Better than a bought one

The whole crank hitting the engine issue has been hanging over my head. mainly because i have been forgetting to take to work so i could heat it up and bend it. I remembered yesterday and got it done.

Anybody want to give a little acetylene port-a-pack for Christmas or just as a gift, I'm an open receiver and would be glad to oblige. Would love one of those at home. Anyway, clamped the crank in the vice, heated it up to a nice orange, and bent a slight "s" into the arm. Got home after work and tried it. First time lucky. I managed to bend it the perfect amount to just clear the engine nicely.

In the meantime i noticed that the chrome on this crank was looking rather bad. If you looked carefully at the "before" picture in the first post on this blog, you would see the left front crank has lots of surface rust. I had heard about a remedy for this and was keen to give it a try. It involved spraying the surface rust on the chrome with a penetrating multi-purpose oil. Letting it all stand for a while. Then attacking it with an abrasive. The guy that told me about this (thanks Shaun) suggested using a finishing brush (steel brush with brass bristles) or a scotchbrite pad to not damage the chrome finish. I had neither and was not particularly fussed about how much the chrome shined after the rust was gone, it just had to disappear! So i used the workshop steel brush.

Well it worked surprising well. Rust is gone, everywhere that i could get in with the brush and the chrome was hardly touched. Nice, easy, effective. I like it. All the other cranks got the same treatment today.

The tank that i got with the kit is not the most attractive fuel tank i have ever seen, but i have nothing else so it will have to do.

 What really got me was the factory paintwork on the tank. It was terribly runny, and coarse. Bearing in mind that i was going to have to repaint the bicycle frame, I feared that people might thing that the paint work on the tank was my own and that had to be changed.

It also gave me a good reason to get another color on the tank. You know make it match a bit better...

A little piece of 100 grid sand paper quickly did the trick. the Chinese are know for cheap manufaturing but not always for quality. We just say that after having put the sand paper to the tank, I'm glad that i repainted it. That paint came off really quickly. I made the tank two tone leaving the underneath black and painting the top white. I used the Duplicolor engine enamel because not only is it heat resistant it is also feul resistant. So the color on the tank will not run when you have filling accident. I like it.

Looks better than a bought one now. :)