How do you eat an elephant?

 Slowly but surely progress is being made. Plans are in place and being executed. I identified the modular approach that I can take to succeed at the XL500 Savage Edition. I've cleaned up the wiring with the help of my beautiful wife and I will be re-wrapping it when I pull it off the frame. 

I've pulled the plastics and spent my night washing and bringing the color back in to them. I have a comparison as you see, and it's phenomenal what a little heat will do. Left is what I started with and Right is after a little bit of work.

I've removed the vinyl (with absolutely no hope of salvaging it), and the parts are cleaned. Not clean for paint, but cleaner than when I started. Years of dirt, dust, and grime had built up, and I'm slowly removing all of it. I've got a goal for this stage and it's to get the plastic cleaned and ready for paint in the spring. I just need to wash again and then sand down the plastic so it's rough enough to have the paint bond. 

Once I'm done with the plastic, I'll be able to move to the next phase, stripping parts that will be replaced. Right now I know I'm replacing the throttle cables, the clutch cable, front brake cable, chain, and possibly the choke cable (pending finding a suitable part). After that I can remove the wheels and set them aside (final stage of the build items), and then pull the forks off the frame. 

This will be the next doozy. I've never worked on forks, and have needed to on several of my machines. I've got the overall workflow down, but execution is another beast entirely. I will pull them off when I have the fork oil, and the seals kit, and then sit down and complete the tasks for each of them. I expect it to be difficult and I will likely get frustrated, but I will not stop until they're back together.

After those are done I'll focus on cleaning the engine, possibly replacing the top end gaskets, depending on where I can find grime and oil coming from. Overall, this is the cleaner engine of the 80/81 bikes that I bought, so it was the obvious choice. When it's clean we'll decide how to proceed with the theme. I think I want to keep it plain metal, but I might feel squirrelly and go for a matte black on the engine with an etched Macho Man on the left crank cover. We'll see. 

After the engine is the frame, I know there are some surface rust spots and I will work to diligently clean the frame, sand down those rust spots, then cover them and touch up the rest of the frame. From there it's a matter of reassembly. 

I believe I have a fair amount of work ahead of me for winter, but I will keep tackling it bit by bit so as to not get overwhelmed by the Elephant.