The Blueing of the Ninja part 2

I spent some sweaty hours this weekend de-blacking the Ninja.  The coolant got flushed as I was waiting for paint to dry.  With the fairings off I got more done than I intended.  I stripped the tank and repainted it, my first attempt and recovering the stripped back to blue paint.

Original Kawasaki Paint codes courtesy of Color Rite

I was able to find a metallic blue that would work with the Ninja original Candy Plasma Blue.  Going on it looks almost identical, but it dries a darker blue, a more royal blue, though since it's metallic it pops like the original factory metallic paint does.  The paint I found was Rustoleum's Metallic Cobalt Blue.  It's readily available, I found it at Homedepot.


After laying a couple of coats of the new blue, I followed it up with a couple of coats of a gloss clear coat.  The picture of the tank on the right shows you what kind of finish you can get out of these basic tools.  It won't satisfy a perfectionist, but at under $20 to paint the front fender and tank, it will satisfy your accountant.  I waxed it once everything set (I let it sit for half a day), and it looks pretty sharp.  I've driven it 200kms so far this week since and no scuffs or scratches on the paint, so it's pretty tough too, even after an impromptu ride through a driving hail/thunder storm.

I could agonize over stockness here, but I don't think I will.  The vision I've got for the bike isn't stock anyway, but it's a far cry from the flat black bike I started with.  I'm still working out the orange for the frame.  I've got a gloss red and a gloss yellow and intend to mix my own.  The only oranges available seem to be traffic cone inspired (see the pics below), I'm going for a burnt orange as an opposing colour to the royal blue.

From the pictures you can see that the blues are mighty close, though the camera does flatten the differences a bit.  When you're up close you can see where the new paint is slightly darker, though just as rich and metallic.  With the clear coat on top it's silky smooth to the touch and polishes up nicely with wax.  I've been riding in rain all week and everything now beads off where it used to just get wet and sticky on the flat black.

The back end is still stock blue, the tank is the new metallic cobalt  blue

This is a closeup of the seat fairing - the front is the new blue, the back is
the old blue - pretty damn close - matches the spring nicely too

The headlight and front fairing is stock blue, the front wheel
fender and tank are the new blue

Another angle on the tank.  I taped off the filler cap and silver surround,
it came off clean.  I wiped any overspray before clear coating everything

     

After and before - the metallic blue covers up the bruises well, and where
the bike was already blue, you've got a strong undercoat that supports
the top colour.  It took a couple of extra coats to cover the bruises.

Next up: cleaning up the frame and getting it a metallic burnt orange

While I've got the fairings off to do the frame, I'll have another go at the blue on the big front fairings.  It's a time consuming, tiring process taking that black off, so the fairings might be a while longer before I get them done, then I can finally call my beaten up black bike blue again.

Deluge

Southern Ontario is sinking man,
and I don't wanna swim...

Toronto is sinking man and I don't want to swim.

Riding home tonight into a wall of black. Yesterday I dodged the storms, today I'm not so lucky.

If it starts to spit I'll pull over and put my rain jacket on and cover the tail bag.  

It starts to spit.  I pull over.  

I get the rain jacket out and throw it on the ground and cover the tail bag with the rain cover.  As I'm getting the jacket on I look up and a wall of water is moving toward me.  I get the jacket on quick and get back on the bike.  I'm back up to speed when I hit the wall.  The rain is so heavy the guy in front of me in a pickup is hydroplaning everywhere.  

It's so black I can only see cars by headlights.

The bike is a bit skittish but surprisingly sure footed, then the gusts begin.  I get to highway 24 and there is a lightning strike so bright it's blinding, followed by an almost immediate thunder roll.  The gusts are so hard I'm leaning into them to stay on the bike, visibility is almost zero.  If there is a tornado I've decided to hang on to the bike - together we weigh almost 650 pounds, that's got to be better than going solo.  Being out in a violent thunder storm is an entirely different thing from watching one hit your windscreen.

