To molest or to not molest?

[dman10]

Just finished pulling the motor on my 350x last night to find out why it's locked up, as I got to looking at it I realized how scuffed up the motor was, do I want to repaint it while it's out are refinish all the hardware and parts? Bikes in great shape for its age, all there and all original minus front tire. Will that hurt the value you think? Not that I'm planning on selling right now, but just wanna know if y'all think I should. Same goes for my goki starter.


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[86125m]

No I wouldn't molest it I probably wouldn't even paint the motor. I would rebuild the engine and put it back where it belongs.

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[BOB MARLIN]

One thing I've been doing on my 350x's to help the engine stay decent looking is polishing the side covers. That way there is no paint to keep scuffing off.

[barnett468]

Molest the livin sh_t out of it good and hard . In my experience, unless the engine looks nearly new, it will not reduce the value if you detail it properly, and it will actually increase the value.



PREVIOUS KAWASAKI INTERNATIONAL R & D PROJECT ENGINEER AND ATV DEPARTMENT SUPERVISOR

[El Camexican]

Molest the livin sh_t out of it good and hard . In my experience, unless the engine looks nearly new, it will not reduce the value if you detail it properly, and it will actually increase the value.



PREVIOUS KAWASAKI INTERNATIONAL R & D PROJECT ENGINEER AND ATV DEPARTMENT SUPERVISOR

What Barn's said, just do it right. Spray paint on silver bolts and gaskets is always a red flag for future buyers, but a nice clean touch up on your covers can't hurt anything. Besides, you're not selling it, so it may as well look good while you have it.

[dman10]

What Barn's said, just do it right. Spray paint on silver bolts and gaskets is always a red flag for future buyers, but a nice clean touch up on your covers can't hurt anything. Besides, you're not selling it, so it may as well look good while you have it.

Oh no, no silver paint. If I can afford it I'll find someone to recoat the hardware, covers I'll strip and hit with a higher end paint, assuming I can find one I can spray and will match oem


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[wonderboy]

Depends on what you're looking to accomplish. If you just want it to look nicer for yourself, do whatever makes you happy. Just know that to get the cases clean enough to paint is pretty hard.

To sell, I feel that the machine is worth less to me if the entire motor is spray painted all black (all bolts, hoses, wires, cases, etc), but that is just me. Many don't mind. To me it screams covering up something negative (salt corrosion, leaks, damage, etc). Given that most of the gaskets hold on pretty tightly, you could probably pull out most (if not all) of the case bolts and paint the motor and then carefully (don't overtorque them) reinstall all the hardware.

If you're going for a completely refreshed engine exterior, tt pretty much requires a complete tear down. You could get your engine cases, covers, head, head cover, etc all powdered satin black. Then you can get your hardware re-zinc plated. All new gaskets... lots of time, money, and effort.

[3 Wheel Drive]

You should try soda blasting the whole bike outside, or at least the engine. Its very inexpensive to do. Post up some before & after pics.

https://youtu.be/5vuENNhOMQs

[dman10]

If I do I'll soda blast it and all, and use VHT, seems to me a lot of people have good luck with it. But didn't realize it had all the markings still on it...


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