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Chicken foot is gone.  Painted over.  All remnants of that rotten paint job are history.  And it so happens that the shop that painted that monstrosity actually left their signature "DEANO'S" on the front of the bike just below the windshield on the trim piece.  That got painted over too.  $2,800.00 she paid for that crapola pink and purple chicken.  All fixed with less than $20.00 of supplies from my local auto parts store. Thanks Autozone!

Here it is in all it's pug-ugliness. 



And here is the nose piece, front fender, and top trim piece cured of it's stupidity.



I still need to get the underside, the back panels, handlebars, cvt belt cover, and mirrors.  But this is a pretty good start.  No more sickening beak and ridiculous chicken eyes.  It's a real improvement. 

I went and did it. I'm in the process of painting up the Dinkster a nice flat black. I got some soft grain sandpaper and roughed up the surface enough for the new paint to stick. Then I cleaned up the parts really well and prepped for paint. Gave both pieces a few coats. Going to bolt it all back together in the morning and post a few more pics. I thought I'd post a few of the process. I'm very excited to get it back together. No more stupid green beak and crummy purple feathers.

I took these pics after applying another coat of paint. So it's still wet in some places. But it dries really nicely into an awesome looking flat black. I can't wait to see it all finished. I should have it all done by the end of the week from front to back. The nose and the front fender were highest priority because they were the ugliest.

Ha! I remember the Earl Scheib ads. "I'm Earl Scheib and I'll paint ANY CAR for XX.99." I think I'd rather just take her apart and paint her up myself. I've never painted any kind of motorized vehicle before, but to be perfectly honest with you, I only paid $1500 for the scooter. It's 9 years old. I really don't care if I botch the paint. I've been riding it around with a bunch of duct tape all over it! LOL! It doesn't get much more hillbilly than that. Besides that, I could always just go with the madmax road warrior theme. That would be really easy. Check these out.




And oh yeah I heard about the 1950's all the time. My dad graduated high school in 1956, and when I was a kid in the 1970's all he ever wanted to talk about was the good old 50's. The cars were better, the nightlife was more fun, the sun was brighter, and the air was sweeter. I think he was just missing his youth. When older people talk about the "good old days" I think that's what they mean. Those days were good because they were young! LOL!

As far as my wife getting the bike, we will just have to review that idea later.  I could always repaint the bike hot pink, add some silly flowers and butterflies, and she can just ride that down the road.  Ha!  My wife isn't all that frilly.  She'll do just fine with the road warrior look.

I hear what you're saying Kat.  I know all about retail mark up too.  I was a service writer for a very busy auto shop for a few years, and I've put together many a repair estimate in my time.  When we mark up a part, the mark up is based on the wholesale cost to the shop for the part.  This is a price that Joe Customer can't get the part for from the distributor himself.  Like for instance a spark plug that the shop gets for $2.50 we will mark up to $5.00 to sell to the customer.  If Joe Customer were to go to the parts store and buy that spark plug, he would likely pay about $5.00 for it. 

Tires are a completely different animal.  Unless you are a major tire distributor, you must sell the tires for a much more meager mark up.  Usually at the shop I worked at, the mark up on tires was anywhere between 10% and 20% depending on the tire.  Most of the money we made on tires was on the labor to mount and balance them, and then hopefully sell an alignment.  The guy at this shop in Tempe is charging a really unreasonable price for the tire.  If I can buy the tire for $49 bucks online with FREE shipping, then I'm sure that he can buy the tire from a wholesaler for a few bucks less.  Probably around $40 if he's wanting to charge me $80.  I would have been okay with paying $55 for the tire just to have the convenience of not having to wait for it to come in the mail.  But he blew me out of the water with a greedy and unreasonable $80. 

I can't stomach businesses that like to gouge their customers. This isn't the medical industry.  We have a choice.  We can shop around.  That's how the free market works.  So when a business owner wants to be an overcharging, gouging, rip off artist, we have the option of finding another vendor of the service we're looking for at a more competitive and fair price.  I've read over his google reviews that his prior customers have posted, and it looks like I'm not the only one who gets the impression that this guy is ripping them off.  I hope his shop burns to the ground with him in it. 

LOL!  Just kidding.  But seriously, I won't do business with him. 

No way!  Are you serious?  All these years I thought for sure there were weight sensors at the intersections.  At most intersections you can even see the "cut out" section where the sensors lie beneath.  Who knew it was as simple as a wire loop?  LOL!  I'm going to try it out!  Thanks for the info!