DISASSEMBLING THE ROLLING CHASSIS
Good morning everyone! As you all know, I am planning on gusseting and painting my rolling chassis as part of my project. In order to accomplish either of those, the rolling chassis needs to be entirely disassembled (and stored until I have enough money to continue working on it). I spend all of the daylight I had yesterday working on tearing everything apart. Here is a little write-up of how everything went.
WARNING: LOTS OF PICTURES!
BEFORE:
AFTER:
I started this mini project by inspecting the frame closely to see if any nuts/bolts were missing. My main concern when buying this rolling chassis was to make sure all of the actual components were in good shape. I'll be the first one to admit that I didn't pay much attention to the hardware that holds it all together, and I did notice after a close inspection that several nuts/bolts are missing or not OEM. I will need to replace at least 1/4 of them. Here's an example of what I'm talking about (I hadn't removed anything at this point):
After an initial inspection, I pulled the front wheels and tires off (because one of the lugs on a rear tire was rusted to hell and I had to use some PB Blaster to loosen it up) and immediately started to disassemble the front suspension. I didn't have trouble with any of it. I was using an impact wrench and a breaker bar to remove everything, and almost all of it came apart without a hitch. No bolts were sheared apart while disassembling the front suspension (which became a problem later). Here are some pictures mid-disassembly:
After the front suspension was taken care of, I managed to finally get the lug on the back off and pulled the rear tires. I then went ahead and took the swing arm off (which was a MASSIVE pain). In the process of removing the swing arm, I noticed a couple bolts in the main frame and tried to take them off. I ended up shearing both of them in half and now have no idea how I'm going to remove them. They're very rusted too, so I went ahead and threw some PB Blaster on whats left in hope that a miracle will help me take them out. I'll keep you guys updated.
The final major step in disassembling my rolling chassis was to take out the steering column and handlebars. I thought this part would be much more difficult than it was. Aside from the little metal clip sitting underneath the bolts that mount the column to the top of the frame, everything was relatively easy and painless. I also took off the foot peg that was on the left side of the frame during this step.
FINALLY, my brother and I drove to our local car wash and power washed all of the components before I wrapped them in an old fleece blanket for storage throughout the rest of the winter. Here is a picture from our car wash adventure:
The frame and everything attached to it is now in storage as I eagerly await being finished with this upcoming semester to come home and continue work. That being said, I will continue to look for good deals on parts throughout this semester and will, of course, post about it here when I do. I also have a few questions that I'd love input on from all of my faithful readers:
1. What do you recommend for paint/powder coating and how much will it cost me? I really feel like powder coating is the way to go although it is very expensive. Are there any good shops in the Northeast that have quality services and reasonable prices? I'd also like recommendations of actual paint in case I simply can't afford to have it coated.
2. Does anyone know of a website or shop that sells OEM Blaster hardware? I am going to salvage and clean all of the actual OEM hardware that came off this chassis, but I will be replacing the missing parts or non-OEM ones with components the Blaster was designed to have.
I will surely have more questions and will always come to this thread if/when I do. I hope you enjoyed this write-up, PLEASE SHARE YOUR INPUT!
Thanks!
