Powerwashing an Engine?

So after the terrible sand blasting incident (for the engine), we decided to powerwash the sand out.  It was stuck to the oil residue still on the surfaces and would not blow out easily with compressed air.  Every moving part made a terrible scratching metal on sand noise.  Ughhhhh

Then Beard went tribal.  We'll see him later.

Here I have taken apart the rocker arms (one of them is badly scored) and cleaned the valve cover.

 

It wasn't that big of a task really and I followed up with a dry rag then a bunch of compressed air till the metal was completely dry.

 And the cylinder too

 

I may get over there tonight and put some parts back together again.  So far, the powerwashing undid all the trouble we caused and we can continue moving forward with the build!

Grinding and Design

After getting down to the bare metal,  we mocked up the seat and decided which tabs we wanted to keep, and which components to cut for a more streamlined minimalist look.  This really is a "ground up" approach...

 

The whole E-bike just wasn't going to work for us

  

While Beard was grinding away on the frame, I started sanding on the gas tank.  The initial goal was to have a bare metal tank. 

 (Drinking and masks do not go well)

As I continued sanding, a nice patina came out.  I attempted the oribtal sander but it left an unwanted pattern in the metal.  Back to hand sanding.

 

A little bit more off

At this point, we decided to leave it with the cool logo and red.  It really has a neat look to it and we can always redo the tank at a later date.  We have now decided to base the rest of the bike on this tank design. For now.

Sand Sand EVERYWHERE

So neither of us knows who had the brilliant idea of sandblasting the top end but we did discover the terrible results.

Sandblasting

Beard and bought an awesome old school Craftsman air compressor on craigslist and I picked up a cheap sandblaster from Harbor Freight.  After getting everything assembled over the course of one evening, we arranged for a sandblasting weekend.

 

The sandblasting commenced with all sorts of funky gear.  Sand invaded all sorts of nooks and crannies no matter what we wore.  We bought 100lb of sand and reused it about three times over.

 

Beard getting his sandblasting on.

We blasted the frame, swingarm, skidplate, valve cover, cylinder and head.

The blasted frame turned out great and we were both surprised at how little rust there was underneath the paint surface.