Military Sidecar

[buddyeal]

Do the sidecars come in the battle green or desert storm colors to match the bikes?

[Desi Bike]

Local auto body shop should be able to respray.

[GA-DK]

The Cozy models only come in Black and primer.  My Euro model was in primer and the holes for the aluminum side trim had not been drilled which I liked as I wanted to paint BRG and use gold pinstriping to match the bike.  The windshield, however, did not fit the Euro.  I think it must have been for the Rocket model.  I was mounting it on a G-5 and was sold the adaptor kit for nearly $300.  Do not buy it.  It is about $2 worth of light gage steel with very poor welds, a poor fit, but would do a great job of blocking the kick starter.  I made my own mounts that were much stronger, allow for easy adjustments, and do not block KS or interfere with original foot peg.  If anyone is going that route, let me know and I can help.   GA-DK 

[buddyeal]

Does RE sell paint or do they have paint codes?

[The Garbone]

Nope,  just try to match as best you can.   I think the paint changes from month to month so you just have to wing it.

[The_Rigger]

Not true!!

Nfield Gear (yeah, don't get me started) sells touch-up paint, however I don't believe you can get the aerosol cans from them in the US; something about shipping the volitile aerosols in the mails...

FWIW, my C5 Special came with (among other spares) an aerosol can of touch-up paint, in the tasteful Royal Maroon to match my bike. I've ordered another couple of cans from my dealer, which I suspect will take a blue moon or two to get here from Chennai.

[Kevin Mahoney]

A little bit tough on your host!. We can ship spray cans just not by air. Matching paint is not as easy as it sounds. This is true for cars as well. Ever seen a car where a panel has been repaired but the painter only painted that panel and did not blend the paint into the surrounding paint? Sticks out like a sore thumb. When you buy paint for a car there is "matched paint" and then there is a factory pack which is a better match. None of which are 100% perfect? Why you ask....... Paint put on in a factory is done on a system that cannot be duplicated in a body shop with paint that cannot be duplicated. The aftermarket paint companies go to a lot of trouble and research to find ways to paint outside the factory with satisfactory results. The application, drying methods are calibrated to match factory paint as well as is possible. Companies like Dupont are very good at this. Now paint codes sound like a simple thing, but as in many things international it is not. An Indian paint code will not match a US paint code. It might if it was a Dupont product which is sold in both countries but the factory does not use Dupont. Most if not all motorcycle factories in India do not use Dupont. Why not use the spectographic analyzer that Dupont has in its US stores? First try to find a flat surface on the RE. You will find that the plate below the headlight is about it. You can use the back of a tool box but they are not always painted as well as the rest of the bike. Even the machine is not 100%. After that you need a paint man with a lot of experience and a good eye. Some people can do it and most can't. To add to the problem paint can be sightly different from one batch to the next. The Military is the most difficult of all to match, This is mostly because of sheen. There have been many differnt sheens of color over the years. Matching a color is one thing but matching a sheen is quite another. We took Military parts to a good paint store and could not get it right no matter how we did it. Two months later out of nowhere the paint guy showed up at our door with a match. He had been working on it that long all on his own. (I then hired him, he is Gary our new tech guy). The match is good but you can find different sheens on different bikes.
Now to sidecars..... I used to bring sidecars into the US in colors. The one thing I knew for certain was taht they color would not match. Sometimes this was no problem because the sidecar was far enough away from the bike so you could not notice the difference.
That was not the norm so I just gave up and only brought in black or primer.