Technical & Reference Section > Tech and Restoration

1983 Raleigh Extra Burner **full resto thread - finished**

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dancetothedrummersbeat:
Back in the day, the Raleigh Extra Burner was always one of my favourite Burners, along with the blue/yellow and night burner. I remember spending hours looking through the catalogue and dreaming about one.


After doing a fair few builds over the years, I thought it was time to tackle a Burner, and the extra burner was the obvious choice. I managed to pick up this complete on ebay about 2 years ago. It was mostly there, but missing a lever and grips, 2 of the trickiest parts to find. One of the rear dropouts was badly bent as you can see. As it arrived










Looking at the serial number of the frame, it was made in January 1983, and by the surviving parts on the bike, it was phase 1 extra burner with rat trap pedals and foam grips. The phase 2 extra burner had plastic pedals and red/white f1 style grips.

Phase 1


phase 2


The bike required complete restoration. First up was the frame. After doing a bit of research, it seemed that RAL 3020 traffic red was the correct red to use on the fades.  I thought that with a bit of care, the fade could be achieved using regular aerosol spray paint. Joff kindly allowed me to use his home spray booth (R.I.P) to re-finish the frame. I stripped the frame, forks, bars and chainguard using synstryp, and then myself and Joff used white primer then white gloss on the frame & forks


We then masked the frame and forks






...and attempted to get the red fade done








We both felt that it was looking good, but getting the fade done with aerosols was tricky. Inevitably there was temptation on my part to do 'one last pass' with the red, which of course resulted in rogue blobs of red over white areas  :'(
This meant re-masking the red and adding more white....


...and this continued to the point where there were multiple layers of red & white (my fault in searching for perfection - Joff said it was almost there, but it was me who wanted to do that one more pass  "nono")

After taking a step back and looking at the frame & forks, I decided that that i'd bitten off more than I could chew, and sent the frame, forks, bars and chainguard to Superbike Dan. Dan stripped the parts, powdered the chainguard and bars in RAL3020, and the frame & forks in gloss white








Dan said that he was really busy, and really didn't want to attempt the multiple red fades, so he advised me to contact Mark Ralph who specialises in airbrush work. I sent the frameset to Mark, and didn't have to wait very long to get the frameset back. The results were amazing. Mark also clear lacquered the frame for me


Decals on


Next were the wheels. The rims were badly pitted/rusted and needed re-chroming


The hubs also needed re-chroming, as did the spokes. Raleigh burner spokes are a thicker gauge than standard spokes, and are not easily replaceable, so I carefully removed them, put them to one side and polished the nipples up which took about 4 hours.  I took them to my local chromer (Leigh metal polishers) who suggested that zinc plating them would be the best idea. A few weeks later I picked up my lovely shiny spokes, and took them, the rims and hubs to my local bike shop to get the wheels built up.

I went into the bike shop to check on their progress, but was told the spokes wouldn't screw into the nipples as the zinc plate had filled in the threads. As these spokes aren't readily available, I thought about a way to strip the threads to make them fit. I found out that most acids will dissolve zinc plate - some people use vinegar but it takes a while. I couldn't wait that long, so I decided to look for some sulphuric acid (car battery acid), which supposedly works better and faster. After a few calls to car parts/motor factors shops, I found a local one that stocked the stuff (£9 for decent sized bottle). I also found out that bicarbonate of soda (baking soda) can be used to neutralise the acid once you're done. So I went to the supermarket and bought:

A starbucks coffee drink in a glass bottle to use as a suitable container
Baking Soda, which I mixed with water
Washing up gloves (pink of course) as seconds skin to my heavy duty workmans gloves
De-ionised water to prevent unwanted reactions - probably didn't need it, but what the hell
a container to neutralise the acid once done
a funnel
















The original 80's Cheng Shin snake belly tyres aren't that easy to find, especially in the required fat/thin combo. The front tyre was in great condition, and just needed a good wash and a coating in autoglym tyre dressing. The rear tyre literally fell apart as I removed it from the rim. Luckily Ant (factory pilot) had a nos 1.75, which he kindly agreed to sell.


more in part 2..

factory pilot:
Looks gorgeous mate .. really nice.. glad you got it finished  fistblump "wantit" :4_17_5:

pickle:
Love it Andy, top notch as usual mate  :4_17_5:

Retrodan72:
Another belting build Andy, top job.

CustardLips:
Nice work Andy.  :daumenhoch:

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