started powder-coating some parts:

Is that heat resistant tape on the triple tree?

both tapes are high temp. seems I may have messed up:

The tray for the handle bars should be bare or coated? May have to redo this.

I would say bare. That’s what I did anyway. I stripped every spot I could and had no grounding problems when done. Nice work. I liked it when I got to roller status. Fun to look at and study.

"The tray for the handle bars should be bare or coated? May have to redo this."

MarkT was just telling someone else in a horn thread that the switch casing has to ground to the bars, and the bars have to ground through the triple tree, so bare-naked is just fine.

I can not wait for roller status. Gotta see if I can rebuild rear shocks or find others.

Steering lock removal complete. I used a 5/16" drill bit, slight amount of oil anticipating hard metal/heat and carefully drilled out the old lock. The metal was very soft and fairly easy to remove.

Started work on rear shocks. Thought I would post up my shock spring tool. It was made from basic stuff around the garage and seems to work fairly well. There is another piece not in picture. Same as base square metal stock but attaches up top also to keep it from spreading for stiff springs.

disassembled one of the shocks today: To my surprise still had about 20 ml of shock fluid. Overall shape was ok, but seal cap was deformed. I'm not thinking this is a show stopper though. I'll add seals and see how it works out.

Plan to power-chrome the spring and adjustment ring and black out the low half of shock and reservoir. Replacing the mounting bushings would be nice. going to have to take them out anyway.

I'm working on my DT250 and used the seals from the website below, maybe you seen it already. What is "Power-Chrome". I just vapor cleaned the springs, evidently the process "peens" over the metal and closes the pore so it doesn't rust as quicky. I also put a coat of clear on them, they look ok a bit pitted. Maybe the clear won't chip off immediately. Eventually I'd like to get new springs. They look good at 20 feet but not so great close up.

www.nthrepro.com/

That’s powder coat color “super chrome” plus a clear coat. Thanks for link to the seals.