Fork Refinishing On 4Th Gen.

I'm rebuilding my suspension both front & rear. My front fork sliders are beat up pretty bad from the road & I'd like to get them refinished. I'm probably going with Lindeman for the fork & shock rebuild, but any ideas on the refinishing? TIA[image: IMAG0700.jpg] [image: IMAG0699.jpg]

We sent the lowers to a powder coater with my sons swing arm. They look great.

I hand-polished my lowers, took way too long but they looked pretty good when done.

:ohmy:   Good God, how did they come to be in that condition in the first place? I sold my 4th gen this past June with about 45k on it and they still looked brand new.

Maybe there's something to be said for "no-salt" roads in Colorado and you have to TRY to make something rust here. 

The original owner was an corporate attorney out of NYC who brought the bike over to England for a few years. They use a lot of salt in NYC & in Enland. He was being shipped off to Hong Kong so I picked it up for a song with 16 k miles.

A friend of mine was blacking out a lot of stuff on his Superhawk. We ended up powdercoating the fork lowers black on his bike when we tore them apart to do seals in them. They turned out great, just like CornerCarver's.

http://www.vfrdiscus...9_551_21424.jpg

I'm gonna vote for powder coating. Be sure all relevant surfaces are masked off because the powder is very thick. If you can't get your axle in, or seals, it's gonna be no fun to remove it in those spots.

The original owner was an corporate attorney out of NYC who brought the bike over to England for a few years. They use a lot of salt in NYC & in Enland. He was being shipped off to Hong Kong so I picked it up for a song with 16 k miles.

JZH??

My '92 VFR's forks were not in that state but did need some attention so in '07 I removed them from the bike. After a good wash the first coat of paint stripper removed most of the old paint. Steel wool (#0000) plus stripper took care of any remnants. The alloy on mine were scuffed but a little emery paper, scotchbrite pads, and Solvol had them looking just right. There are circumferential marks in the alloy that I didn't want to polish put so I went with the grain, so to speak.

My plan was to clear coat the lowers but opted to leave them bare. When I sold it 2 years and 20K km and they still looked great.

[image: LBB4462ed]
LBB4462ed
It may look a little precarious but I am a professional ;-)

LBB4472
The painted fork lowers were scuffed and peeling so I set about tidying them up. I removed them from the bike though you could probably do them in situ.

LBB4872e
The painted fork lowers had seen better days so I removed them before stripping the paint. I was going to spray them with clear but decided to leave them bare and see how they fared. A couple of years on they still looked perfect.

The original owner was an corporate attorney out of NYC who brought the bike over to England for a few years. They use a lot of salt in NYC & in Enland. He was being shipped off to Hong Kong so I picked it up for a song with 16 k miles.

JZH??

First damn thing I thought too. :laugh:

If it's not him, that would be a very odd coincidence...

My '92 VFR's forks were not in that state but did need some attention so in '07 I removed them from the bike. After a good wash the first coat of paint stripper removed most of the old paint. Steel wool (#0000) plus stripper took care of any remnants. The alloy on mine were scuffed but a little emery paper, scotchbrite pads, and Solvol had them looking just right. There are circumferential marks in the alloy that I didn't want to polish put so I went with the grain, so to speak.

My plan was to clear coat the lowers but opted to leave them bare. When I sold it 2 years and 20K km and they still looked great.

     

This looks fabulous...keen to do similar myself. 

Mine look very similar to the OP's at present (England, 30k...), were yours quite so bad? I'm worried that there may be pitting that won't polish out. 

Ben

After pricing out powder coating the fork, I decided to leave them alone & just freshen up the seals & oil. The "price creep" was climbing to $400+. The forks work fine, they just look like crap.

The original owner was an corporate attorney out of NYC who brought the bike over to England for a few years. They use a lot of salt in NYC & in Enland. He was being shipped off to Hong Kong so I picked it up for a song with 16 k miles.

JZH??

First damn thing I thought too. :laugh:

Who is JZH?

http://www.vfrdiscus...p/user/362-jzh/