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Restoration of a Gpz 750 R1 (1982)
Moderators: paul doran, Taffus, KeithZ1R, chrisu
Re: Restoration of a Gpz 750 R1 (1982)
Looking good as usual Philippe!
Re: Restoration of a Gpz 750 R1 (1982)
Gentlemen,
here I am with more news.
The metal parts for the fairing are ready!
They look rather similar as the original parts but are not as nice...
This is how I proceed:
I use original parts and I make cardboard templates, they're quite easy to make.
Then I cut out the form roughly out of a 1,5 mm thick metal sheet.
In this case I bolted two metal sheets upon eachother, using the cardboard template as a guide.
After the parts are roughly shaped, I clean them up using files
I bend the metal parts so that the fairing can be mounted.
As you can see, I use two pliers to keep the parts were they have to be fixed by welding them.
My welding skills are not that good and after the welding, the parts have to be cleaned up thouroughly
Somehow I've managed to clean them and they're painted now, ready for use!
This came from Germany, brand new!
Yesterday I allso painted the carburettors and this morning I assembled and installed them
The gear change lever is installed too
The rear master brake cylinder is installed and the foot brake too.
Now I'm waiting for news from the hard chromer in order to collect the fork stanchions and the brake caliper pistons.
Once these are back, the wreck will start to look like a bike!
I hope I can show you some more progress next week.
GrtZ
Philippe
here I am with more news.
The metal parts for the fairing are ready!
They look rather similar as the original parts but are not as nice...
This is how I proceed:
- the cardboard templates
I use original parts and I make cardboard templates, they're quite easy to make.
Then I cut out the form roughly out of a 1,5 mm thick metal sheet.
In this case I bolted two metal sheets upon eachother, using the cardboard template as a guide.
After the parts are roughly shaped, I clean them up using files
I bend the metal parts so that the fairing can be mounted.
As you can see, I use two pliers to keep the parts were they have to be fixed by welding them.
My welding skills are not that good and after the welding, the parts have to be cleaned up thouroughly
Somehow I've managed to clean them and they're painted now, ready for use!
This came from Germany, brand new!
Yesterday I allso painted the carburettors and this morning I assembled and installed them
The gear change lever is installed too
The rear master brake cylinder is installed and the foot brake too.
Now I'm waiting for news from the hard chromer in order to collect the fork stanchions and the brake caliper pistons.
Once these are back, the wreck will start to look like a bike!
I hope I can show you some more progress next week.
GrtZ
Philippe
the differences between a little boy and an adult man is the price and size of their toys!
Re: Restoration of a Gpz 750 R1 (1982)
Nice work there, Philippe - looking good 
"Racing is life. Anything before or after is just waiting" - Steve McQueen
Re: Restoration of a Gpz 750 R1 (1982)
Hi men
I have news about the fork stanchions: they'll be ready next week (that is a promise from the rechromer but I'm not sure if he'll keep it).
Just a bit more patience...
So I decided to tackle the bodywork
The side panels and the tail piece went very fast, it took me only a day to do those three.
Then the front mudguard was "attacked" as usual lots of layers of paint.
It seems to me like looking at a psychedelic picture from the sixties...all sort of colours in very random shapes... no I didn't have an LSD trip !
The inside showed less colours but a lot of rust.
The next day I started on the fuel tank...
What I found under the layers of paint was horrible: a lot of filler, tin repair and last but not least HOLES !!!!
Unfortunately I allready did a lot of sanding before I discovered those holes.
This fuel tank is beyond repair as far as my possibilities are concerned.
So I decided to find another fuel tank.
After a phonecall to a guy in a suburb of Brussels I had an agreement with him. We would do a trade, I gave him Z1 parts and I received a fuel tank.
This time a far better one, no rust and only a few pits to fil up. Nothing bad.
As you can see it was also oversprayed, in "lime green" this time. Underneath the green paint I found the original "firecracker red" and only two pits and a few scratches, those won't cause any trouble.
After a day of sanding and a lot of dust this was the result:
The last thing I did today was degreasing the places where rust appeared and treated those with a rust neutraliser.
Tomorrow it's filler day and afterwards we'll see what we can do more to have some progress.
Cheers guys
GrtZ
Philippe
I have news about the fork stanchions: they'll be ready next week (that is a promise from the rechromer but I'm not sure if he'll keep it).
Just a bit more patience...
So I decided to tackle the bodywork
The side panels and the tail piece went very fast, it took me only a day to do those three.
Then the front mudguard was "attacked" as usual lots of layers of paint.
- the psychedelic picture
It seems to me like looking at a psychedelic picture from the sixties...all sort of colours in very random shapes... no I didn't have an LSD trip !
- the inside of the front mudguard
The inside showed less colours but a lot of rust.
