Now that the bike was cleaned and undressed, time had come for a more ambitious work: get rid of this awful Ferrari paintjob, something I've never done before.

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Do you remember the strange noise I was talking about earlier when the bike was moved here and there? While I was disassembling the frame, I noticed that the bushings from the top shock mount were completely missing, thus leading to a gap between the shock mount and the frame axle. Hence the noise each time the shock mount was hitting the frame axle when the bike was pulled up/laid down.

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As I was concerned by the swingarm removal, I felt more confident working on it at a friend's motorcycle shop, just in case (cheers Gilles!). Thanks to this RB thread [1] and a detailed write-up with pictures of a German board I can't find the reference anymore, all went flawlessly in the end. Upon removal, I also noticed that the rubber O-rings referred by both the RB thread and the German board were missing.

Don't ask me why, but I took the opportunity of having the frame totally disassembled to weight the monocoque frame, subframe and swingarm, including the mounting hardware.

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OK, OK, maybe also because of the following story, I admit 😉. In 1992, my father bought a Specialized S-Works M2 Pro MTB, a rather light bike. Shortly after, frame paint started to peel off and joke/legend was that Specialized saved weight up to the paint. Since then, I've always wondered how much paint can weight. More on this later...
 
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After numerous readings on ways to remove paint without altering the underlying support, I opted for a chemical approach using paint stripper.

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Although the paintjob was well executed, it seems that the coating was luckily not that thick and lacked a primer. So, besides applying several layers (seven, IIRC) of water-washable paint stripper for roughly two hours and brushing the monocoque frame with a pony hair brush to desquamate the paint without scratching the aluminum, I didn't had much to do to achieve my goal.

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Interestingly, the outlines of the original '91/92-style decals were still visible.

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I thus recorded exact measurements for repro decals and later accurate re-positioning. Additionally, I was now certain that my San Andreas was a '92 model.

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And there it was, barely noticeable, hand-etched underneath the bottom bracket: S/N #20370. Nice to meet you, Sanny!

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If a paint job lacks a primer then it’s not well executed🤪

Any man and his dog can usually make a paint job look good by spraying it over with a spray paint and wet sanding with something like 4000 grit sandpaper to remove orange peel.

Apart from a car in Budapest I saw that someone decided they would paint on a new coat of orange on with a paintbrush😳

Interesting how mc welded two halves of the frame together to make it🤔
 
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