The reason I ask is
1. how tough is the to bike tear down and rebuild?, and
2. My dealer was trying to tell me that if I was to cut off the seat horn, I would have to powdercoat it and I couldn't paint it.

DocShadow did -- HERE'S his "evolution of my bike" site..


:-DD.

I just finished a total repaint. I stripped it down alot, then turned it over to a local dealer to pull the motor for the tranny recall work (it's a 2000 1600, hadn't been done yet). I picked up the rolling chassie, stripped it down the rest of the way and started the paint. It's at the dealers getting the engine put in and finished up now.


As far as answering your questions:
1. How hard is it to strip down & put back togeather: depends on your mechanical aptitude, experience level, patience and organizational skills. Myself, being a die hard do it yourselfer, and having been a mechanic for over 10 years, I thought it was some what challenging but not difficult. I took lots of pictures during disassembly and looked at them when I had questions going back togeather.

2. Cutting off the seat horn wouldn't require powdercoating. Cut off what ya like, grind it down nice and smooth, and ya have bare steel. You can coat it with any type of finish you like that is made for steel.

I'd like to know their reasoning for saying powdercoat would be necissary.
Are you doing the mods and paint yourself?

I'm looking into it. I'm trying to figure out how cut and weld and paint without having to tear down the bike.

Don't even think of cutting, welding and painting without tearing it down. You're just asking for trouble!

Now, if you're just going for my relatively minor mod... take away anything even remotely near the site where you'll be cutting, welding and painting, and you might be able to get away with it alright... otherwise, just do the whole thing.

You can't paint the frame and do a good job without removing everything. Don't bother, it will look like crap.

Poweder coating the frame is best. I painted mine and the paint does not hold up well to wear and tear. I will stip is down next season and powder coat it myself ... bought myself a gun and paint ..

You don't need to strip much if you only want to dehorn. You could probably paint that area but don't expect it to say 'nice' long.

Yes ... pics are great .... I used pencil and paper most of the time to diagram it all.

Doc