Naked '83 gl1100 to Café Bagger

[Sagebrush]

When I had the blue 1100 painted I bought a gallon of paint. After all was said and done I guess he used at least 3/4 of the gallon to get everything painted, maybe a little more.

[karmasoft]

Well I got a bunch of priming done this weekend... and realized I have a bunch more sanding to do.

Well that's ok, its easier to see the flaws with the primer on there.

Using the spray gun, compressor, breather, paint booth, etc. was great. Super fun actually, though fatiguing. I decided to hang the pieces which was good though I put some serious strain on the 1/2" pvc pipe of my booth. It was bowing quite a bit. I'm going to shore it up before doing that again.

A couple of questions... when others have painted their saddlebag lids, do you remove the metal clasps? They seem to be riveted in there. What kind of tool do you use, if you do use a tool, to get those off and back on? I tried taping one side off, as a test, but I'm skeptical of how good its going to look.



Second question is, what about the saddlebag rubber gasket / seal that goes around the perimeter? Seems like it would be really hard to tape that off. The rubber is in just-ok condition. Serviceable but not looking very good. I'd kind of prefer to remove it and start over, though I'm not sure if that piece is still available... guessing its not?

[Casper]

Not sure if the exact rubber gasket is still available, but Google 'Rubber Seal Profiles'. It will show you lots of hits of various suppliers and images of such products. You should be able to find something new that works. However, someone on the NGW site might well have a better answer for you.

Try www.spaenaur.com

[Neil]

Somewhere on here I read where a trim piece for the trunk of a car can be cut to fit the lids and ends up very close to original. As to the clasp on the removable lid ... I took mine off using a drill. Same size as the rivet and just enough to "pop" the rivet off. When completed I used a pop rivet gun and put them back on. The lock part on the bag (at least on mine) were on with nuts on the inside with the thread part being an integral part of the lock body. Mine were stock Hondaline bags from 1982.

[karmasoft]

Neil, thanks... I went ahead and just pulled the gasket / seals off of those saddlebags -- to your point there seems to enough source material on the web regarding what others have done for me to figure it out. I'm going to try and drill out those pins on the lids.

As things stand at the moment my 1983 GL1100 dominates my 4 car tandem garage! I keep telling myself there is a finish line! (very gullible)


Speaking of parts, I picked up this nice rear rack off eBay, which included the backrest. It was advertised as coming off a CB750 but I'm hoping I can make it work. It seems to fit well at the shock mounts, so just need to figure out how to get the rear mounts (circled in orange) to work on the gold wing.