Well, I Was Gonna Do A Quickie Paint Job...

[StevieB]

Got a pressure washer from work, removed all the bodywork, got some EZ Off... pressure washed the engine, frame, etc- and alot of the hack-job paint came off. Yeah! Then turned to the body work. Figured some of the paint came off pretty easy when I pealed off the decals, I thought I'd knock as much of the old paint off with just the pressure washer.

Started with the tank. No appreciable paint came off, but the underside was pretty gungy. Hmmm, BLUE paint? Somebody musta replaced the tank- I can tell from the back side of the plastic, this bike was originally red

Did the mirrors next. Got paint off the bellows at the stalk/mirror pod joint. Yeah, again- that stuff would have been hard to get off if it decided to be stubborn. Other purple paint on em was pretty tough, didn't much budge.

On to panels. Purple comes off easy.

Then the reds start coming off, petty easy.

Then a matt finish black. What's this? Blue??

Wow- this bike was originally blue. A very pretty, Blue-Angels blue, too. And double wow- the purple/reds/black is coming off, if not easily, at least steadily. And the blue is SHINY?? How could it be?

Got alot of the purple/red/black off. The blue is beautiful! Shiny! Sticking on, too- the pressure washer is not touching it.

So, like an Eskimo listening to a rock, so that the rock might reveal to the carver what it wants to be carved into, the Kat told ME it wants to be blue, again. The "cheeks" of the side fairings are ground up, so I am thinking, if I can remove ALL the non-blue paint off the plastic, there may be very nice blue under all of it. If that is the case, I won't have to paint the whole deal- just some of it. road rash spots can get plastic filler, and then wide vinyl in a complementary shade of blue.
'
So I'm spending all the time I will save, by pressure washing it carefully, so as to not disturb too much of the blue.

[md86]

Maybe you got 93 fairings ? They were a nice shade of blue like you describe .

[JZ67]

Whew, I am soooo glad you weren't asking for an opinion again, we may run the risk of disappointing you

Sounds like you got lucky and blue is the best colour for a kat anyway!

[StevieB]

You folks are an inherentily disapointing lot, so I should not have been suprised...

No idea what year fairings are.

The progress came to a halt, tho. I decided to pressure wash my deck, and driveway... when I got back to the Kat, I was either sick of pressure washing, or the paint that would come off, did, or both.

So, does EZ-Off not damage the original finish? Wouldn't that be sweet?

[Mojoe]

chances are you would not have been able to keep the blue even if you wanted to. for sure it had to be sanded to repaint over it, so the blue could not have been as shiny as you thought. It just appeared shiny cuz it was wet.

[StevieB]

Well, Mojoe, it's been more than a week, and it's still shiny! But I seem to have gotten all that's coming off without stripper, so it's anybody's guess where we will go from here. EZ OFF is NOT doing it for me, tried a bit of real stipper on the old tail section, and it did not seem to damage the plastic. I got a newer tail section via fleabay, it's in quite good condition- but it's red! Gonna finish the stripping and see where we stand...

[Mojoe]

Well, Mojoe, it's been more than a week, and it's still shiny! But I seem to have gotten all that's coming off without stripper, so it's anybody's guess where we will go from here.

if it is still shiny, that is why all paint came off so easily with a pressure washer. probably just scuffed up with a scotchbrite pad. if it was well sanded, the paint would have stood up to the pressure washer. it was a poor paintjob.

[StevieB]

UPDATE:
Did all the chem strip/pressurewash I could, including the tank, with regular stripper. Quite a bit of the original blue still intact, but not enough to be worth saving it. I have a newer tail section, red and dark red wil silver 3/8" stripe (stock colors) in quite good shape, I might follow that color scheme for the whole bike.

Yep, the original blue (on these panels, not sure if it's original color for this bike, as other panels seem to have been painted red from the factory) was not scuffed up properly. Given all the work I've put into it so far, I am going to do it right.