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Gremlin

Dream machine 2001 350es modifications/rebuild/potential disaster! Ha

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I haven't taken them off before either. Seems like it should pop off but want to verify with someone best way so I i don't crack it. Lol 

I'm cleaning every nook and cranny of this quad.

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It is a time consuming job cleaning parts ----- for rusty metal parts that  be fit in a container , vinegar does a good job of dissolving rust 

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4 minutes ago, Fishfiles said:

It is a time consuming job cleaning parts ----- for rusty metal parts that  be fit in a container , vinegar does a good job of dissolving rust 

Very time consuming but the proper way to go.

 

I had read that. Just plain white vinegar? How long do you let it sit?  I have a lot of work ahead of me but it will be totally worth it!! It'll be a creamsicle 2.0! Hahaha

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soak time depends on the degree of rust , I have soaked parts for a few days already ----100% , never tried cutting it 

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Ok. I'm sanding off what I can but parts on the frame and a arm's are pretty pitted in areas. I'll try the vinegar!! Thanks!

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2 hours ago, Fishfiles said:

Gremlin , I have never taken  the kill switch knob off before , but would think it has to be a push on fit as the knob won't go thru the switch housing ---maybe a screw driver under the slider knob and pry it off , I would take care to not crack the housing 

 

@retro Did a post a while back, but danged if i can locate it in the old forums, mine was faded, and i was going to pop it out and go with a new one (i masked the entire switch minus the kill button) if you look right under the button, there should ?? Be a hole .... Short of it..... Takes a small pick, OR screw driver to unlock it,  Here's two pics oddly enough.......  my 97 300 (1st pic) doesn't have said hole, and my 00 300 2nd pic) does.... The 97 might have an aftermarket switch?? Or maybe the switch design changed over the years.... I'll be looking into this! 

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11 minutes ago, _Wilson_™ said:

 

@retro Did a post a while back, but danged if i can locate it in the old forums, mine was faded, and i was going to pop it out and go with a new one (i masked the entire switch minus the kill button) if you look right under the button, there should ?? Be a hole .... Short of it..... Takes a small pick, OR screw driver to unlock it,  Here's two pics oddly enough.......  my 97 300 (1st pic) doesn't have said hole, and my 00 300 2nd pic) does.... The 97 might have an aftermarket switch?? Or maybe the switch design changed over the years.... I'll be looking into this! 

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I have a hole there. I'll poke at it some more. Lol

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Okay .... I might wait and see if retro can add any... I never had ANY luck getting that darn button off.... Do us a favor ?? If you manage to get the button off snap a pic of the pole that button locks onto..... I'd like to see the locking tab..... I can't find any pics or information anyone who's ever gotten one off.... Lol .... Oh! And I'm really injoying your thread.... Keep up the good work :-)

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Just now, _Wilson_™ said:

Okay .... I might wait and see if retro can add any... I never had ANY luck getting that darn button off.... Do us a favor ?? If you manage to get the button off snap a pic of the pole that button locks onto..... I'd like to see the locking tab..... I can't find any pics or information anyone who's ever gotten one off.... Lol .... Oh! And I'm really injoying your thread.... Keep up the good work 🙂

Oh I will!! 

Just had my disaster for the project.  Snapped my exhaust bolts on the replacement engine.  Guy I got it from destroyed the nuts trying to get them off. Posted in the engine section for advice. Luckily still studs showing. But ! it. Lol

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On 1/17/2020 at 7:26 PM, Gremlin said:

And same for knuckles?

 

Once the knuckles are stripped of bearings, seals and balljoints they can be degreased then submerged in vinegar. All parts must be scrubbed clean (solvent and/or a strong detergent) and dried before dunking, no greasy or oily films on them. All of your smaller steel parts (A-arms, swingarm, brackets, etc) can get the degreasing & vinegar treatment too, once everything is stripped off of them. I dunk the A-arms with the rubber mounting bushings still in them and haven't had any issues with those pressed in bushings corroding inside the tubing yet. Its your call..

