1983 Shadow 500 (VT500C) Restoration

(19 Jan 2007) This is pretty much the before picture of the seat, grab rails and missing sissy bar. The homemade replacement looks awful and has to go. The seat itself looks like a piece of uniform thickness foam was used and covered with vinyl. It didn't look bad, but it didn't look right either. You can also see the wonderful spray bomb paint job, right over the student parking sticker. The bubbling on the lip of the fender tells me the paint prep wasn't the greatest, if it was done at all. The fuel tank is about the same, the Honda wings and the warning sticker have been painted over. The bondo job shows right through the single stage paint and it's already had gasoline spilled on it with the expected melting and runs.

In the foreground you can see the new seat and cover (beneath Nick's jean shorts) and the polished grab rails and sissy bar. The wheels have been cleaned and the replacement exhaust cover just before the muffler has been polished and installed. The old one had the chrome eaten away by battery acid from an improperly placed overflow tube. Obviously we're just starting on this one, but I already have a replacement rear fender and bought a replacement fuel tank on eBay that's on its way. Once it gets here, I'll be painting it and the fender the original Candy Wineberry Red color, or at least the closest match the local PPG dealer could make with their 2 stage urethane pearl. A couple of coats of activated urethane clear and we can spill gasoline on it without consequence.

The replacement fuel tank I bought for Ann's 500 is finally here. It has some minor damage including assorted dings and a crease on the right hand side across the wings emblem. There's a new scratch I put in it near the fuel cap trying to remove it. Since it didn't come with a key, I had to drill out the cap, which is too bad since it was in excellent shape. Looks like someone else tried to force the lock and gave up, also a shame since I probably could have picked it, but it's still worthless without the key. I was able to 'pop' some of the dings out by 'bumping' the high spots with the butt end of the screwdriver. Drilling out the cap left a lot of shavings and one of the latch pawls in the tank, so I washed it out with soap and water. Big mistake as it almost immediately began to rust. I decided to clean out the tank using the coating kit I bought for the original tank, but stopped short of actually coating the inside.

(27 Jan 2007) I used just the metal wash varnish remover, followed by a muriatic acid wash to eat away the rust, then oxisolv rust treatment which leaves a zinc phospate coating to prevent further rust and stopped the reaction with acetone. The only other step would be to pour in the actual white coating goop. It's still metallic grey inside, so that should do until I can get fuel in it again. Once I got the emblems off and sanded it down, it was nice and shiny, but now streaked with rust from the treatment. I sanded it back down to bare metal, roughed up the bad spots, mixed up the bondo and applied it. Once I sanded that smooth, I sprayed it and the fender with epoxy primer. We're having another cold snap, so most of the paint work will have to wait until next weekend.

(3 Feb 2007) That cold snap turned into a week of rain and severe thunderstorms that spawned some really nasty tornadoes just north of us, so the paint will have to wait another week. I have low spots where the dings didn't pop all the way out, but rather than put another coat of bondo on just to fill it, I figured I could wait until after it was primed and use the 'icing' to handle it. You can almost make it out in the picture above, it's on the left toward the lower third of the tank. The rear fender looks a bit rougher than I expected, I think mainly because I used the Bulldog adhesion promoter on the bare plastic but didn't leave quite enough flash time. That or it just attracted more dirt. As you can see, I've already wet sanded it, right through the primer on a couple high spots, but still have areas I missed. Hopefully, another wet sanding with 400 grit will smooth it enough for the base coat.

(10 Feb 2007) Finally got the tank iced this weekend. Here it is ready for primer (again). I like to do the body work with bondo on bare metal roughed up with 80 grit like it says in the directions. Then I hit it with the PPG epoxy primer to seal the bare metal against the elements. I follow this up with a skim coat of 'icing'. It's a thin polyester and styrene filler that sands easily and provides that final skim coat to level all the imperfections. I block sanded with 150 grit to get the rough surface and followed it up with a fine block sand using 220 grit and then hand sanding on the rounded edges to prevent cutting too deeply. I used the formed edges as a guide as you can see in the photo as dark areas that almost outine the different surfaces. Smooth as a baby's butt. This and the rear fender will be primed again and then wet sanded with 400 grit to give a uniform foundation for the base coat.

It is recommended to wait overnight after priming to allow the epoxy time to cure before base coating. While I waited, I took the front end off the bike. Ann says it looks naked, and it is a bit bare. I left the steering stem in the frame. With 18 ball bearings on top and 19 ball bearing on the bottom and no keeper for any of them, I'm not touching it unless I have to. It all started because I got a set of OEM replacement handlebars and a set of instruments with a good tachometer case and wanted to swap them out. Well, to get to the instruments, I had to remove the headlight. Once it was off, I noticed it was really rusted around the mounts. Then I saw the fork tubes were painted black on the outside but I still saw chrome on the inside. The fork sliders were grimy and dirty and I figured I'd polish them too. And the wheel. Before I knew it, I had the whole front end apart.

