How to Chrome a Motorcycle

Series Summary

The first petroleum-powered motorcycle was designed and built by German inventors in 1885. There was a steam-powered, two-wheeled vehicle that was demonstrated at fairs and circuses in 1867 in the eastern United States. Modern day motorcycles consist of a chassis, an engine, a transmission, wheels and tires, a brake system, suspension coils, and instruments to gauge speed, distance and other important variables. There are many types of motorcycles now, including pocket bikes, choppers, sport bikes, motocross bikes, mopeds, scooters, cruisers and touring motorcycles. In this free video series, the manager of a Harley Davidson dealership provides advice from putting chrome on a motorcycle. Learn how to pick a theme for a bike, how to use a chrome kit and what parts of a motorcycle can be chromed. Put personal style into a motorcycle with these tips.

Video Transcript

"So, you just bought a new motorcycle but you don't want it to look like anybody else's. Well, we're going to fix that for you. My name is Steve Greenstein from Jim's Harley-Davidson in St. Petersburg, Florida. And we're going to give you a quick, few minute session on how to chrome a motorcycle. So, what we have here now is a 2009 Harley-Davidson Street Glide. But the first thing you want to do is check with your local manufacturer of whatever brand motorcycle you have, and I'm sure that they offer some type of catalog. But Harley offers the biggest, over 800 pages of parts and accessories for your bike. You can take this motorcycle and you can go from what I would call mild to wild. Here's a part, $36, for head bolts. Or, you can spend hundreds of dollars on a nice chrome exhaust system. So really, what you want to do is decide, pick a theme for your bike and where you want to start. On this particular motorcycle, it has a lot of chrome already. So, one of the first things you probably would want to do, is you would want to chrome the lower legs, this section right down here in the front. Harley offers a complete kit for you, and all those components are in the box. One price -- everything. It's about five hundred bucks for that kit, plus labor or, technically, you could do it yourself. Then you could work your way back through the motorcycle. Levers. Change the mirrors. Bezels around the gages. As you work back through the motor, there's detail. There's nuts and bolts. There's all kinds of chrome little pieces that you can change out. Add lights. Exhaust. Trim rings around the tail lights. Whatever your imagination is, its there for you. So again, this is just a few minutes of how to chrome a motorcycle. This is Steve Greenstein, Jim's Harley-Davidson, St.Pete."