Painting our 1980 Honda CR125 DoctorDanger.com

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>Painting our Project CR125

As motocross progressed their was less and less to paint, our CR has a plastic tank but it does have a red engine which is presenting problems.

OK, so we are not looking to have a show winner here. If you accept the fact that you don't want to spend £3000 to get the bike back to as new condition then you need to look at painting the bike as a preservation exercise.

Its no oil painting...

	This picture shows the starting point - classic MX frame with rust and paint worn away by boots...a few dings and plenty of fiddly bits
	We stripped the frame back to bare metal and then primed it as there was a lot of corrosion. Having primed it we rubbed it down again, hoping that the primer would fill in some of the pitting.
	Here are our extensive paint facilities. We are limited by certain useage conditions such as when the wife agrees that we can use it - spraying in the open air is not great and we now have nice red paving stones round the house. The important thing is that spraying in the garage is even worse as you'll pick up dust as soon as you move (unless you've sealed the floor) and you'll probably choke on the fumes by the time you've got round the whole frame. We used Hammerite paint as we found it reasonable before and it was available from the local DIY - PJ1 frame paint is probably a better match, but we couldn't find a local stockist...
	Painting frames is a pain - full stop. They are complicated and require spraying from a large number of angles. The trick is to do it systematically and to do it from at least two angles - we hung ours up this way and by the bottom frame rails to ensure even coverage and that we didn't miss any areas.
	The engine cases require high temperature paint as the entire engine is painted red including the cylinder. When rubbing down the cases we went lightly - stripping back to bare metal will cause problems as the cases are alloy and don't take paint easily, particularly crumby engine paint.
	Here are the cases and cylinderhead after spraying. Now call me picky but these look orangey and when you compare it to the lid of the paint they are an entirely different colour and finish (almost matt). If anyone can recommend a better matching engine paint, let us know. Note that we masked up the bearings and id plates, we're not that lazy.
	The paint looks strange in different lights, making the cases look plastic - oh well at least it should arrest their decay for a while and maybe it will change when the engine gets heated up and it cures the paint.
	This shots illustrates the difference between the paint we used and the original as seen on the inside of the cases...

The costs so far...

The total paint costs are three cans of hammerite spray paint (2 red and 1 black) at £6.99 each and some red engine paint at £4.99 all from Halfords

and here's the plan...

1	Get the Bike...
2	Strip It
3	Clean it
4	Paint it
5	Engine
6	Suspension/wheels
7	Test it
8	Race it
9	Costs and Parts

Here are our paints...you can get these from any auto store. Proper Tahitian Red frame paint is available from Red-Racer.com if you want authenticity.

This is what it will look like - Christ we should have painted it blue - no that's just the way they printed the manual - oh, that's OK then...note that the chain guard is done in gloss black, I believe and the footpegs are finished in matt - uh, who cares?

What we learnt this time...

Either do your homework and buy the genuine stuff or just accept that paint is there to stop the thing rusting away to dust. Preparation is the key, and facilities, using the washing line will limit the level of finish you can achieve and don't forget to check the weather forecast.

the next installment is the Engine>