The next day I started on the fuel tank...
What I found under the layers of paint was horrible: a lot of filler, tin repair and last but not least HOLES !!!!
Unfortunately I allready did a lot of sanding before I discovered those holes.
This fuel tank is beyond repair as far as my possibilities are concerned.
- the left side hole
- the right side holes
So I decided to find another fuel tank.
After a phonecall to a guy in a suburb of Brussels I had an agreement with him. We would do a trade, I gave him Z1 parts and I received a fuel tank.
This time a far better one, no rust and only a few pits to fil up. Nothing bad.
As you can see it was also oversprayed, in "lime green" this time. Underneath the green paint I found the original "firecracker red" and only two pits and a few scratches, those won't cause any trouble.
After a day of sanding and a lot of dust this was the result:
The last thing I did today was degreasing the places where rust appeared and treated those with a rust neutraliser.
Tomorrow it's filler day and afterwards we'll see what we can do more to have some progress.
Cheers guys
GrtZ
Philippe
the differences between a little boy and an adult man is the price and size of their toys!
Re: Restoration of a Gpz 750 R1 (1982)
Great progress Philippe 
Re: Restoration of a Gpz 750 R1 (1982)
Good morning gentlemen
an update of the project:
- the fork stanchions are NOT ready yet, as I predicted. The rechromer works only every 2 weeks due to the energycosts, those almost tripled... I hope he won't charge me 3 times as much.
- the seat received a new cover
- the body work is sprayed in firecracker red.
Before I could do that the dents needed filling. The fuel tank and the front mudguard needed some putty on a few places and grinding and filling and...you all know how it works. After an initial spray with the black epoxy primer it was putty time again. After 3 layers of primer I was pleased with the results.
Then the preparations for the firecracker red began.
To start with: grinding the whole with a wet or dry sanding paper 1000 grit followed by sanding paper 2000.
Cleaning with water, drying and making sure there's no water left anywhere. Taping off the inside of the fairing which had to remain black and taping off the openings of the fuel tank. Make sure there's no paint where the fuel gets. The fuel will get under the paint and it will wrinckle and finally become loose!
Next it was time for degreasing the parts. Make sure there are no fingerprints left!
Finally it was time to start with the final paint.
Preparing the paint (paint, hardener, thinner : all shaken, not stirred! as 007 always says) and just before the spraywork, taking the dust away with a sticky cloth.
As usual, I didn't prepared enough paint and I had to mix another batch. I'm always surprised how much paint it takes to spray the bodywork...it depends of the surface you have to paint and some bikes need more paint than others. A Z1000 ST has only 4 parts of bodywork, this Gpz 750 has 6 of them, the fairing and the front mudguard also need to be painted.
But it turned out quite good and the next day a coat of gloss varnish was sprayed on.
Again: sanding with wet or dry grit 2000, cleaning with water, drying, degreasing, taking the dust away, preparing the gloss varnish (varnish, hardener, thinner,...) and spraying.
Success or failure, it all depends of the skills and experience you have. It turned out that there were once again runners on a few parts.
These had to dry for a few days and I could sand them away.
While the varnish dried, I recovered the seat.
The new seatcover is from "Pit replica". In my humble opinion a very good manufacturor of seat covers. The pattern, which is very similar to the original, is heat pressed in the vynil and the vynil itself is of good quality.
After a few days I could start with the striping. The coloured striping was provided by a local advertiser who cutted the vynil striping at the correct width and off we went.
I started with the tail piece. An original Gpz750 R1 tail piece was used to measure the correct place where the striping should come.
After a lot of measuring and marking with a pencil on the tail piece, the striping was placed...
DISASTER! There were a lot of imperfections in the gloss varnish that I didn't see when sanding it. At first I thought that it was water which remained under the vynil striping but whatever I tried to get the striping smooth it didn't work.
So I had to remove the striping and start all over again.
"Same player shoots again" as was announced in the past on the pinball machines.
Ok, grinding the fuel tank and the tail piece with sanding paper 1000, 2000, 3000 until it looked like polished.
What do you think? I "burned" the red paint on the tail piece at a very small spot and it remains visible! That will become a "spot repair" with the airbrush afterwards. Yes, sometimes things go wrong, keep that in mind chaps! Don't become discouraged, just start all over again, it happens to all of us.
But, yesterday afternoon I managed to get the striping correct on the fuel tank and this morning on the tail piece!
Success at last.
The fairing and the side panels were OK and needed no striping. I polished the gloss coat and mounted them on the bike.
The Gpz750 logo was added on the side panels and secured with those hard to remove clips.
The home made metal mounting parts for the fairing turned out OK and it looks good on the bike.
