I had bought the Victory in a wee bit of disrepair. Mechanically it was pretty stellar, except for the rear shock, but multiple painted sections had bubbled and pealed paint. Almost all of these sections were either zinc or aluminum cast components, the drive belt guard had some flaking paint though too; the tank and fenders were fine. The previous owner had kept the bike covered all the time and it had been located in the Minneapolis area with typical humid fair weather days. The question in my mind was, “Will I have to tear the bike down to fix it or can I leave it mostly assembled?”
Assessment & Teardown
The components that I needed to access in order to repaint were: Primary cover, drive side swingarm, and the drive belt guard. The primary cover was nearly completely devoid of pain. The swingarm had a couple sizeable locations were the pain had faked off. The drive belt guard looked okay except for the edges which had started to corrode and allowed the pain to start to flop on the flat surfaces.
The primary cover looked to be easy to remove and I knew if I pulled it off I could paint it much easier. In order to access the primary cover I would first need to remove the exhaust system so I tackled that, wrestled with removing the O2 sensor from the rear exhaust pipe but eventually got it free. I was able to leave the longer exhaust pipe in place that ran to the front cylinder as it hung far enough away from the bike. With the exhaust pipes removed/loose I also saw that one of the steel exhaust mounting plates had started to corrode as well.
Top pipe removed. Black marker paint on the swingarm that I had applied last fall to temporarily cover the ugly
The primary cover was only held in place by three bolts. I backed them out and with a little tap on the cover with a rubber mallet it popped right off. The cover being cast aluminum with exposure to humidity had allowed the metal to oxidize. Aluminum corrodes different than iron and steel in that it only occurs at the surface and does not proceed through the thickness. It looks ugly but is only a cosmetic issue, not structural.
The Cleanup & Painting
I used a wire brush to clean the aluminum oxide off of the bare metal surfaces and a razor blade to scrape off the loose flakes of paint that had lost their adhesion to the surface of the cover. I was able to nearly scrape off the entire surface but where the paint was still adhering I used some sand paper to smooth the edges of the paint and blend them with the surrounding bare metal.
Primary cover front side all cleaned up
Primary cover backside, still cleaning
I then hung the cover from a tree in my backyard and proceeded to repaint it. First wiping it down with rubbing alcohol, then shooting it with a coat of primer and then some flat black paint.
The swingarm was quite a bit more of a pain. I again used a wire brush to clean the oxidized bare metal and the razor blade to scrape the flaking paint but the flaking paint just kept coming off and coming off. What I thought had been a localize region turn out to be pretty much the whole drive side of the cast aluminum swingarm. To do a really nice job on it I would need to tear the whole swingarm off but it just wasn’t worth the effort to me at the time. I poked and prodded at all the loose paint and got it cleaned up to a point where I thought it was pretty good; just not perfect.
I then needed to mask off the rest of the bike so I could respray the swingarm without getting overspray on everything else. I’m Pretty sure it took me twice as long to mask it all off as it did to spray paint it. I again wiped the swingarm down with rubbing alcohol, shot it with primer and then sprayed it with some flat black paint. Quite a transformation with the fresh coat of paint on the swingarm.
The exhaust bracket was pretty easy as it wasn’t even visible when assembled. I stripped it down in short order and repainted it pretty quickly. The drive belt guard was a bit of a pain though. It sits in clear view when assembled on the bike so I had to strip all the old paint off and then sand it down nice and smooth so the paint would lay nice without seeing the edges where the old paint had remained. This was pretty putsy and time consuming due to the shape of the piece but I finally got it cleaned up and repainted (forgot to snap some pics of it too). I had been rushing to finish this whole repainting project up by the end of the weekend so on Sunday night I started reassembling the drive belt guard onto the bike. The paint can said “dry to touch in 20 minutes”, so I gave it an hour and figured I’d be fine. Wrong. As I was holding the the guard in place to bolt it on I could feel it slipping. As I moved my fingers to readjust my grip I realized the sliding wasn’t my grip, it was the uncured paint below the surface giving way, sort of gummy like. I gingerly applied pressure to the regions that had slid and did my best to shift the paint back to its rightful locations. I found that by gently rubbing it with the back of my finger nail I could smooth it out pretty well. I was still committed to bolting it on as I wanted to ride the bike to work the next day. I figured if it didn’t dry well and looked bad I’d pull it off and redo it at a later date. From what I can tell today it has set up pretty well, I don’t notice anything off about it.
With each of the parts cleaned up and repainted the bike was much improved.
Swingarm painted
Painted primary cover remounted
Exhaust mounting bracket
The Final Result
The images below show the before and after comparison; what a difference! It took the majority of the weekend to tear the pertinent components off the bike and clean things up and repaint them but the outcome was well worth the effort, and $30 in spray paint.