 

I use an old coleman camping cooler filled with 6-8 gallons of distilled white vinegar from walmart to dunk parts in. Its an extra large one, but its not large enough to submerge a swingarm. Most everything else will fit in it though. You can use whatever ya got thats made of plastic that ya can cover with some sort of vented lid, the larger the container you can find the better. I dunk steel parts in batches making sure that everything is completely submerged. Lightly rusted parts are separated from the heavily rusted parts because those lightly rusted parts batches derust faster.

 

Once each day I lift the individual parts from the bath and brush loosening rust from them using small stainless steel brushes keeping them wetted with vinegar as I work. Oxygen is very corrosive so ya gotta keep them wetted. It is very messy work... vinegar removes la lot of paint from parts and rusty, orange vinegar stains your surroundings badly. I prefer to do all of my derusting outdoors. You'll need rubber gloves, long sleeves and eye protection while brushing along with a small container of baking soda and warm water to neutralize the acid on your tools each time you use them.

 

Once each part in a batch is completely rust-free you'll need a large plastic container to use to neutralize the acetic acid on parts as you remove them from the bath. I use lots of baking sode stirred into warm water, but @Gooberuses a pool supply base which seems to work a lot better. I use my stainless steel brushes to scrub the neutralizer solution into the metal while keeping the part wet with solution at all times. Be extra thorough around seams and joints, places where vinegar might have seeped in to become trapped, such as around the pressed in rubber bushings in A-arms. Parts made of tubing that have drain holes in them must be dunked and flushed several times to make sure your neutralizer gets all of the residual vinegar out from the inside of the tubing.

 

If you are ready to paint each part as it comes out of the neutralizer solution you can go ahead and rinse/brush the part with warm water and plastic brushes with a bit of dish soap added, then rinse with plain warm water, then dry each part using lots of 90% rubbing alcohol (walmart sells it by the quart). You can use compressed air to blow the alcohol out of hollow parts. If you were prepared the surfaces on your part should have remained wet the entire time. Oxygen corrodes bare, dry steel fast.... parts will flash-rust if not kept wetted. Primer/Paint the part immediately once the alcohol has dried the surface. If you prefer to paint your parts in batches as well you can let them sit with neutralizer solution still on them for a short period of time. In other words, don't wash/rinse the neutralizer off from the steel until you are ready to final-prep the parts for painting.

 

Using vinegar to derust a gazillion parts for an entire ATV resto takes weeks sometimes... its a lot of work. But its a cheap & easy alternative to sand-blasting and it does work quite well.

 

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Derusting the frame takes a lot of time and work and materials. There are so many small, tight areas/joints that rust forms in.... I don't know how to advise ya on that job except start with a completely clean and degreased frame so you can see what you're doing. You might get a lot of the loose rust off with a 4 inch angle grinder with a stiff wire wheel on it, but those can hurt ya bad when they kick back... I've been chased around by 4 inch grinders that got kicked out of my hands too many times to guess.... its dangerous, you're gonna lose some skin sooner or later using a small wire wheel. Sandblasting is best if you can find someone who isn't in a hurry, who does a thorough job. Otherwise its the Armstrong method using whatever tools & materials you got on hand. Once you get the thickly rusted areas cleaned up you can paint with a rust converter. I am using Total Solutions in the quart container right now, its cheap and it works ok, but there may be others that work as well or better. https://www.theruststore.com/Rust-Converters-C10.aspx

 

 

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9 hours ago, Gremlin said:

Does the kill switch just pop off? The red slide part.