Now the striping has to dry a few days and then it's time to put another layer of gloss varnish on them.
More (hopefully good) news within a few days.
GrtZ
Philippe
an update of the project:
- the fork stanchions are NOT ready yet, as I predicted. The rechromer works only every 2 weeks due to the energycosts, those almost tripled... I hope he won't charge me 3 times as much.
- the seat received a new cover
- the body work is sprayed in firecracker red.
Before I could do that the dents needed filling. The fuel tank and the front mudguard needed some putty on a few places and grinding and filling and...you all know how it works. After an initial spray with the black epoxy primer it was putty time again. After 3 layers of primer I was pleased with the results.
- putty on the fuel tank
- bodywork with black epoxy primer
Then the preparations for the firecracker red began.
To start with: grinding the whole with a wet or dry sanding paper 1000 grit followed by sanding paper 2000.
Cleaning with water, drying and making sure there's no water left anywhere. Taping off the inside of the fairing which had to remain black and taping off the openings of the fuel tank. Make sure there's no paint where the fuel gets. The fuel will get under the paint and it will wrinckle and finally become loose!
Next it was time for degreasing the parts. Make sure there are no fingerprints left!
Finally it was time to start with the final paint.
Preparing the paint (paint, hardener, thinner : all shaken, not stirred! as 007 always says) and just before the spraywork, taking the dust away with a sticky cloth.
As usual, I didn't prepared enough paint and I had to mix another batch. I'm always surprised how much paint it takes to spray the bodywork...it depends of the surface you have to paint and some bikes need more paint than others. A Z1000 ST has only 4 parts of bodywork, this Gpz 750 has 6 of them, the fairing and the front mudguard also need to be painted.
But it turned out quite good and the next day a coat of gloss varnish was sprayed on.
Again: sanding with wet or dry grit 2000, cleaning with water, drying, degreasing, taking the dust away, preparing the gloss varnish (varnish, hardener, thinner,...) and spraying.
Success or failure, it all depends of the skills and experience you have. It turned out that there were once again runners on a few parts.
These had to dry for a few days and I could sand them away.
While the varnish dried, I recovered the seat.
The new seatcover is from "Pit replica". In my humble opinion a very good manufacturor of seat covers. The pattern, which is very similar to the original, is heat pressed in the vynil and the vynil itself is of good quality.
After a few days I could start with the striping. The coloured striping was provided by a local advertiser who cutted the vynil striping at the correct width and off we went.
I started with the tail piece. An original Gpz750 R1 tail piece was used to measure the correct place where the striping should come.
After a lot of measuring and marking with a pencil on the tail piece, the striping was placed...
DISASTER! There were a lot of imperfections in the gloss varnish that I didn't see when sanding it. At first I thought that it was water which remained under the vynil striping but whatever I tried to get the striping smooth it didn't work.
So I had to remove the striping and start all over again.
"Same player shoots again" as was announced in the past on the pinball machines.
Ok, grinding the fuel tank and the tail piece with sanding paper 1000, 2000, 3000 until it looked like polished.
What do you think? I "burned" the red paint on the tail piece at a very small spot and it remains visible! That will become a "spot repair" with the airbrush afterwards. Yes, sometimes things go wrong, keep that in mind chaps! Don't become discouraged, just start all over again, it happens to all of us.
But, yesterday afternoon I managed to get the striping correct on the fuel tank and this morning on the tail piece!
Success at last.
The fairing and the side panels were OK and needed no striping. I polished the gloss coat and mounted them on the bike.
The Gpz750 logo was added on the side panels and secured with those hard to remove clips.
The home made metal mounting parts for the fairing turned out OK and it looks good on the bike.
Now the striping has to dry a few days and then it's time to put another layer of gloss varnish on them.
More (hopefully good) news within a few days.
GrtZ
Philippe
the differences between a little boy and an adult man is the price and size of their toys!
Re: Restoration of a Gpz 750 R1 (1982)
Top Job as usual Philippe!
Re: Restoration of a Gpz 750 R1 (1982)
Amazing, in the time it has taken you to NEARLY restore this bike i have NEARLY got round to changing my oil and filter
Well done and keep it up.
AL
Well done and keep it up.
AL
1981 J1
Re: Restoration of a Gpz 750 R1 (1982)
Hi men
yesterday it was "D-day" for me. The fuel tank and the tail piece were about to receive a coat of gloss varnish.
Before I could do that I had to spot repair the tail piece where I "burned" the paint.
It went very good, the repair is invisible.
I'm always afraid when I have to apply a gloss coat. The varnish can all of a sudden start to run down and create tears.
This time all went good, Lucky me !!!!
This morning the varnish was hard enough to mount the fuel tank and the tail piece.
She starts to look like a bike.
