I'd guess that he probably never once washed the poor thing. This had me worried about the state of the engine but she ran great during my test ride so I took a gamble.
I ended up riding home through Nebraska and Wyoming doing 80-90mph most of the way. Aside from blown fork seals and oil soaked front brake pads she ran without any issues. Got home and immediately drained the oil. Luckily it was clean.
Here she is minutes after arriving home. It's too bad this picture doesn't convey how dirty this thing actually was.
That night she got a bath so I could begin my assessment. The tank and tail were the only body pieces that were included with the bike. I busted out the buffer to see if they were worth preserving and if it was worth finding matching fairings to keep the original paint scheme.
The paint on the tank came back nicely but the tail wasn't as good. It didn't take long to decide to paint the whole thing. After a couple weeks of searching ebay for fairings that weren't in terrible shape I had a set. They needed some work since they all had cracks and scrapes but they turned out pretty well.
The Yoshimura tri-oval carbon can was looking tired so I polished it up and cleaned up the grungy pipe a little bit.
And wheeled it out to take a picture. Still wasn't sure about painting it something other than original at this point.
Seeing it looking a little less hammered sort of polarized me. I decided I wanted a nice metallic blue body and gold wheels.
The original wheels were very straight but had lots of chips from sloppy tire changes so I cleaned them up and had them powder coated.
Since the original headlight was destroyed and all of the good used units on ebay cost a bunch I ended up grabbing a brand new one from Suzuki.
At this point the weather was getting chilly and my garage isn't heated, so I plasti-dipped the body and reassembled her so that I could ride on nice days and not damage the primer. I rebuilt the forks and brakes at the same time.
The flat black look was kinda cool for a while but I had been itching to do some real paint. After seeing some samples I settled on HOK FBC05 Lapis blue.
In person the metallic really pops but in pictures it's almost undetectable. This shot with the flash almost captures what you get with eyes on it.
After about 6 hours of wet sanding (1500 to 3000 grit), compounding and polishing it's looking great. Megiuars 105 and 205 is an awesome combo. I've used it on dozens of cars that needed scratch and swirl correction but never on new paint. 105 knocked the sanding marks quick using 4" Surbuf pads on my little buffer.
So that's where we are as of now. There are a few details to finish up... put the gas cap back on the tank, install turn signals, button up all of the inner fairing pieces and oil cooler guard, but she's finally looking sharp. Can't wait to start riding!
First paint job - 2003 GSX-R1000
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Settled In
Posts: 83
Joined: Fri Feb 10, 2012 11:22 pm Country: USA |
Hey man looks great! I started painting after a motorcycle accident lol. I couldn't afford to pay someone to paint my bike so I decided to try it on my own. Now I understand why someone wants 1000 to do the job haha. I love that blue!!!
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nice job ,looks great
fail to prepare ,prepare to fail.
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Settled In
Posts: 15
Joined: Mon Jun 17, 2013 11:43 pm Country: USA |
Good work for your first job! not what i expected when clicking on the tread. so that flat black is plasti dip? does it peel right off like its advertised? i have had customers come in and want their cars or trucks "Dipped" and just curious how it actually works in real life, its pretty interesting product
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Dude that is awesome!! I hope to get my bike looking that good. I don't see a flaw at all!
Never painted before.
I'm here to learn and build my supplies. Will be painting real soon! |
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real nice job on that, looks fantastic!
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Thanks guys! I was encouraged to get such good results on my first try. It all came down to patient prep work and remembering what I had learned from this site. I'm currently working on a friends Ducati 916. I'll post up some photos of the progress!
Plasti-dip is a pretty neat product but ultimately the finish was not very nice and I felt like the bike looked too much like it had been wrecked and patched back up. Luckily it peeled right off of as easily as I had heard it would. Anyway, here are are a few finished pictures of the GSXR. I'm really happy with how it turned out. |
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Fully Engaged
Posts: 216
Joined: Mon Mar 11, 2013 1:50 am Country: Australia |
hey looks great
what paint system did you use? is it 2k/urethane? |
you did a nice job.. this was the first time I did a 3 color motorcycle, normaly I would only do single colors.. what a pain getting lines to match. the first pic is when I sold it, dumped the bike on that side showing a just did a blend in..
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12 posts
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