Katana restoration

[shodog]

I have wanted to restore my Katana for a while now. It was my brother in laws bike before he gave it to me and he had low sided on it and scraped the body work. I looked at repairing and replacing some of the broken panels. I found it was just easier to order the pre-painted body kit from eBay sellers out of china. So today I embarked on the task of tearing down the bike.















I need to paint the tank a contrasting color but before I can do that I need to prep it and fill a couple of dents. I used a weld rivet gun to get the dents out and then used aluminized body filler.

[m2fit4u2]

I have replaced many cosmetic panals and fairings on bikes, they are so much easier to work on than cars. I like the copper looking color you went with; is that copper by the way I first liked copper on bikes when Suzuki came out with it on their 99 Busa, gorgeous bike I must say.

[vwjuice]

What model Katana is that. I used to have a 2007 katana 750. I loved that bike. I want to get nother one soon.

[shodog]

My Katana is a 2000. The new body work has the updated 2006+ tail so I have to figure the new tail light wiring

I really like the copper/orange color also. It's not a very common color you see on bikes

[Charlie don't surf]

I really like the copper/orange color also. It's not a very common color you see on bikes

It was on 2004-2006 Suzuki Sv650's

[justinspeed79]

Cool project, cool bike, Showdog. It looks pretty clean too, other than the obvious. I am currently working on restoring my 2000 Suzuki Bandit 1200s. Unfortunately mine was a little worse off than yours, but I got lucky and found a good parts bike for $400. I have had a lot of fun with it, and plan on having a lot more too.

[justinspeed79]

I like the pink scissors too.

[skunk.werkz]

Life is always better on two wheels

[shodog]

This project has taken a bit longer than expected but I have lots of progress to report. I cut the rear shovel looking fender off.



Then after mounting the tail found I need to cut way more off.



Here is the completed the rear tail section. I have found there are a allot of differences between this 06+ replica and my '00 tail and this project has been more work than I expected. I was going to use a blinking LED tail light and skip the turn signals but I didn't like the way it operated. So in the end I used a stock tail light and aftermarket slimline blinkers. I had to fab up a new longer cable from the lock to the seat unlatching mechanism.



Then I used a fender eliminator to give the underside a clean look.



The forks had some corrosion on them I wanted to remove.
I removed the clear coat from the forks with Jasco paint stripper.



I tried giving them a nice buff 400 grit finish but I wanted more bling. So I sanded them with varying grits to get it smooth enough to polish. I used Mothers with a buffer ball to get them pretty shiny. Then I sprayed Tamiya clear orange paint over them and finished with a clear coat. I like the results.

[markt311]

Wow, that is turning out nice. Very good work I'm hoping to get a 1:1 project going soon as soon as the wife and I get into the new house.

[justinspeed79]

Looking very good. The forks look amazing!

[pituk]

Looks good , maybe you can fit a Gsxr fender on there. Its a bit larger for the upside forks so it may help protect your forks against rock chips. I still have my Yamaha Fzr400 that I bought in 89 (sheesh has it been 20 years already) hopefully someday I will get it going again.

[shodog]

Thanks for the compliments. Today i sprayed the front fender and rear grab bar with Metallic black paint. It looks pretty nice and even better after a few clear coats.

[shodog]

I have been busy working on my bike. I am missing some really killer ride weather. I should have saved the project for winter. The fender that came with the plastics kit isn’t for my bike. It’s a completely different shape and hole drilling. So I sanded and painted my original fender. I went with a color called Metallic Black. It looks like a dark metal flake grey. It really compliments the other parts and makes the fork color pop. It has a taken some time to do these as wet sanded between coats to keep the paint job butter smooth.





In addition to the fender, I did the rear grab bar the same color.



Next up is the Tank. I have the color coat and 3 shots of clear done in this pic.



I wet sanded the clear coat with 1500 to get a nice flat surface to shoot another clear coat.



This is with 30 minutes of drying time.

[shodog]

I got it all back together and have been riding it the last few days. I really like how it turned out. Now I can focus on other projects I have been putting off.


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