I'm only waiting for the forks and for the brake caliper pistons to be rechromed. Perhaps towards the end of this week...or not.
The front mudguard is ready, just waiting for the fork to mount it.
In the mean time I make sure that all the parts for the exhaust are ready.
The exhaust itself needs to be cleaned up and the left and right hand heat shields are on their way from Germany. The half collars to mount the exhaust downpipes are on their way from Holland.
Hopefully more good news within a few days ...or weeks...or...
GrtZ
Philippe
yesterday it was "D-day" for me. The fuel tank and the tail piece were about to receive a coat of gloss varnish.
Before I could do that I had to spot repair the tail piece where I "burned" the paint.
It went very good, the repair is invisible.
I'm always afraid when I have to apply a gloss coat. The varnish can all of a sudden start to run down and create tears.
This time all went good, Lucky me !!!!
This morning the varnish was hard enough to mount the fuel tank and the tail piece.
She starts to look like a bike.
I'm only waiting for the forks and for the brake caliper pistons to be rechromed. Perhaps towards the end of this week...or not.
The front mudguard is ready, just waiting for the fork to mount it.
In the mean time I make sure that all the parts for the exhaust are ready.
The exhaust itself needs to be cleaned up and the left and right hand heat shields are on their way from Germany. The half collars to mount the exhaust downpipes are on their way from Holland.
Hopefully more good news within a few days ...or weeks...or...
GrtZ
Philippe
the differences between a little boy and an adult man is the price and size of their toys!
Re: Restoration of a Gpz 750 R1 (1982)
Hi men
last monday the fork tubes were ready! Finally after 3 months. On his website the rechromer claims that it takes about 3 weeks...OK so far, so good.
On tuesday I started the work at 07,15 hours and worked until 17,15 hours. This morning I gave the final touch and cleaned her up a bit.
So she's ready. It's been a long way from a "bobber" to a decent looking bike but it's done.
I did this project to show you what you can achieve when you're determined. I came across some challenges along the restoration but most of them were solved with what I had. All the parts needed repainting or replating, some had to be changed or adapted.
A lot of parts were missing and were found on the web, mostly second hand, some new.
The only thing I need is a battery in order to check the electric wiring. We'll see when we're going to do that because other projects are waiting and it's getting cold...
I wish to thank all the people on here who gave compliments and encouragement during the restoration.
Next year there's a Z1000A2 waiting to get restored.
GrtZ
Philippe
last monday the fork tubes were ready! Finally after 3 months. On his website the rechromer claims that it takes about 3 weeks...OK so far, so good.
On tuesday I started the work at 07,15 hours and worked until 17,15 hours. This morning I gave the final touch and cleaned her up a bit.
So she's ready. It's been a long way from a "bobber" to a decent looking bike but it's done.
- the start
- the finish
I did this project to show you what you can achieve when you're determined. I came across some challenges along the restoration but most of them were solved with what I had. All the parts needed repainting or replating, some had to be changed or adapted.
A lot of parts were missing and were found on the web, mostly second hand, some new.
The only thing I need is a battery in order to check the electric wiring. We'll see when we're going to do that because other projects are waiting and it's getting cold...
I wish to thank all the people on here who gave compliments and encouragement during the restoration.
Next year there's a Z1000A2 waiting to get restored.
GrtZ
Philippe
the differences between a little boy and an adult man is the price and size of their toys!
Re: Restoration of a Gpz 750 R1 (1982)
Hi Philippe, what a great job you’ve done there, you’ve worked hard to get it to where it is now!
I’m now looking forward to the A2! Keep up the good work!
I’m now looking forward to the A2! Keep up the good work!
Re: Restoration of a Gpz 750 R1 (1982)
stunning as usual Philippe and always a brilliant read. how did you manage with the exhausts are they new old stock if not how do you resurface them
GPZ1100 A1 zrx1100 gsa1200
Re: Restoration of a Gpz 750 R1 (1982)
Hi men
thanks for the compliments!
@ Deka: they're not new, they're second hand from Germany and they're not rechromed, because rechroming them black is the only way to let them look great again.
GrtZ
Philippe
thanks for the compliments!
@ Deka: they're not new, they're second hand from Germany and they're not rechromed, because rechroming them black is the only way to let them look great again.
GrtZ
Philippe
the differences between a little boy and an adult man is the price and size of their toys!
Re: Restoration of a Gpz 750 R1 (1982)
Lovely job as usual Philippe and really enjoyed your pictures and write up
cheers Bill
cheers Bill
Re: Restoration of a Gpz 750 R1 (1982)
I owned one of those, and very nice looking bike you've restored there Phillippe.
Brilliant job and nice write up. thanks.
Brilliant job and nice write up. thanks.
2006 ZRX1200R
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