9 July 2003 -
Today is the culmination of probably the most painful and drawn out part of the restoration (ok, maybe that is blowing things out of proportion). When I bought the bike it had what I thought were original exhaust headers and the original left muffler (I still don't know that this is not true). The headers were solid, but pitted. The single exhaust pipe I had was trashed. I also got a set of incorrect repo mufflers when I bought the bike. My original plan was to use the original headers, and modify the repo exhaust pipes. After quite a bit of work on the incorrect exhaust I was quite unhappy with how it was coming out. So I decided to order another set of aftermarket exhaust. This repo set of exhaust were quite pricey, but I was assured they would be right. Of course, I got them and immediately saw a problem. The pipes were of good quality, but they were very large and would not fit properly. Luckily the vendor took them back (they may be quite fine for the civilian bikes). I inquired to some of my restoration peers as to who they had gotten exhaust from, and were they satisfied. I was told to contact Marius Woldek. (Ziomi on ebay.de - Germany). I decided to order the entire exhaust system as it was fairly priced and arrived at my doorstep in record time. I fit system to the bike and it was pretty good. I did a few final bends to make it exactly how I wanted it.Next I carried the bare exhaust to J.L. Troupe in Huntsville AL for powder coating. They advertise powder coating in the yellow pages. I have seen more work from them than I care to mention as they manufacture, paint and screen print the enclosures for all of the products that the company I work for designs and sells (lots of product, and this was my real contact with them). They powder coated my exhaust and did a very fine job at a reasonable price. The owner of the company is a motorcyclist, and is interested in doing other motorcycle jobs (I guess the corporate, high volume stuff can get boring).
Below are the photos of the powder coated items. The clamps are after market from another vendor and the heat shields are originals that came on the bike.
Here are some photos of the exhaust mounted on the bike
Now I can ride without it sounding like a Harley. Time to break this baby in.
10 July 2004 - Well, powder coating may not be the answer for the headers. The heat was enough to blister the paint right at the cylinders. This blister extends down the pipes about 4 inches. I may strip the paint on the headers from the cylinder down to the lower bend in the pipes and paint with high temp exhaust paint.