I’ve had a productive couple of days off.
Yesterday I fitted the bearing race and bearing to the top of the headstock and applied clear polish to the bits I’d already painted.
Today I polished the clear lacquer on the bottom yoke and got a nice glassy finish. Then noticed on one small section it was glassy over bare metal. The paint hadn’t stuck. It was only a small section so I was tempted to leave it like that, but I’m hoping once the job is done, that will be it. For the sake of another day’s delay it’s not worth years of knowing it’s a bad job. So I reprayed it and added more layers of clear. Hopefully that will have done the trick.
I polished the chrome top yoke again. And polished the clear coat on the wheel and the unit that hold the handlebars down.
I took the masking tape off the forks, gently sanded the crap off and fitted the decorative caps.
And fitted proper connectors to the loose wires I had screwed to the frame to earth.
Tomorrow I’ll gently polish the bottom yoke, sandpaper all the errant paint off the post that runs through the headstock, fit the new bearing and dustcovers, then reassamble the front end.
I will be updating this with all the pictures.
It is looking like a suspiciously good job though.
Also today I got off my lazy arse and went for a run. I just set out to do the standard 8 miles but decided to mix it up and do a flat-out 5k in the middle. Not bad. It near killed me, but 20.36, which is 17 seconds faster than my last go. I stupidly collapsed afterwards to get my breath back, but flat-out to stop is a big trigger for the tachycardia. 20 minutes sat there, sweating buckets, waiting for it to settle. Meh. Same lesson learned in a new context. Even after an all-in run, jog off the cool down.