 

Some of them have removeable knobs. The ones that do usually have a small square-shaped hole on the underside of the knob that you can access by sliding the switch to the far left or far right. They are not easy to get off though. They have a locking tab that snaps down into a hole in the metal switch lever that retains them. You'll need a small jewelers flat blade screwdriver or something similarly shaped and thin to stick down inside the hole in the knob to pull the tab up out of the hole in the lever. Notice I said pull the tab up.... pushing on the tab does ya no good on most of them. Thats why its so difficult. 🙂

I pry gently with a slim blade between the switch knob and handlebar housing and I wear a magnification headset so I can see inside the square hole and pick at the retainer with a narrow blade until I snag onto it good enough to lift it. If you are ready to apply a decent prying pressure behind the knob it will pop off once the retainer nub clears the hole in the lever. After several attempts your timing may improve and you'll win. 🙂

 

If you cannot get that knob off the lever you can prep it and coat it with Wipe New Recolor to make it a shiny red knob again. That stuff makes prepped (wipe parts down with acetone before applying) and decent looking smooth plastics look better than brand new. These are the boxed kits you'll be looking for, they have a small bottle of solution inside the box along with some micro-fiber cloths to apply it with. Shop around and find the cheapest price and buy three boxes if you're coating an entire bikes' small parts as well.as fenders.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Rust-Oleum-RRCAL-Wipe-New-ReColor-Paint-Color-Restoration-Kit-2-34-fl-oz/233248424093?epid=20030609813&hash=item364eb0809d:g:cNAAAOSwKvZc-OIs

 

You can usually find it cheaper by scrounging for it on the net.

 

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Thanks for that mountain of information! I was wondering about the bushings.  I removed everything else but had left the bushings in. I have all new (as they are interchangeable amongst the other machines) but they are good so hated to waste them.  I have nothing but time.  I don't however have a full time heated garage.  Would there be funes to worry about to just let the container sit in the basement? Of course doing messy activities outside.  The angle grinder and dremel was the plan with the frame. No fear of the grinder, only a very healthy respect.  

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Yeah you can dunk parts in the basement. The fumes are not bad at all and are non-existent with a cover over the container.

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Retro ain't lying about keeping the vinegar container  covered ,  the smell is pretty strong when you are right next to it and uncovered , when covered you don't smell it , I also find it evaporates quicker if not covered , I have a piece soaking right now in a five gallon bucket and can see the level going down day by day ----gloves are a good idea as the black soot looking stuff that gets all over the part is messy and stains your hands 

 

Gremlin , was looking at you two diffs side by side and something to look at is the splines on the end of the drive shaft and the collar of the front diff's pinion gear , I have stripped them out on two different front diffs on 450s and once on the rear already , the splines get pointy when the are worn 

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Just now, Fishfiles said:

Retro ain't lying about keeping the vinegar container  covered ,  the smell is pretty strong when you are right next to it and uncovered , when covered you don't smell it , I also find it evaporates quicker if not covered , I have a piece soaking right now in a five gallon bucket and can see the level going down day by day ----gloves are a good idea as the black soot looking stuff that gets all over the part is messy and stains your hands 

 

Gremlin , was looking at you two diffs side by side and something to look at is the splines on the end of the drive shaft and the collar of the front diff's pinion gear , I have stripped them out on two different front diffs on 450s and once on the rear already , the splines get pointy when they are worn 

 

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20 minutes ago, Fishfiles said:

Gremlin , was looking at you two diffs side by side and something to look at is the splines on the end of the drive shaft and the collar of the front diff's pinion gear , I have stripped them out on two different front diffs on 450s and once on the rear already , the splines get pointy when the are worn 

Thanks! 

I have yet to clean the used 400at diff and shaft up. They looked pretty square.  Hard to tell with the dirt. Lol

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On 1/19/2020 at 6:38 AM, Gremlin said:

I haven't taken them off before either. Seems like it should pop off but want to verify with someone best way so I i don't crack it. Lol 

I'm cleaning every nook and cranny of this quad.

