| You can use the box below to search within my site:- | ||||
|
|
Unfortunately, Kawasaki took a lot of steps to save money on the GPZ500S. One of them is the fact that the downpipes are just mild steel that rusts easily. Another is that the fender is too short and muck from the road sprays onto the pipes. I live in Southampton, near the sea and I ride all year wrong. Because of all these factors, mu pipes are rusty and manky and starting to get holes in. :(
Therefore, I took off, sanded (which took hours) and repainted my downpipes. I just used matt high temperature exhaust paint from Halfords. They look pretty good now, but unfortunately I managed to knock the pipes against the radiator when installing them so there are a few points on them where the paint isn't fully protecting the pipes. :( The paint doesn't harden and stick properly until heated.
This is how they used to look:-
This is what I used to take off the rust (for several hours). I wish I'd just paid someone to sandblast them:-
Here you can see a nice comparison of the original rusty pipe and the shininess underneath:-
All done:-
I hung the pipes from the garage ceiling using string along the insides to paint with several coats of exhaust paint:-
A closeup of the painted pipes:-
|
