Before restoration... parked in the dining room last christmas.
During restoration... stripped & looking rather sad at friends garage.
What once resembled a motorcycle, took on the form of something completely different today. The rare as rocking horse sh*t, UK Spec 1992 Honda VFR400 NC30, was stripped for stage one of restoration. First stop & a jet wash helps to rid years of built up grease & grime. Staring at the bike in it's naked vulnerable state, I can't help but think of the film Wall-E, as the headlights stare at me with a slight look of fear. And for a very split second, I could have sworn it winked at me.
Stage 2 comprised of cleaning the wheels, polishing, masking & spraying. As a girl who will climb walls to escape any sound that resembles filing or drilling, I left that part to the boys & was given the job of masking the brake discs. To say this was more fiddly than trying to paint your nails in the back of a car driven by a learner for the very first time, might be a slight exaggeration, but nonetheless it caused me to curse a few times. It was then sprayed with a heat proof black paint followed by a clear lacquer to make it look shiny & brand new again!
All foot pegs, hangers & anything else that was metal & needed a scrub, was cleaned & polished. The masking part was pretty painless compared to my next task, which was straightening up the radiator fins damaged by stones. Using a very thin screwdriver I had to push all the *wafer thin* (french accent) metal back to it's original position, to ensure that the air could pass through successfully.
Stage 3 tomorrow night! HUGE thanks to Andy at Gavin Fleet Care & Gibbo who is probably the coolest Fettler in the world.
Brand shiny new & I can't wait to get out on the road again. Autumn riding is always good, not too hot, not too cold. Looking at this bike it's so hard to believe that I've owned it for 13 years & now parts of it look better than when I originally stood there staring at it all those years ago.
