DOHC's Z1-R in pieces

Model year changes following summer shutdown June/July  so anything built after July 77 would be 78 model year

It really doesn't matter to me that it's a bitsa bike. I am just puzzled that someone would go to all the effort to take a perfect 78 frame and add every other part from a 79 or 80 to it.  Maybe I'll turbo it after all.

A small bit of progress.  The PO painted the fork lowers black.  I figured I'd see if I could get the paint off.  This took me forever because I tried a lot of things that didn't work that well.
Initially I just started chipping the paint off with the corner of a razor blade.  Eventually I got to areas better adhered, so I grabbed the razor blade gasket scraper handle and basically shaved off the black paint.  For a while this worked surprisingly well, without really leaving any marks on the aluminum.  But it turned out that the red primer was actually pretty well stuck on.

So all of that was wasted time.  I then went and bought a spray can of Rust-Oleum Aircraft Remover, and in just a few minutes all of that primer was gone.  Clearly that's where I should have started with.

Under the paint was a fair amount of surface oxidation.  So my experimentation moved to various abrasives.  Fine aluminum oxide wet sand paper (1000,1200) didn't take off the oxide, even with a random orbit sander, but I didn't want to go courser and leave scratches.  Mothers aluminum polish didn't touch it either.  I mean, the areas without oxide looked great after the Mothers, but it didn't touch the oxide.
Then out came the Dremel polishing kit.  Mostly the polishing bits didn't work either.  I tried the 3-stage NOVUS plastic polish.  Nope.  I also tried various type of steel wool.  The heavier stuff was maybe sort of working, but it was way too much work.
In the end the best thing I found was the 320 grit sanding Dremel buff.  As long as I lined up the rotation of the buff with the natural grain of the aluminum, it didn't leave too much in the way of scratches and easily took the oxide off.  I then went back and tried pretty much every version all of the fine polish options mentioned above to get rid of the fine lines left by the buff.  Most all of that wasn't necessary either.

After all that trial and error, this is my formula:
Aircraft stripper. Wipe with a towel or a scraper made from a random piece of plastic.
320 Dremel polishing buff to remove the oxide (careful to align the rotation with the natural grain of the aluminum)
1000 grit wet sand to remove the fine lines left over from the buff.  I just did this by hand.
Mothers aluminum polish to shine it all up.

Actually, it did take a few rounds back and forth between the 1000 grit and the Mothers to get rid of all of the fine lines, but it wasn't that bad.

That was all just time and elbow grease, which was relatively easy.  The real hard part will be putting the clear coat back on the fork lowers.  Does anyone have any recommendations for a clear coat product that an amateur can put on with decent results, and that will look similar to the factory coating?  I don't have paint equipment.  I'm basically limited to rattle cans.

I didn't have to go through that much cleaning on my fork tubes, just the factory clear coating.
I used a clear coating No 3680061 by SprayMax which is very durable.  Is that a product you can
buy in your area?

So odd, i was just discussing some alternatives for a "clear" respectable enough for restoration with a gent yesterday! That 2K Spraymax Vinsky, says to "activate" it? What happens if you don't use up all the cans product after it's activated? Is it no good to reuse say a couple weeks later??

Cerekote also do an "air dry" single part clear so you don't have the issue of "once the hardener is added the clock is ticking" which I intend to use on my build.

I've had good success with vapour blasting, but first remove any deep dings with a small disc grinder and coarse sandpaper.  Maybe an 80 grit.  Move up to 2000 grit and after that do the vapour blast.  Then a light touch with Mothers polish.

 

I use leftover brake fluid from bleeding for striping paint and clear coat off stuff. I have a tall 6" diameter bottle with a lid about 2/3rds full of brake fluid to soak stuff in. It works great and lasts quite a while and it's not toxic like chemical paint stripper's. I have to flip over the lowers to get rid of all of it. After soaking the clear coat turns to gelatinous goo and comes right off then rinse with non-clorinated brake cleaner.

Brake fluid is especially good when it get places you don't want it too 

I think a lot of us learned about "brake fluid paint stripper" the hard way !     

I used POR-15 Clear.  I don't see it on their website now, though.  Before spraying, there was an etch compound which assisted with adhesion.  

P1010555 by nessism , on Flickr