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Honda CX500, GL500 - Painting the final drive unit

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Here's how we painted our final drive unit.



We covered the splines (both ends) over with some plastic wrap:



Our first attempt at removing the paint was with a wire wheel:

...but some heavy-handed application of the wire wheel resulted in some scarring:



That idea was ditched and we turned back to the good old paint stripper.





Stripper hard at work:





A metal scourer was used to remove the old paint and excess stripper (that and some thick gloves...):



Part-way through the scrubbing:



Paint-free:



The remaining areas were carefully cleaned up with sandpaper and any marks were sanded back within reason with 400+ grit sandpaper. Once that was done the surface to be painted was thoroughly cleaned with wax and grease remover, and left to dry. Test hang for spraying:



Thicker wire would have been a better idea, as it was challenging spraying between the wire and the final drive close to the axle hole.

The first layer of undercoat applied. We went with Duplicolor's high heat engine metal primer, and are going with the same brand/type of gloss black for the topcoat. Topcoat photos coming...