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Black, yellow and chrome make a striking combination.
Color details are nice, even up close.
On Yellow Spot I, I tried some extra chrome to dress up the bike, because it looked good with all the other colors of bike I had owned. But, and before the Orange County guys did it, I thought of the bumble bee that flew with me for awhile then landed on my dash the day I brought Yellow Spot III home. I put some pictures of the bike in Photoshop and played with blacking-out parts until I came up with a look I really liked. Then I had to go shopping. I’d already had a local painter cover the ugly grey lower parts of the bike; lower front cowl and pipe guards with a matching hotrod yellow and my meter panel a satin black, but the yellow parts were destroyed in the first wreck. It just so happens, Tony, of Road Trip Essentials, had started painting Gold Wing parts in matching colors, so I rang him up. He had already painted the plastic I repaired for Yellow Spot II and I knew he could do what I had in mind!!! I took the pipe guards, frame covers, passenger board mount covers, side cover scuff panels and lower cowl to Tony for paint; either yellow or satin black. I took metal parts to Olympia Powder Coating for a 60% gloss black finish: foot pegs and mounts, passenger boards and mounts, brake and shift pedals, timing and valve covers.
I really liked the look of the swing arm pivot covers with black rubber inserts so I kept those and mounted them on top of the frame covers.
I thought it might be nice to protect the headlight and fog light lenses, so I put some covers on The first two bikes, but the headlights are plastic anyway and I didn't like the way the Cee Bailey’s guards looked on the new bike. Same goes for the fog light covers. I have also seen some of these fog light protectors apparently trap heat and cause light-lenses to crack. I got tired of looking at scuffs on the tank from my knees and found the right shaped pad on eBay, but have not been able to locate them again.
Front Cowl, Timing Cover, Fender Extension, Painted Wheels.
Letting the powdercoater inspect his work.
Powder coated parts ready for installation.
MarineTex is great glue for ABS plastic.
Some parts of the bike need extra protection too. A good belly pan protects delicate parts on the bottom of the bike. I have the Tulsa aluminum version, but will one day upgrade to the sturdier stainless steel version now available from wingstuff.com. The back side of the front fender on the GL1800 is short enough that gravel and sand kicked up from the front tire severely blasts the lower cowl. I wanted to protect my newly painted cowl for as long as possible with the longest extension I could find. Bushtec makes a nice one in black, ready for paint. Just make sure you install the support brackets provided by Bushtec to keep the extra stress from cracking the fender. I glued my fender extension and supports on with MarineTex and have never had a problem. High quality color matched fender extensions are available too, from roadtripessentials.com.
I painted the front fender fillers, from V&P, black and reinstalled them. I like the look of the holes in the front fender, but they let road gorp splash all over the bike. Black paint looks just like a hole from a distance.
MarineTex is great for repairs too.
Photography and website byDAYLE DESIGNScopyright 2009