I hang on for a couple of kilometers and everyone starts to pick up speed as the sky starts to clear.  The road begins to show patches of tarmac through the water.  I ride the last 15 kms home soaked to the skin but elated!  That scared the shit out of me!  It was great!

The Stable

My dream garage always had to be kind of huge to fit all the cars I wanted in it.  With the new bike
infatuation I get to dream of a more condensed (and plausible) dream garage.  It's still got room for the necessary evil (I live in Canada, some days a bike just won't do it), so I took the two car garage and doubled it to make a workshop in the back.

The car garage is separated by a dividing wall with a single garage door in it to allow larger vehicle access into the workshop.  There is a half size roll up door on the side for direct bike access.  The garage is wired in, but also has a turbine and solar collection.  In the winter this runs the high efficiency heater in the workshop.  In the summer is pushes a small, high efficiency air conditioner into the workshop.  The goal is to keep the workshop above freezing in the winter and below 25 degrees in the summer.

The battery packs and computer controls for the wind turbine and solar inputs are upstairs, as are the heating and cooling units, both of which feed into the workshop directly.  There is also room for storage upstairs.  Access is made through a pull down staircase in the back of the car garage.

The workshop has space for 5-6 bikes, though I think I'd keep 3 working bikes on hand, and one project bike.  I'd also keep a shed at the side for a couple of dirt bikes.

As for what I'd fill the workshop with, at the moment I'm all about the British bike.  A Triumph Street Triple, a Royal Enfield Classic with a sidecar and a Triumph Tiger 800XC would be what I'd have on had to regularly ride.  The other side of the shop has the half car/half bike Morgan3 Trike.

Royal Enfield Classic with sidecar

Triumph Tiger 800XC

The Tiger is a great all rounder that can get you anywhere.  A nimble adventure bike that also loves to carve up roads, this'd be my go to for long rides.

The Royal Enfield Classic with sidecar is a classic with modern technology.  It would let me share the open road with my son in a way he'd truly dig.

Triumph Street Triple

Morgan 3 Wheeler

The Triumph Street Triple is a naked bike built for the road.  It's fast, responsive and sounds wonderful.  This would be my dedicated road bike.

What I don't show in the plan is the project bike.  This would change quite frequently, depending on how much work the bike needs.  At the moment I think I'd like to bring an '80s Honda Interceptor back from the dead.

Honda VFR 750 Interceptor

The idea behind the dream garage is to have a workshop for bike maintenance and restoration.  I've really enjoyed restoring the 650r Ninja I've got now, and I'd like to keep doing that kind of work.  To that end I think I'd include a bike sized bench style spray booth, as well as a compressor in the workshop.  I enjoy both mechanical as well as body work, and it would be nice to have the space and tools to do both well.

10k

I looked at the odometer today as I pulled into the parking lot after my forth straight day of commuting and realized my '07 Ninja has finally hit the 10k mile mark.  The commute got her there, it's about 70kms each way with the first two thirds a country ride through the Niagara Escarpment, then an 11 km blast down the 401 before it slows down going into the GTA, then another couple of kms in Milton.  It's a nice ride.  Less so when it's pouring buckets of rain out of the sky, as it has for the last two days, but those were memorable rides too, even if uncomfortable, and a bit treacherous.

This weekend the Ninja gets round two of its spa treatment, a coolant flush and change and a cleanup after all that wet riding.

I was at Two Wheel Motorsport the other day getting oil filter and gaskets and the older guy behind the counter was talking about how it isn't about how you do the miles, but about getting the miles in.  I'm beginning to see his point.  Wheelies and high speed corners are all well and good, but there is something to be said about being the saddle and putting miles behind you while you're out in the world.

It's Sunday afternoon and I'm taking a movie break with the family before coming back and finishing putting the bike back together again.  I got the coolant flush done (though what came out was about as perfect as I've ever seen used coolant), cleaned the engine while I had the fairings off, and stripped the black off the tank.  The goal is to get the bike roadworthy for another week of commuting to Milton... that'll be another 700kms behind me.