The early kill buttons will pop off by light prying with a wide flat screwdriver; if it doesn’t come off easily don’t force it.  my 1986 TRX350A button was replaced with one from a ‘98 TRX300–i think—maybe an earlier one.
Anyway, by the late ‘90s the switch covers do not pop off. you may have to remove the switch from the housing as i did mine shown in the pics. Not sure how they come off.


my kill switch was damaged in the POs rollover, so removed it and took it apart—that lil ball was dislocated and the spring came out and locked up the switch. It’s like the detent ball on a mossberg shotgun safety switch 

I cleaned out all the dirt, lubed it with dielectric grease and reassembled it.

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Edited by Goober
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On 1/19/2020 at 6:55 AM, Gremlin said:

Very time consuming but the proper way to go.

 

I had read that. Just plain white vinegar? How long do you let it sit?  I have a lot of work ahead of me but it will be totally worth it!! It'll be a creamsicle 2.0! Hahaha

Walmart sells a cleaning vinegar. Vinegar is a dilute acetic acid solution. Most vinegars sold are diluted to 5%; cleaning vinegar is 6%. 
the rest is water!
careful when soaking dissimilar parts. I was soaking a sub-carrier in a vinegar bath and left a copper brush in a plastic bus tub. Next morning my subcarrier looked like it had copper plating on it. 
 

when you are done, you must go high pH to stop flash rust. 
the high pH solution will dry to leave solids — these thankfully are not fuel soluble but which should be removed with a tack cloth before painting 

or in the case of a fuel  tank, rinse it out with some clean fuel.

Edited by Goober
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Thanks @Goober!  It dis not seem like it wanted to budge so I didn't force it. I ended up flushing it with electric contact cleaner and put the dielectric to it. All the other switches came right out for cleaning.

I will pay attention to the % vinegar I use.  I went at one of them yesterday the old fashion way. Usually I would use rust check converter which I have had luck with in the past but these parts may be too pitted for that so will try the vinegar.  I plan on doing small batches. The bottom one I scraped, sanded. The top was just scraped. No converter or vinegar yet.20200119_105505.jpg

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Bummer i broke the kill switch on my 300 trying to pop it off. Oh well that hole in the bottom of the switch must be a clip of some kind. Well it runs anyway 

 

so gremmy don’t try that screwdriver technique on the switches with the hole in the bottom 

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3 minutes ago, Goober said:

Bummer i broke the kill switch on my 300 trying to pop it off. Oh well that hole in the bottom of the switch must be a clip of some kind. Well it runs anyway 

 

so gremmy don’t try that screwdriver technique on the switches with the hole in the bottom 

10-4!  I think I got it pretty clean without removal.  Since it is a rebuild from the ground up I want to clean every nook and cranny of everything....especially wire connections.  Nothing worse than trying to track down an electrical issue!!

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Holy Cow!!!!! THAT is a project!  Don't know if I would have the stick-to-itiveness to or ability to do that. I know I certainly don't have the space to tackle something like that.  I am always amazed how rusty things get in other climates.  I am very grateful we don't have humidity here, very dry heat and cold here, rust is not generally a problem.  Will be following this one, never did read retros build but will be fun to see this as it progresses. FF

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58 minutes ago, Freedomflyer said:

 I am always amazed how rusty things get in other climates.  I am very grateful we don't have humidity here, very dry heat and cold here, rust is not generally a problem.  

It is a project! Lol It has always been the machine I really wanted so to rebuild it and customize it is BIG motivation for me. Lol

 

And speaking of rust. Dang it! Flipped the frame to cut off the plow mount they had on it.  Figured I might find a bad spot. Not really. But found one in the front.

 

Advice peeps on how best to weld that up. I'm thinking just a patch as the rest of the tube is solid but open to some expert advice here. Lol  see scary rust pics! 

 

Atlantic Canada is the Rust Capital!! Haha

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Edited by Gremlin

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Anybody on the best way to weld it up? Thinking patch and maybe a cross plate but welcome suggestions. 

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