painting question

Hi, so I know when you are going to powder coat the usual spots you mask off then touch up by hand later. My question is I'm going to try spraying brightside single part but am not sure if I should mask off those areas still?
Thanks

Typically spray paint will be thinner, easier to remove than powder coat. So, no. And it's up to you.

The gearbox cradle is the Biggy. The cradle bits shown to be masked and painted at Old Brits MUST NOT be PC'd.
Everything else is less important. Mostly for grounding points and whatnot.

Might be a stupid question but why shouldn't those bits be pc'd ?

joeboomer999 said:

Might be a stupid question but why shouldn't those bits be pc'd ?

Click to expand...

"With the motor being isolastically mounted in the Commando you MUST not have any powder coating between the engine case and the engine mounts, especially the three rear engine mounts, or you will sheer the mounting bolts. Fred did not do this on his first race bike and sheared the rear bolts, destroyed the rear PTFE washers and broke a couple of other things the second time he hit 7,000 rpm. We have a customer who had his bike assembled prior to finding out about this problem and he tried to go slow and kept tightening the bolts until they would quit tightening. He was not successful and also sheared the engine bolts. All the other places that we blank off are for ease of assembly and achieving a good ground among the parts. You can spend time blanking off the parts prior to powder coating or removing the coating prior to assembling, which is much more time consuming."

http://www.oldbritts.com/powder_coating.html

Powder coating! is great providing there is no open edges, ie fork's where the powder as to be scraped away before fitting oil seals, or tapping out holes after.
Water will creep between the powder and the steel,and will travel "under" the coating. rusting ! Seen some good powder coating, but the finnish lacks that deep shine , i liked Parsons spray enamel. or a good two pack.

I love Brightside paint. I am not sure I would use it on a motorcycle frame. Getting the right primer will be key. Does Interlux have a metal primer they specify for use with Brightside? Please share your thoughts on this. I use it exclusively on a wooden boat and am amazed that any paint can hold so much pigment.

The cradles where clearly painted from the factory without regard to the problem associated with powder coat. I suppose if you use two-pack and got it thick enough that it might be the same kind of problem I don't know. The only spot on my 850 cradle that didn't have paint is where the swingarm dust covers contacted.

Russ

What makes you think PC'd parts can make bolts sheer off?? That would mean every HD on the road that has a rubber mounted motor is doomed !! :mrgreen:

And my two bikes with PC'd frames are about to fail as well.........? But then again it's been over 3 years since the PC has been applied. Sounds like a fish story to me............


Tim_S

Interlux's primer for metal is pre-kote. I also have had great results with it on the couple sailboat restorations. So if you use a single part like bright side you wouldn't need to mask off?

I suspect the paint would come off under the "dust" covers for the swingarm spindle regardless due to the oil that is always present there. All I can tell you for sure is that I recently stripped and painted my cradle and frame...I didn't mask because the factory didn't either. But there was no paint under the dust cover. I used a two-part and made a disc with center spindle to fit the swingarm. I glued 100 grit to the disc and sanded the surface of the paint flat in that area just to help keep the seal.

Time will tell if it was a good idea or not.

Russ