Swindon Vapour Blasting
Suzuki GS850G
The Frame and small components
My Suzuki has been stripped right down to the bare frame. The frame has been sand blasted and powder coated and all the original nuts, bolts, brackets, spindles, springs and other components have been cleaned and restored. This means that I cleaned them up by lightly sand blasting, followed by more cleaning using a wire brush attachement on an electric drill cleaning them to a smooth, shiny steel finish.
Finally I had them zinc-silver plated.
You can see how they looked before, and the finished results in the photos below
What can be cleaned
- Heads
- Blocks
- Gear Boxes
- Cam Covers
- Water Pumps
- Carburettor Bodies
- Manifolds
- Nuts & Bolts
- Plastic Engine Covers
- Aluminium
- Bronze
- Magnesium
- Titanium
- Brass
- Copper
- Certain Plastics
Swindon Vapour Blasting
Unit 5, Elm Court Industrial Park
Station Road
Royal Wootton Bassett
Wilts
SN4 7ED
Mobile: 07904 934060
Phone: 01793 848314
The Engine
The engine is a work-in-progress. I sent my cylinder head, block, sump plate and oil filter cover to be vapour blasted (also known as aqua,water and wet blasting) by a company in Bristol. When it came back, it was better but not great and great was the standard I was going for. Looking in to the nooks and crannies I saw areas that had been missed and the overall quality of the finish was of a very poor standard and the attention of detail that I was looking for was sadly lacking.
This gave me the drive to buy my own Vapour Blasting cabinet to restore my bike to the high quality level that I wanted and this is the same level of attention to detail and service that I'll be working to when I restore your engine.
How I work
Before I start cleaning engines I make sure that all oil-ways and ports are blocked to prevent the build-up of the cleaning media.
These are removed before the final vapour blasting process so that I can achive the highest standard possible. Once I've finished blasting, the parts are cleaned and blown through with an air-line to make sure that everything is clean & dry.
The pictures below document the progress on my engine, as it was when I removed it from the bike, after being aqua blasted in Bristol and then after my additional blasting to restore the engine to my standard.
This is the bottom end/middle crank cases of my GS850G engine. YOu can see that I've masked off the con rods where the straight 4 cylinder block is located to stop any dirt and foreign bodies damaging the crank shaft and bearings.
I've used wire brush attachments on an electric drill to clean up and prepare the middle crank cases and sanded and cleaned by hand as the engine is in top mechanical running order and the engine has only been dismantled for restoration to achieve top results.
After cleaning and preapring the GS bottom end and crank cases, I washed the outside of the engine using acetone to make sure everything was dust, dirt and grease free - ready to spray on the first coat of acid etch primer. Once this had dried, I then sprayed with a heatproof exhaust/engine paint. Once this was dry I follwed up with a clear, two pack, diamond lacquer to finish off.
I've also removed the engine casings and the oil filter cover so that I can strip off any over-spray before vapor blasting and polishing them.
