Honda Elite 80

I bought an Elite 80 for not much a few months ago. It was completely apart but I could tell from the box of parts that it wasn't a great looking scooter. The surface of the side panels were very faded. So much that when I removed the stickers the letters were left behind in relief. Look at the panel on the left below. The lower right corner of the 0 is missing because the sticker had peeled off a long time before. 

I washed the panels with soapy water and then sanded and painted them. I went with Rustoleum's basic Red. I thought about different colors but my friend Rob said "Hondas should be red" and I had to agree with him. I have an air compressor and paint gun. I wet sanded the panels between coats. 

This one is from somewhere in the middle of the process. You can see the raised letters from where the stickers were. I thought about sanding it down completely but I decided it didn't take away from anything. 

The work table looked pretty gory afterwards. 

One of the reasons I was considering a different color besides red was this white seat. I didn't like the white and couldn't come up with a good color to balance it all out. Steve suggested I paint the rims white. The whole color scheme fell into place. 

I pulled the wheels off and took them and the new tires up to my local tire shop. When the new tires were on, I taped off the rims. 

Steve was right. The rims help balance out the white seat. While it was off, I painted the muffler with high temp black BBQ pit paint. I also took all the faded black plastic pieces and used some restoring polish to make look a little less burnt out. Most of the pieces were there as I put it back together although not everything went back together as tightly as I would like. I still think it looks pretty good for a 20 something year old scooter.

Thanks Rob and Steve for your scooter decorating tips.