The first few steps of our newest Project Lowbucks story (Part 1, Part 2) were pretty much straightforward. We took things apart, saw what we had, figured out what needed to be replaced, and did a deeper strip of the parts.

It was right around then that we noticed this was the filthiest bike we had ever worked on in our life. There was a coating of grease and dirt on the frame rails underneath the engine that almost defied imagination. Further inspection revealed crud all over the frame and swingarm, which was at times almost an eighth inch thick in places.

This demanded a deep clean before we could even think about painting the frame and the swingarm. Luckily, we had a parts washer nearby. With the aid of a wire brush and about an hour of scrubbing, we were able to get most of the crud off.

But closer inspection revealed a whole lot of stuff left to remove before we could even think about painting. Every place there was a knuckle or joint on the frame, dirt was packed in. It was necessary to get in there and pry the dirt out with a screwdriver.  Even then, there was still so much crud on the frame that we had to resort to a number of techniques to get it clean.

So follow along as we take on the crud factor.