Thunder bolts & Lightning

I was up early, getting ready for my 3rd day of commuting to Milton on the Ninja.  The sky was heavy, the roads patchy but still mostly dry.  In the 20 minutes it took me to get ready the weather moved in, rain bucketing down, the sky so dark the street lights came back on.

I'm standing there on my porch looking at the bike which I've got started, sitting in the driveway with rain tearing off it.  I've gotten into the safety gear, then the rain gear.  I'm hot and dry, but I won't be for long.  The car is sitting there, an easy, comfortable option.

I'm looking for experiences.  I could have stripped down and taken the easy way down, but I wouldn't have felt the rain, or smelled the world as it opened up under it.  I wouldn't have been out in the world as mist rose from the ground and trees emerged from the fog.

I was worried about the 401 but I need't have.  With the rain it was barely moving.  By the time I got to Milton I was crawling along at walking speed behind a transport truck.  I arrived at the school after an hour in the wet.  The worst was in Elora, then I drove out of it and it was only drizzle, but by then I was hosed.

I only lost the back end once while downshifting and a quick hand on the clutch got that back in line.  I stopped downshifting after that while in the deep water.

It's 2pm now.  Most of my gear is dry after some time under hand dryers and sitting on a warm lamp stand.  In retrospect, today would have been a good day to wear my big cool weather boots - I think they're waterproof too, unlike the AlpineStar summer boots I had on.   I now know my gloves aren't remotely waterproof.  The rain gear did a good job of keeping me warm and mostly dry.  The only wet spot on my body was on my stomach.  It probably got in under the jacket.  I'll tighten that up next time.

It would have been easier to jump in the car, it would have been more comfortable, but it wouldn't have left me with an idea of what riding in driving rain feels like; lessons learned.

It's 6pm now, and trying to dry out wet gear in an air conditioned lab is all but impossible... there is nothing better than some good old sunlight on a hot deck:

Stretching My Legs

It's the first day of summer holidays, so I'm going to push the envelope and hit the road on my longest ride yet.  Elora to just past Bobcaygeon.  It's all paved except for the last couple of miles on gravel.  I'll be passing through villages, towns and a couple of cities en route.  236kms.

The Cottage Run

The weather is cooperating and the rain has dried up.  I'm going to have to break my iron man habit of doing long drives in single marathon runs.  Stopping along the way is going to be prudent.

The bike has new oil and filter and is half blue, so I'm in good mechanical shape and looking like a fine arts project.  The partially stripped black paint looks like it got pulled off by going too fast.

I'm not worried about it mechanically, it's super solid, the weakest link on this trip is the n00b rider.  As long as I can remember that and pace myself, it'll be a great step forward in riding.

The most exciting bit should be the logging road at the end of the trip.  It drives like a rally stage, but I'm going to be riding it with a light touch.  The Ninja isn't built for this kind of work, so it'll be a gentle last leg on the best roads.  I'll save the rally driving for the ATVs once we're at the

The Cottage Road

cottage.  Though now I'm wishing I had a little 250cc dirt bike up there to get muddy on.

The map doesn't do the cottage road justice.  It's been straightened out, graded and widened in recent years, it used to be even madder.  The road weaves around stone outcroppings in the Canadian Shield and includes a lot of elevation drops you don't see on the map.  The tight corners come up on you suddenly because you can't see over the hill you're on to what's next.

It's roads like this that make me wish I had something more dual purpose.

The Triumph Tiger 800xc would snort and stomp down that road.  The new KTM Supermoto would make that cottage road a tail wagging good time, though that's a much bigger bike.  I think I'd prefer the Triumph.  It's lithe, and agile where the KTM is a monster.




In the meantime, I'm going to gingerly nurse the Ninja to the cottage after a beautiful Saturday afternoon ride across rural Southern Ontario.  Pictures to follow.

Won't you make my black Ninja blue?

