When I remove the triple tree I've discovered that putting a white towel (old bath towel) on the floor underneath the steering head works to keep falling BBs from bouncing away plus a white towel makes them easy to see. This idea came to me after losing one on my first build. Glad you found yours!

Finished cleaning the frame this morning and got two coats of primer on it, then wire brushed old paint and rust from the swing arm and skid plate. Swing arm cleaned up good but skid plate was pretty rough, no will ever see it but me anyway so guess it doesn't matter too much. Will rough them up a bit in the morning and get them primed.

Whatever time I have left tomorrow will go to cleaning up more of the small parts, chain guard, tach and spdo base, steering stem, kick stand and what ever else I can't think of at the moment.

Don't know what I'll do with the fuel and oil tanks yet, both in pretty rough shape & still working out the best way to straighten them out. Probably end up drilling a couple holes in the fuel tank and use a slide hammer to pull the dents out as best as I can and settle for however it ends up. Or might try one of the glue and pull things that I've seen advertised. Even considered filling with water and freezing but afraid I might end up splitting s seam or something so doubt I'll actually try that. Obviously not much on body work but hopefully I can make it look a little better than it is right now.

When I remove the triple tree I've discovered that putting a white towel (old bath towel) on the floor underneath the steering head works to keep falling BBs from bouncing away plus a white towel makes them easy to see. This idea came to me after losing one on my first build. Glad you found yours![/quote]

Great idea, will do that when I put it back together too. Thanks

Couple questions on gaskets. Do you guys use any type of sealant on head and or cylinder gaskets and do you anneal new copper head gaskets? It'll be awhile before I get to that point but been wondering about it and finding different viewpoints from google.

Steering head bearings are 3/16" upper and 1/4" lower... any good bicycle shop has them or you can buy a bags of high precision bearing online from many sources.

Good to know. Thanks

Spent the day removing rust and paint from small parts. The kickstand and chain guard were the most rusted parts on the bike, rusted so bad that pitting was apparent. The kickstand cleaned up prettty good but the chain guard still looks pretty rough so didn't get it primed yet. Will work on it tomorrow to get it in a little better shape before priming. The other parts were all in pretty good shape and cleaned up well.

After finishing up the chain guard tomorrow I plan to paint the frame which will have sat for 48 hours since priming so should be ready for final sanding and first coat of paint. Soon as the paint is on I'm clearing out so as not to stir up any dust. Time for a day off anyway.

Three coats of paint on the frame today. My painting skills come and go depending on the day but pretty happy with todays results. I still need to wet sand it after it sits for a day or two and give it a final coat but almost tempted to skip that step in fear of messing it up. I'll do it though cause I know what a difference that final sanding and last coat will do for it.

Worked some on the rear fender this afternoon. Inner side was a rusty mess. I started cleaning it and it's coming along pretty well but will probably spend a little more time on it before priming tomorrow. Top side wasn't nearly as rusty but paint bad enough that I'm taking it down to bare metal too. Got a good start on it and won't take long to have it ready for primer.

Gave the air box it's final coat and it's good to go. Finished cleaning the chain guard which doesn't look great but considering how bad it was I'll take it. Also painted a couple other small parts and started working on the front fender. I thought it would be a piece of cake but found out that sanding the paint off and smoothing a plastic fender isn't really any fun at all. Got a decent start though.

Couple more pics of frame

Too windy for painting today so didn't get to put the final coat on the frame. Need to pick up some more sandpaper before working on the front fender any more so had to put that aside for now too. Decided to take a look at the seat. I knew it was in terrible shape but didn't realize just how terrible it was until I pulled the foam off of the plate.
What a mess , rusty to the bone. I got a good start on cleaning it up but the more rust I removed the more damage I found. Badly pitted with several holes and three cracks. In spite of all that it still feels like it'll support the seat and my skinny butt so will try to weld the cracks up to hopefully stop them from growing. Gonna be a trip trying to weld what's left of the metal with my 40 year old stick welder but at least no will be able to see what it looks like once it's on the bike.

Fortunately the hardware was still intact and cleaned up well enough.