Powerplus or Bust, Eh?

[TechNoir]

Jake, thanks for the reply, I have a few ideas myself so I will let you know how I get on.

John

[painterdale]

I am an autobody guy by trade... and even I can't make paint look that... eh, "bad"?

I agree! Very impressive results. I do hope someday you will "appall" us with your technique. Dale

[BoschZEV]

Kevin,

That paint looks great. Congratulations on achieving a look that matches the rest of the bike.

I'm reminded of a Bultaco Metralla I restored 20 years ago. When I took the sheet metal to a paint shop I told the manager I didn't want "perfect," but rather I wanted the paint to look like it had been applied in a shed in barely-industrialized 1960s Spain. He later told a friend who also used the same shop that I was the first customer who had ever told him he wanted their paint job to look like crap.

[Shaky Jake]

Kevin,

Thanks for the update to your build, the tank looks great.

I am just about to do the same sort of thing myself. I have a pair of tanks for my 1920 Harley, one half is old paint and one half is/will be bare metal. I was planning on trying to put some paint on the bare metal and then trying to make it look old or at least not brand new.

I know you said don’t ask but any tips or advice that you can offer would be most appreciated.

John

They say that Leonardo DiVinci experimented with mixing his old paint, and that is why some of his paintings didn't survive. I'm no Leonardo DiVinci, and I'm certain that this coating won't protect metal even close to as well as normal paint. I'll be happy if it's still on there in a couple of years. It's probably as fragile as actual 100 year old patina, and I'll probably have to take the same steps to preserve it. Only time will tell. So that's one of the reasons I don't want to share the process. I wouldn't recommend using it on actual old tanks, and I'm certain that any professional painter would be appalled at some of the things I did to that tank. I would feel really bad if some actual vintage tin got messed up because of me. Just to illustrate the fact that I'm still in the experimental stage, I've painted three pieces so far. The tank and the chain guard turned out great. I finished the third piece, the primary chain cover, about 14 hours ago and it's still not dry, so there's a good chance I'll have to strip it, make some adjustments to the process, and do it again.

I'll just say that I didn't use anything fancy or expensive, just stuff I found around the house, and other than that I spent some time experimenting on pieces of scrap metal, learning how to apply the paint wrong, and how to stress the metal and the paint to simulate the aging process. Hope that helps - and have fun with it!



Kevin


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[Jim]

I am an autobody guy by trade... and even I can't make paint look that... eh, "bad"? GREAT Looking paint work! Looks so OLD. I also really liked you idea of adding solder joints to that "realistic" look. There was a guy that used to belong in our local AMCA chapter that painted his 1930 H-D to look like 'rust'. He is an artist I believe and he knew of some sort of process.

[TechNoir]

Don't ask me what all I did to get the paint to look like that, because you wouldn't believe me if I told you. .

Kevin,

Thanks for the update to your build, the tank looks great.

I am just about to do the same sort of thing myself. I have a pair of tanks for my 1920 Harley, one half is old paint and one half is/will be bare metal. I was planning on trying to put some paint on the bare metal and then trying to make it look old or at least not brand new.

I know you said don’t ask but any tips or advice that you can offer would be most appreciated.

John

[EricOlson]

Wow, just wow Kevin. Every post is a real treat. Thanks for sharing all your hard work!

[Shaky Jake]

Some time ago we talked about gas tanks. The original Powerplus gas tanks are mage of thin steel and are soldered together. The general consensus is that there's a good chance a 100 year old one won't go the distance without cracking. There have been some gasoline fires on past Cannonballs, and its heartbreaking to watch that old iron go up on the side of the road. So a friend of mine in WV found someone to make us some heavier gauge tanks that are tig welded rather than soldered. here's mine, right after I coated it inside with Caswell's:








Someone asked me if I'm going to try to paint it faux-old to match the old paint on the frame and fenders, or if I'm going to paint it shiny. I think my response was that it seemed like painting it to look old would take a lot of effort for little benefit. I was right, it was a lot of effort. It took a lot of time; time I didn't have, but it turned out to be an interesting process. I started off by taking the top tank in the picture below to a paint shop to see if they could match the old paint. They took a lot of interest in it, but in the end they said that there wasn't any one area on the tank that was covered solid enough to scan for color, and they didn't want to try matching the color and texture manually because the paint is so expensive and they were afraid I would not be happy with it and want my money back. The store manager really wanted to help me out, but the owner said no. So, like everything else in this project, it looked like I was going to have to figure this out myself. Off to the interweb, I did a quick study of practical paint chemistry and application. I dug out some scrap metal, and commenced experimenting. I guess you could say I developed a process. I had these two tanks for inspiration:








One of the things that stands out on the old tanks is the solder joints. If I just painted my new tank, no matter how crunchy the paint looked the tank wouldn't look right because of the lack of solder joints. So, I put solder on my TIG welded tank, for looks:



]








Then, I applied my newly developed process, and this is the result:












I probably shouldn't have spent all this time on painting the tank, but I have to say, I'm pretty happy with the result. I may try to brush in some remnants if a Indian script, if time allows. Don't ask me what all I did to get the paint to look like that, because you wouldn't believe me if I told you.






Kevin


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[Tom Lovejoy]

Great post, really enjoying watching your progress - thanks much + keep it up !

[Jim]

I don't own a 1916 Indian... or ANY Indian for that matter, but I really enjoy reading & following your posts! Keep up the great job! The whole rebuild just fascinates me!

(I do however own 2 VLs and 2 Vintage 1965 Hondas)

[panthersteve]

You are doing a great job Kevin, I am enjoying every post.
It is also a credit to you that you are still taking photos and documenting it on here when you are nearing the pointy end

Cheers
Steve

[Shaky Jake]

So, now the only thing left on the transmission is that felt seal around the main shaft, just outboard of the large bearing. I ordered a new piece of felt from McMaster-Carr, and one of these twirly circle cutter things that craft ladies use from Amazon:










I used the twirly thing to cut out a seal and a spare:










The thin part of the seal holder goes in over the large bearing, and the new piece of felt goes on top of that:








Then the cover threads on (left-handed) and viola! the transmission is ready to mount:










On an unrelated parallel activity, Brenda's kitchen got torn out. The cabinets got re-purposed around the neighbor hood, and the tile and everything else got thrown into the back of the dump truck for appropriate disposal:




Kevin


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[Shaky Jake]

OK, just a couple more posts and the transmission will be done so we can shift gears to more interesting things. See what I did there?

This notched quarter round do-hicky, which the shifter linkage will connect to, slides on to the eight sided shaft of the shifter segment that we put inside the case earlier. It's held on my a special nut and washer:








This is the detent that I mentioned:










This is the clutch worm. When the clutch linkage rotates the worm, that 7/16 inch ball next to my thumb pushes on a rod that goes through the transmission main shaft (the one with the splines). The rod pushes on an adjusting screw in in the clutch, which causes the clutch to disengage:












This is the "Safety Latch." It prevents you from shifting gears while the clutch is engaged:










When you step on the clutch, the clutch linkage pushes the safety latch out of the way like this, so you can shift gears:








When you release the clutch, the safety latch locks the shift linkage like this:








Kevin


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[gww]

DITTO. your doing great..

[pisten-bully]

Go-go-go! Great progress Kevin!