I decided to start polishing the fork sliders first. You can see them here after just the tripoli step. The fork tubes and sliders are the most difficult, at least from a sheer strength standpoint. Ever try standing and holding a 25-30 pound part against a buffer for 3 hours? That's just the tripoli compound on just the sliders too. I still have to buff them with emery, then stainless compound. I scraped all the cheap black paint off the top of the fork tubes in preparation for those steps. Then the whole assembly needs a buffing with white compound to give it that final sparkle. It takes quite a bit of strength and I'm already sore from just the tripoli step. Guess I'll be getting a workout for the next couple of nights. I'm not even going to think about holding that final drive case up to be polished. Oops, too late.

I didn't stop with the fork sliders though. I have here the rest of the aluminum parts after the tripoli step. This picture just doesn't do them justice though. I was ready to go back over them using the spiral sewn buff since it looks like the ventilated buff was leaving some directional scratching even after raking it. Most still had the factory clear protective coating on them, so it took some extra effort to get them shining. The speedometer sender got a wash with parts cleaner, at last, to cut the grease then I polished the cheap black paint off it. After hitting them with the white rouge, they really sparkle. As long as they shine, it's good enough for now.

Finally! After all the prep work it took to get here, it's done! The 'tins' are painted. After my initial fears about the adhesion promoter leaving a rough finish, the clear coat is smooth. There are some little 'bumps' here and there, but it doesn't look like dust. You really can't tell unless you get right up on it though. When I start building show bikes, maybe I'll worry about it more. It looks even better on the bike with all the other hardware mounted to it, but I don't have the pictures yet. Tonight maybe. I really want to get started on polishing the rear end parts and getting the mechanical work done. There are a lot more of those little 'bumps' on the tank. I don't think it's 'fish eyes', at least not my understading of them, which is like a little 'pool' in the paint where it's thinner than the surrounding paint with a raised area in the middle resembling a fish eye.

Contaminants, like silicone in Armor All, supposedly show up as fish eyes. I wiped that tank down four times. Three times with pre-sanding cleaner: once before priming when sanding down to bare metal, once after sanding the primer for icing and once after sanding the primer for icing. One last time with post-sanding cleaner after wet sanding the primer over the icing for the base coat. I don't know if it's what they call die back or not. Maybe I had solvents trapped but I thought I left the proper flash time between coats. It was cold, barely 70 degrees and I am using a slow reducer, so maybe I should have left more time or got the fast reducer. It's only used with the base coat and didn't start showing up until the clear coat, so that may be it. Time to do more than lurk on AutoBody101.com methinks.

I looks good from a distance, and this is what Ann sees when she sits on her bike now. I've since removed the seat and tank again to get at the engine and frame neck covers to replace the water pipe seals. That's a long story. The good news is the new seals are in place. The bad news is I broke the front camshaft holder that drives the tachometer cable trying to get the screw loose that secures the cable to the drive on the front engine head. Another one of those screwy things that Honda did different on this bike. I ordered a new camshaft holder, tachometer cable and screw from Honda and installed them Monday (26 Feb 2007) night. After adjusting the valves and buttoning up the front head, the rest of the cooling system went back together, the coils and the carbs.

Here's the restored engine with the cases and head fins polished. That's much better. The head covers I pulled to polish since I wanted to adjust the valve clearances while I had the time. The side covers I left in place and used the flex shaft with some 4" buffs. Not perfect, but at least they're not black anymore. Now they shine. The fins I just sanded to bare metal with 400 grit paper. The carbs could use some work but I didn't get the felt bobs from Eastwood until after I had it back together. Next time. I have a spare set of '83 carbs but one of the choke plungers needs drilled out. Once I get that done I'll just polish and rebuild them and swap 'em out.

The final drive case was a major pain in the butt, but it shines pretty good now. The biggest problem was what was left of the gear oil kept leaking out. I kept cleaning it off with spray parts cleaner, but it just kept leaking. Oh well, I finally managed to get that and the shocks and brake backing plate polished. I cleaned up the rear brakes and put them back together after polishing the rest of the brake linkage components. When I put the rear end back together I forget to put the dirt shield back on the final drive case and had to take it all back apart again. With it all together again, I adjusted the brake pedal height, the brake light switch and then the brakes themselves. Works better than ever according to Ann.

This is the final reward for all my labor. I can safely say it was worth it. I took the time to change the oil and replace the filter. While I was at it, I synchronized the carburetors. They were off by more than twice the allowed limit. She purrs like a kitten now and power is smooth. Ann says it's like a totally different bike now. Now that Bike Week is here, maybe we'll make it up to Daytona for once. I still need to do a lot of things to my 700 before I wouldn't be embarrased to ride it there, but I've got almost a week to do it. Maybe I'll just swap out the main stand on the 750 and ride it. It would be quicker than all the body work, painting and polishing that still needs done on the 700.