Rapido Progress

Jumped back on the Rapido project. I wanted to get the rear fender and taillight painted and then I could just do a little bit of cleaning and see about lighting it off, at least that's how the thinking was going. Taking the fender off was a little more work than I figured it would be - don't know why I figured that. Probably because I hadn't taken apart a 50 year old bike in a while. It was the usual encounter with caked mud, rusty bolts and wires that didn't have a convenient disconnect that would make the job relatively easy.

In order to access the brake light wire, I had to remove the foot peg. For some reason there was a gob of weld on the bracket. As long as it's off I'll grind it down, blast it and repaint it. The other foot peg is bent, so that'll need some work as well. And while removing the fender, I came across a broken bracket on the chain guard. One more thing to fix. If I go much deeper I'll be taking it all down and repainting the frame. However, I'm hoping the frame and swing arm will look half-way decent once I wash off the schmutz. The wheels are really rusty so it's not really worth doing a frame up if I'm not going to do the wheels and I really don't want to get in that deep from both a time and money aspect.

The bead blasting was going really well until I started getting some moisture coming into the cabinet. The alterations I made to the sump really worked well, and the dryer I installed in the line was trapping the condensation until the bowl filled up with water. I didn't think to check it while I was blasting until the glass bead quit coming out. After draining it down and cleaning out the gun it was all good once again. The weather is supposed to be cold again the next few days so I'll work on getting everything cleaned up and primed and wait until it warms up a bit before painting the color.

Stay safe everyone. I did go out for some groceries yesterday but I was masked and gloved. The local grocery has a senior hour first thing in the morning, so I went in got some fruit, veggies and soda and then headed out. When I came home it was hit the shower and wash the clothes. We should be good for at least another two weeks now.