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New to me - ‘95 Honda Shadow VLX600
- Thread starter bosco659
- Start date
Got the bike running half decent without dismantling the carbs.Turns out a YouTube suggested mod on the slide vents was incorrect. Once venting to atmosphere, the rich condition was eliminated and if anything it’s running a bit on the lean side just off idle. To properly assess the running condition I need to ride it and clean out the build up of gunk in the cylinders. That won’t happen until the springtime.
I discovered a decent way of getting the rear tire off of the ground. A motorcycle scissor jack did the trick.
While the tire was in the air I decided to clean up the rear wheel as best I could. I removed as much corrosion as I could (easily) and that’s going to have to be good enough. Cleaned and polished other shiny bits and touched up scratches on the black frame. Next cosmetic task will be the front wheel. I plan to meet with a vapour blast guy this week to see what he can do with my corroded engine cases and valve covers.
A piece of steel wool on the end of a brass brush made cleaning easier on the fingers.
If you have engine case, valve cover pitting, that suggests that there is a failure of the clear coat. If a good polishing with Mother's doesn't give the result you desire, you will have to remove the clearcoat from the whole part. While roloc is fast, it will leave small grooves. A less destructive method is chemical stripping of the piece to get bare aluminum, then address the pitted areas and then polish with Mother's, a 4" or 6" polishing wheel and a 3000-3600rpm drill motor. HF has cheap wheels that do the job and if you don't have an old 120vac drill (plug-in) resale shops have them, mine from Restore (Habitat for Humanity thrift store) for $5. The last pic is shows the right side engine case for the Red Bike before I started the project
I have the Dico wheels. I tried a test patch on the cover and I may have put too much pressure on the wheel because I scratched the surface. 150/220/400/800 cleaned it up but for all the pieces I have to do it’s more than I’d want to do. Lazy gene kicking in again.
I looked for a chemical stripper and a friend who was just in the US brought a can back for me. I can try that too.
I’ll wait until my carb parts arrive, then I’ll remove the carbs and valve covers (requires removal of at least one coolant pipe). I’ll try to get those bits done first then I can put the top end back together and get the antifreeze back in.
Whether I polish the case covers myself or have them vapour blasted, they have to come off. I removed the LHS and the gasket couldn’t decide which side to stick to so half stayed on the cover and the other half on the crankcase. Nothing came off easy. I had to scrape and use a scotch brite pad to clean things up. I used my new Motion Pro gasket scraper and can’t say enough good things about it. It made the job much easier. I was laying on my back for 30-45 minutes getting the lower crankcase clean 
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Steel wool? Nice improvement.
Sandpaper 220/400/800, scotch brite then Autosol polish. On the buffing wheel, black then white compound
Filing this in the “good enough” drawer. Not perfect but many times better than the corroded piece.
Poor beetle is being neglected!
Very nice... You gotta love it when a plan come together... That $600 Honda will be a $700 Honda in no time at all.......
Sorry. to many rums....
Sorry. to many rums....
Very true. This is a budget fixer upper. I will most likely sell it in the spring and they aren’t an expensive bike to buy, so I need to watch how much I spend on it. All shined up and less than 2,000 miles, I figure I should do ok.
Although it sucks that the clear coat on the engine failed, I noticed this bike is very well made. Heavy construction, well thought out clips on frame for wires and hoses, engine cases are thick. Parts prices can be expensive. It should be all done by Christmas time. Then 100% beetle focus again.
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Under the clutch cover was this assembly that I assume must be a trigger for the ignition?
Removal of this gasket is brutal. In the last pic see the fruits of my labour - only took 45 minutes to do that much. I swear they must have stuck the gasket on with crazy glue
. Oh well I’ll go back out and do some more tonight . Maybe I’ll be done the engine side by midnight. lol. May try a bit of paint stripper to soften it up.
Paint stripper on the removed case worked well but not the greatest idea on the engine itself. Too much risk getting the chemicals on the frame and other shiny spots. Tried covering with plastic but eventually finished it scraping dry. Major pita!
Just got the clutch cover finished. Took a long time. The finish is about 90% (fine scratches) and looks good from 5ft away, so good enough for me. Need to wait for gaskets and a clutch shaft seal then it can go back together then the top end gets taken apart and valve covers done. I’m done polishing for a bit.
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Looks good. Did the scratches come from buffing, scotch pad or steel wool?
On this case I used paint stripper to remove 75% of the clear coat, then a blue Roloc disc to complete the rest. Then I used 220 sandpaper to clean up the corners and scuffed the whole case to give it a more uniform appearance. That was good to remove marks left by the Roloc. Then I wet sanded with 400, then 800. The scratches are most likely from the 220 sandpaper. If I was looking for a “show” finish, I would have spent more time on it wet sanding, maybe adding 600 and 1000 to the mix. For me, I just wanted the corrosion yo be cleaned so this is good enough.
I didn’t use steel wool on the aluminum but used it to clean up the chrome.
