I hope this is the right place to post. I thought I would tell the story of my zx-14. My 14 started out as a black 2008. The first owner laid the bike over and sold it as a basket case to a second owner. The second owner rebuilt the bike using parts from a blue 2006. I managed to find a few pictures of the bike from back then:

The second owner removed the flies, added nitrous, a PCIII, air shifter, extensions and I don't know what all else to end up with a sub-9 second drag racer:

Unfortunately, he laid the bike over again and ended up replacing the plastics with some purple flamed Chinese plastics. Shortly after, he spun a bearing while racing. He started to rebuild the old girl once again but ran out of money and decided to sell...

I drove a couple hundred miles to pick up the bike having been assured it was in great shape other than the engine. I guess everyone has different things in mind when they assess the condition of a bike... She was once again a basket case but the price was cheap so I ignored that little voice in my head that was trying to tell me I was making a huge mistake. In retrospect I should have listened.

I've bought and sold rebuilder bikes before but I always played it smart. If a bike needed mechanical help I made sure the cosmetics were good or vice versa. Buying a bike that needs everything is, well, pretty darn stupid. You end up having to strip it to the frame and start from scratch:

Since the bike was rebuilt with some 2006 parts, I ended up with those crappy, brown wheels. After scouring the forums a bit, I found out about stripping the brown and uncovering the polished aluminum. So here we go...

The paint comes off pretty easy from the outside rim but not off the spokes. I quickly decided to just repaint the spokes and leave the outer rim polished. Once they were stripped, I taped and primered...

Then I hit it with black. Now I know the current trend is to paint everything black and leave it black but I just got rid of a Victory 8 Ball and I'm in the mood for something more colorful...

So I mixed up some electric blue with purple and went to town. By the way, I used lacquer paint since it's so much easier to use and then finished with a 2k urethane clear for protection.

And here we go with our tape and plastic removed. I was satisfied with the results.

Basically a person can either rebuild a bike using all the best materials or they can go cheap. Um... I had to go cheap. That's my financial reality. So, we can forget about powder-coating and plating and all those niceties. This is a rebuild where you continually find more things that are broken or missing. I went in to replace the levers, grips and ends that had scraped way too much pavement and found the throttle tube in pieces. Pieces like that have to be replaced with used parts on my budget. Still, that doesn't mean it has to look like crap. I repainted the frame with a nice satin-finish black (I don't like the complete dullness of flat) and found some retro grips they give away with new levers. I think they look pretty sweet:

More updates to follow...

Nice colour!

Neil

The bike had a 16 tooth front sprocket, I wanted to go with a stock 17 tooth. Oh my lord, if you haven't taken the front sprocket nut off your bike then you have no idea of the fun you're missing out on. When I stand on a 4' cheater bar I could pry the planet out of orbit but that damn sprocket nut wouldn't budge. I used heat, two different impact wrenches and the aforementioned cheater bar to no avail. Finally I gave up and used a Dremel, a hammer and chisel and some Vice Grips to remove it. It took 2 hours and came off in 9 pieces but it's off, baby! And would you believe it? Not even a drop of Loctite. It was apparently just torqued down that tight. Anyway, I found a replacement on eBay and photographed the old and new together.

* Last updated by: thunderspell on 4/5/2012 @ 12:06 AM *

wow man, i have to get some pointers from you. wheels are beautiful. Think the paint will hold up?

I like the wheels I've been thinking about doing mine but it will be a project for next winter if I do.

I think the wheels will be okay. If you think about it, the 2006 wheels were merely painted to begin with and that seems to have held up pretty well (other than looking butt ugly). Repainting just swaps out a different color and the 2k urethane should protect from gas spills or that sort of thing. Leaving the edges polished aluminum also means paint shouldn't be scraped off with tire changes, but we'll see how that plays out. One thing I can report, at least in my experience, painting the 2k urethane clear over lacquer works great. I let the lacquer dry for one week and I've had no cracking or crazing at all and that was done a couple months ago.

It's a good winter project. I'd say 90% of the paint comes off really easy but that last 10% will make you earn it.