Repainting - what a scary thought. Lots of nooks and crannies. I saw a very bad repaint job on an 1100GS in Shirlaws in Aberdeen a few years ago, rather put me off. Did you just sand it down first? I've heard folk say silver Smoothrite works, is that what you used?
I attacked it with wire brushes of various sizes and shapes, both hand-held and in a drill. Then abrasive paper. Then more abrasive paper. And more abrasive paper. The problem is that in the places where the paint is still attached, it's REALLY attached. This means that unless you're far more dedicated than me (it's an engine, for pete's sake, not bodywork) you'll end up with a few steps showing.
I took the bike back to this:
But this picture doesn't really show quite how bad the engine paint was.
The front cover is removed because I wanted to paint that separately to get a really good finish - it's the part I took the most care over because it's most visible. Once rubbed down and thoroughly de-greased I did the whole thing with 3 coats of etch primer followed by 4 coats of silver Smoothrite.
This is the end result (I haven't got a close-up photo of the engine):
The front cover is near-as-damnit perfect, the rest less so. It looks good from a couple of paces away, a huge improvement on what it was like before. Close up it's slightly rough around the edges but to be honest that doesn't really bother me - I'm happy to have it looking as good as it does.
I re-finished the forks and fork bridge also with Smoothrite. The headers were in a right old state so I did them with exhaust paint but unfortuately that's already started to peel off :-( But whatever happens I'm not taking the headers off again.......