Project: restore the original blue paint job of a 2007 Kawasaki Ninja 650r.

Plan: remove the flat black-out paint job and restore the original metallic blue

Backstory:

This '07 650r Ninja is my first bike, I got it a couple of months ago.  I was considering buying a new bike, but wanted something I could get mechanically familiar with.  I got this Ninja with low miles (still only 8k on the clock when I got it).  There was evidence it had been dropped, but the bike was in excellent mechanical condition and with the low mileage, it seemed like a good candidate for a restoration that would let me familiarize myself with motorcycle maintenance (I've owned many interesting cars, so I know my way around an engine bay).  

Making a black Ninja blue again

So far so good, the bike is letting me figure out the mechanics and maintenance, and works flawlessly otherwise.  The biggest effort has been trying to figure out how to strip the blacked out paint job and restore the body to the stock colour.  Here is the process to date:

How to Strip Paint Off a Motorcycle:

My first attempt was heavy handed,
but lessons learned on the front
fender paid off elsewhere

Stone chips were showing the blue paint underneath around the front fender, headlight and leading edges of the fairings.  With it looking so shabby anyway (it's not like it's a nice black paint job), I began with the front fender, trying to find ways to remove the black.

I tried wet sanding the black but this didn't prove very effective.  The compound curves on the body work ('07 Ninjas are very sinuous) make sanding smoothly difficult.  The sanding block would either burn through into the

Goof Off Graffiti remover got
the worst of the black off,
then a wipe with a soft, lint
free painters cloth with some
thinner took away the haze

blue below or damage the clear coat; it was too blunt an instrument.  I eventually tried some graffiti remover  and it did the job while preserving the factory paint.  

Once I got the technique down, the
black came off leaving the blue in
good shape underneath

I initially tried wiping off the sprayed on remover with painter's rags, but they are too smooth to work well with paint this thick.  I eventually tried tea towels with a rougher texture and they worked well with the Goof Off.  

Eventually I found that spraying a thick coat of remover on a spot on the tea towel and then wiping in small circles would remove the black paint leaving the blue underneath untouched.  This is best shown around the seat at the back of the bike.  Even the clearcoat was left intact by working in small circles, removing the black paint in small areas at a time.  The paint there is not even waxed and looks great, this part of the bike was quickly restored with no damage to the underlying paint.

Graffiti remover (I can't speak for all of them but if they are all formulated similarly then you should get similar results) does a fine job of stripping a bad paint job off bike body work.  Work in small areas, spraying on to the rag and then applying to the paint.  The top layer of the black comes off on the first application, the blue shows through after the second.

Hidden bruises

This closeup shows just how
the black is coming off to
reveal the Ninja blue below

Of course, when someone blacks out a bike they might be doing it for aesthetic reasons, but I don't think I'll be assuming that any more.  It turns out the bike had been dropped pretty hard on its left side.  As I was removing the flat black it looked like I could see her hidden bruises for the first time.  The scuffs had all been sanded smooth for the black paint job, but as the extent of the injuries become clear I'll have a better idea of what happened.  It looks like the bike went down and slid without hitting anything.  It still has its original front end and various switch gear, so this was an asphalt slide that damaged the body work.

Looking at the bottom of the main fairing, I found that one side appears to be unpainted other than the flat black while the other is blue, so this is probably a replacement fairing.

The fairing on the right
has no blue under the black

I'm about half way through stripping the black off.  I'm to the big front fairings now, and they have a lot of real estate on them.  Working in small circles, this is going to take a while.

Once I've got it stripped down, I'll remove the panels, repaint them metallic blue and then paint the frame (burnt orange) while I'm in there.  The end result should be a colourful Ninja that proudly wears its stock metallic blue paint, albeit with some touch ups that make the bike even more visually interesting.

Notes:  

I picked up the Goof Off at Canadian Tire.  They had other brands there, I haven't tried them, but if I do I'll follow up with comments.

The factory paint job on an '07 Kawasaki Ninja 650r: