The RC46 story

The fork legs (being a Honda) were grot and needed a paint since I bought the bike.  Suffice to say three years hadn't improved matters. It was time to get the rattle cans out... ...Again Prep wise I: Removed the front wheel. Removed the front calipers and tied them up out of the way. Removed the mudguard, identified it was cracked and set aside. Spent an absolute age cleaning the fork legs. Taped up all of the bits I didn't want to become silver. I didn't bother stripping the old paint back as this is my daily ride not a show bike and I didn't want to loose the casting marks as they help the paint key in. I used some Audi aluminium silver paint which is a touch brighter and more metalic than the paint Honda use but I think looks great. I had used this on my RD headstock in the past which came out great so I had high hopes of it working here too. There was a lot of wind whilst painting resulting in some areas I hadn't t

When I firsts purchased the VFR it had a carbon effect cover on the headstoch which looked okay. I however do not like "Carbon effect" and it was a little dog eared so I removed it. This left the standard silver headstock that was showing every day of its age. This had to go Jobs like painting your headstock do take a while to come into effect and it is only now that I decided to give it a go. To get to the headstock I had to: Remove the clutch and brake reservoirs from the clipons. Remove the clipons. Remove the HISS system. Remove the instrument cluster fairing. Partially remove the instrument cluster. Unplug the ignition and free the loom from its tie wrap under the instrument cluster. Partially remove my knuckles doing so. Undoo the headstock nut. Withdraw the headstock with the aid of a hide face hammer. Having successfully killed an hour or two doing that I now had my headstock free. First things first; I cleaned everything metic