I've heard both good and bad about powdercoating - durable but hard to touch up if it gets chipped. If I can get the frame, swingarm etc properly cleaned (i.e. blasted in some way) then I may well have go at painting them myself. I've done a lot with rattlecans in the past with reasonable success, but I might have a go at brush painting. I have access to advice (but not actual help) from a guy who used to be a coachpainter for a living, and he's pretty confident that it's possible to get a superb result with brushing. Time isn't going to be an issue, so that might be a way forward.

If I make a new harness (which I probably will) it will be good-quality, heavy gauge stuff, made as waterproof as I can get it. As I said above, the only reliability issues I have had with the bike have been electrical, and a new loom would sort it for good. The reason I don't like the single fuse system is that everything depends on the one fuse. A couple of winters ago, a single chafing wire running to the headlight stopped the bike dead. If it had happened half a mile further on, it would have left me in a very dangerous place with no lights or engine. If I could, I would like to redesign the harness so that engine and lights were separately fused. I like a degree of built-in redundancy. The odd few grams of weight aren't an issue.

Part of me really wants to return it to better than factory, proper paint, decals, plastics and everything. That would give me a lot of pleasure, but I reckon the cost would be prohibitive. A 'special' that suited my needs exactly, with paint and fittings of my choice, would be less original but a better proposition in terms of money spent.

Thanks for the reassurance! I am fonder of this bike (fond is a better word for me than love, I think) than any other. There's a lot of me in it, knuckle skin included, and we aren't parting, ever.

Even in its present, rather scabby, condition, I have had people approach me and congratulate me for keeping such a machine in good condition and daily use. They probably needed glasses to describe it as 'good', but I took their point. Most bikes, and especially trailbikes, are in the scrapyard at 18 years old, but my little XT keeps getting me to work every day, and making me smile every time I swing a leg over it. It's an Armageddon bike - after the nuclear holocaust, all that will be left will be cockroaches and a few well-loved XT Yamahas.

Here's the 'before' picture, which makes it look better than it is:

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2006 XT660R daily ride, 1994 XT600E about to be reborn, Blog: http://goingfastgettingnowhere.blogspot.com/