I know that many people think about having their motorcycle painted.  Some even think about painting it themselves.  This article is for those people that are interested in doing it themselves.  First things first, one has to take the Ridley apart.  The bike I am working on is an '04 Autoglide.  Many times when I was out with my wife and while we were walking up to our bikes someone would point at the purple one and say, "That one must be her bike."  I had to do something to keep that from happening.  

 The easiest part to take off is the front fender.  There are four 3/1616" allen head bolts that hold the front fender to the shocks.  Each shock has two bolts.  The picture below illustrates the location of one of these bolts.

After removing the four bolts it will look like this.

 At this point one can rotate the fender along the front wheel to get it out from between the shocks.  Once it is free from the shocks, one can move it away from the motorcycle.

The next easiest piece is the gas tank.  Before one removes the tank they should drain the gas out of the tank.  Turn the fuel control valve to the Off position.

There is a metal clamp on the fuel line connecting to the fuel control valve.  Take a pair of pliers and squeeze the clamp to make it slide away from the fuel control valve.  I got a 3/8" diameter bolt to use to plug the fuel line.  With the clamp moved, one can pull the line off the fuel control valve.   A small amount of fuel will come out of the fuel control valve.  Plug the line with the 3/8" bolt.  Take a new piece of 3/8" fuel line about 2 or 3 feet long and attach it to the fuel control valve.  Put the other end in a gasoline container.  Open the fuel control valve to the reserve position.  Let the tank drain until all the gas that will come out, does come out.  After it has finished draining, turn the fuel control valve back to the closed position and remove the fuel line from the fuel control valve.

Once the fuel line is disconnected from the fuel control valve, one needs to disconnect the cross over line.  It is at the front of the tank.  Once again, it is held in place with a metal clamp.  Take pliers and slide the clamp away from the end.   I got a short 3" piece if 1/4" fuel line and plugged one end with a 1/4" bolt and I got another 1/4" bolt to plug the existing hose.  As soon as I pulled the hose off the tank, I plugged the end of the existing hose with the additional 1/4" bolt and stuck the short piece of 1/4" hose on the tank.  There is a bolt that holds the front of the tank to the frame.  The head of the bolt is a 5/16" allen head and the lock nut is 9/16".  Remove the nut and the bolt.  One can then push the tank forward a short distance to get the rear of the tank to come free from the rear tank support.

You can see the rear tank support in this picture.

One can then remove the rubber washers/gromets that are on the front of the tank.  Push on one side of the grommet and it will come off the tank.  This will take a little force, but they do come off.

With the tank off the motorcycle, I unscrewed the fuel control valve from the tank.  When the fuel control valve comes off, you will see that there is a filter inside the tank that is on top of the fuel control valve.

Dump out any remaining fuel.  When I did my bike, only a few drops were remaining in the tank at this point.

 Last and by far the most difficult is the rear fender.  The rear fender itself would be easy, but you will see that the wiring makes this piece much more difficult.

 Remove the seat.  The rear of the seat is held in place with velcro.  Simply pull the seat up and away from the rear fender. 

The battery box is directly below the seat.  On my motorcycle there were 7 wires going from the battery box through the front of the fender.  I drew a picture of the wiring connections inside the battery box to make note of the location for each wire.  After making a second check of my drawing I began taking off the wires that went to the rear fender.  After removing each wire, I put the fastener for that wire back in place.  After disconnecting all the wires, I carefully pulled the wires out of the battery box.  

There are four 3/8" allen head bolts that hold the rear fender in place (two on each side).  Once these four bolts are removed, one can remove the rear fender from the motorcycle.

With the fender removed I turned it upside down and set it in my lap.  I was able to push all the wires that came from the battery box (one at a time) through the existing holes in the fender.  I had to bend the connectors for the two ground wires, but I got them through without cutting off the ends.  I decided to leave the wires attached  to the bottom of the fenders.  I did remove some of the glue holding the wiring to the bottom of the fenders, but I will glue the wires back in place with hot glue when I reassemble the motorcycle.  

 With the wiring at the front of the rear fender taken care of, I needed to disconnect the tail light.  I turned the fender back over and removed the two 5/32" allen head bolts that held the tail light to the fender.  I also removed the three phillips head screws that held the cover to the tail light. 

Unscrew the bulb mount and you will see the connections that were made at the factory (red to orange and black to blue).  You will have to clip/cut these wires.  Leave enough wire to make a new connection during reassembly.

 The turn signals are about as difficult.  There is a 1/4" allen head bolt on the inside of the fender holding each turn signal in place.  Remove the bolt and cut the wires about 2" inside the fender.  This will leave you room to solder them back together during reassembly.  Do this to both sides.

 The rear bracket is held to the fender by 3/16" allen bolts.  Remove all of these bolts and you can remove the chrome bracket from each side of the rear fender.

 At each location where there is a bolt going through the fender there is a large washer on the inside of the fender.  My washers where glued in place, but many of them came off anyways.  During reassembly, be sure to look for the washers.  If you are missing one, replace it before putting the parts back on the motorcycle.

At this point your Ridley will look very lost.  

All of my parts were in very good condition.  The hardest part about getting them ready to paint was getting off the Ridley emblem.  It was put on the tank and then clear coat was put over the emblem.  I started sanding on the emblem with 220 grit paper.  I was very careful not to sand anything other then the emblem area.  Once I got through the clear coat I was able to peel off the letters one at a time.  Then I changed from 220 grit to 400 grit sandpaper.  I wet sanded the entire tank and tried to get the area that had the emblem to flare out.  I ended up having to prime and sand that area several times to get it to flare out.

 All I had to do on the rear fender was wet sand it.  The front fender had a large scratch between the front forks.  I had to build up that area with primer and flare it out.  

After all the pieces were smooth and wet sanded, I cleaned them and applied my base and clear coat.   After the second clear coat the pieces looked like this:

The pieces were then taken to the Air Brush artist to do the art work.  After I get them back I will put another coat of clear on them and buff out any imperfections.  Check back to this article in the future to see the art work and "The Riddler."

I did put the final clear coats on the parts and them I assembled the motorcycle.  Soldering the wiring that I had to cut for the tail lights and brake light were the most tedious parts of the process.  Because so many people paint their bikes or have them painted, it would have been nice is there were quick disconnects in the wiring to make this process easier.  I painted a bike last winter and all of the wiring had disconnects which made the process very easy.  I still have to wait a few more weeks to let the paint finish curing before I can buff out any imprefections.  The bike does look great at this point.  Below are some pictures of the bike.

After the paint finishes curing and I get a chance to buff out the paint, I will post some additional pictures.  The tank and fender have black question marks which are very interesting.  Don't you want a Ridley Riddler?