Powder Coating The Chassis

[Ji Gantor]

I cut through the welds securing the nuts with a cut off wheel on my trusty Dremel.
Great little tool is the Dremel.

Ji

[Ji Gantor]

With a sanding flapper I smoothed the surface.

Ji

[Ji Gantor]

The swingarm has a lot of grooves and dents that will look terrible when powder coated.

Ji

[Ji Gantor]

The heat involved with powder coat does not allow body filler but these marks have to be filled by welding or brazing.

Because this metal could be chrome molly I selected Brazing.

Ji

[Ji Gantor]

The swingarm over its life had the original shock brackets cut off and new ones welded on in a forward position. These misguided brackets were cut off. New shock brackets were welded on in their original location by a supplier in the States. I was informed that the welding technique used was TIG.
When I received the arm the welds looked more like manual arch welding to me. I decided that to do this arm justice these welds had to be removed.

Ji

[Ji Gantor]

After 2 hours of grinding all the post manufactured welds off it was time to warm up the TIG.
We used Cr Mo filler rod just in case these tubes are Cr Mo.
We also pre and post heated the tubes just in case.

Now it is starting to look good.
All it needs now is a sand and the powder coat will make it look magic.

Ji

[Ji Gantor]

To hone the rear engine mount that the pivot pin goes through. Place a shaft into a lathe and just wrap some 180 wet and dry sand paper around it. Feed the engine mount onto the shaft and start spinning.


Ji

[Ji Gantor]

We need to plug the bearing areas so paint does not get in. We also need to plug these areas so the sand blasting does not effect the surfaces.

Buy some large diametre washers and some booker rod. If the internal hole does not match the booker rod place washer in the lathe and bore out the hole to match.

Ji

[Ji Gantor]

Cap all bearing areas with the washers and the booker rod.

Ji

[Ji Gantor]

Don't forget the steering head.

Ji

[Ji Gantor]

Or the swingarm pivot bearing housing.

Ji

[Ji Gantor]

The imperial nut that was welded on was removed and a new metric nut was TIG welded back on.
Nice job.

Ji

[Ji Gantor]

When the frame gets back from the powder coaters, blow all the sand out of all the joints from the sand blasting. Remove all the bearing area caps and patch any oil leaks with touch up paint.

Ji

[Ji Gantor]

With a tap remove all the paint from the threads.

Ji

[zorroz]

With a tap remove all the paint from the threads.Ji

Very nice work. A trick I found with my last frame I had powder coated was to get a heap of old bolts and screw them into the threads to stop sand and powder coating going in. Some of the bigger bolts I would carefully cut around the fresh powder coat with a razor to stop it cracking off.