Fairing repair and special paint stuffs...

[Verus Cidere]

Hey guys...

I've got a couple of questions. My fairings came damaged and I've done a little to help them along in that respect (bottomed her out trying to get her into the back of the truck to take her to the shop when my clutch cable broke and bad choices/inexperience with a tube of loctite my dad thought was glue and I didn't know to say NO! ). I was thinking for a while that I would just replace the fairings (which is insanely expensive, as you all probably know). A friend of mine suggested I repair them with fiberglass. Anybody have experience with this? I need to know what to do and how to do it correctly so my bike doesn't end up coming out looking like some sort of hunchback of notre-dam 250!

Also, I plan to repaint those spots I'm repairing, and do several touch-ups on other areas of the fairings that are scratched. I allready bought the upper paint layer (CP blue is fricken' EXPENSIVE! $90 a quart!!! Really have no idea why I spent that much, but I like my stuff lookin' real purty! ), but was wondering if anybody had specifics on what kind of primer I should get. I figure it should be some sort of light blue or something, but I have no idea where to look for the exact type to get.

Another question is to those of you that have experience painting bikes. I plan on getting Fury airbrushed after the touch-ups and then re-clearing the entire bike. Are there certain types of paint I should avoid? I don't want another solvent-problem like I had with the loctite. Is regular automotive paint ok? The paint I got for it from my local paint shop is automotive paint and I told him I needed it to be ok on plastic to keep it from melting, but I'm not completely sure his english was good enough to understand me! Any/all help is greatly appreciated.

P.S. Alex, I wasn't sure whether to put this in a tech talk or farkles section, as it could apply to both styles of bike. Move it wherever!

[Syphen]

Yikes! Body work is something that can take a lot of experience. Plastic work takes even more then metal. Are your fairings cracked or just scuffed up?

Lets say that they are cracked (you mentioned damaged), you can get a good quality adhesive called 'plastic weld'. You can then fill the crack with this glue, use it to re-enforce the back of the damage spot if needed. You can also V-out the cracks and pull the bits really tight together to make sure they are seating good. Once this is all done and dry you sand the area, tape off/mask off the good stuff, prime, paint and clear coat. I recommend finding someone who has done it before. I would only ever attempt repairs on something MYSELF if the entire peice was being repainted. To just do a touchup and blend in requires considerable talent. If there is a pearl in the paint it can add to difficulties.

Sorry if my post seems a little convoluted.

[Verus Cidere]

No worries!

The big problem is that the area we messed up with the loctite is around the windscreen (my dad thought it would hold those bolts in, so we tried it and it melted the fairings. An example of the lack of experience you were talking about! ). There are actually a couple of places where there's no fairing any more at all. More specifically, the top left bolt and the corner of the fairing it attaches to literally broke off. The bottomed out section is mostly cracks, but there's a chip missing from that too. I do have someone who's worked with fiberglass before, but again, I need a little more info to be sure we do this right. Hope that helps!

Edit -- Anybody think I should take it to a professional body shop for this? Or would buying new fairings be cheaper?

[Syphen]

It sounds like you have quite a bit of damage and from the sounds of it you might want to consider buying new body work. Can you post some pics of it?

[sometimesido]

wtf....I did NOT know those front upper's are so damn expensive.
Piece of plastic...

Yea, post up some pics.

[P1NDLESK1N]

Originally Posted by sometimesido

wtf....I did NOT know those front upper's are so damn expensive...

Yeah these front uppers are prone to be damaged at some point in the bikes life. It's real hard to find even used ones cheap.

[sometimesido]

While Michael takes his sweet time posting pics...
If I ever have to replace mine, I might even try to fabricate a mount to put 08+ body work.

[Verus Cidere]

Hehehe.... Don't expect pics overly quickly guys. I don't have a camera. I'll try to bum my Aunt's tomorrow though so I can get pics of the places I'm needing to play with.

[kkim]

you don't have a cell phone w/ a camera?

[Verus Cidere]

I'm a wierd teenager. I don't have a cell phone. Period. My family is feeling the economic crappyness right now, and I'm actually the only one that ever has any extra money, so if I want a cell phone, I have to pay for it myself. As of right now, I don't think I'd use it enough for it to be worth it, but times like this are starting to prove me wrong.

[kkim]

props to you.

i thought every teenager was born with a cell phone attached to their ear. it's refreshing to find one that doesn't.

[Verus Cidere]

Hehehehe.... I know how that goes. It's kinda funny when I show up to things and people say to turn off cell phones, I don't and they look at me like I'm defying them. I tell them I don't have one and they look at me like I'm insane or something! But then again....maybe I am?

[Verus Cidere]

Ok guys. I hijacked a freinds camera for the weekend and I've got pics of the damage. The worst one is around a bolt in the windscreen. Lemme know if you think it's saveable!

This is a different bolt on the other side of the windscreen.
DSCF0025.jpg

This is the damage to the side of the fairing. The area on the first one has been fixed as best as can be expected by superglue.
DSCF0026.jpgDSCF0027.jpg

These are pictures of the damage to the bottom fairing.
DSCF0029.jpgDSCF0030.jpg

This is the bolt while it's still connected.
DSCF0031.jpgDSCF0032.jpg

This is the bolt when taken off.
DSCF0033.JPG

This is what it looks like when the bolt is missing.
DSCF0034.jpg

This is on the right side of the front fender fairing/forks.
DSCF0051.jpg

[Nemy]

Well generally I think anything is fixable. But something of this magnitude is going to take a LONG time! So you'll have to weigh that in when you factor in the fact that the bike will be out of commission for that period.

I didn't notice any gaps/holes, so if it's just cracks you can plastic weld them or bond them to make sure they don't spread any further, but I wouldn't recommend superglue. I don't think they're rated for high speed/vibrations/exposure to env. elements and it won't give you a good finish that you can sand and prime later on.

What I used on my fairing was Plastex (www.plastex.ca). It's retardedly strong, smells like cr@p , easy to sand, and it comes with a flexible mould that you can use to rebuild those broken tabs/bolt mounts. Once that's done, you'll have to sand it flush working your way through the grits, prime, sand again, paint, wet sand, clear coat, wet sand again, then finally polish like you've never polished before. That's as much as I know as well lol because I'm still workin on mine... The windshield, though, I haven't seen done before. I guess you could still patch and paint it over....

Good luck if you do decide to take it on, it is fun and quite the challenge

[sometimesido]

That looks fixable with plastic welding.

[zeroth]

Originally Posted by Nemy

What I used on my fairing was Plastex (www.plastex.ca). It's retardedly strong, smells like cr@p , easy to sand, and it comes with a flexible mould that you can use to rebuild those broken tabs/bolt mounts. Once that's done, you'll have to sand it flush working your way through the grits, prime, sand again, paint, wet sand, clear coat, wet sand again, then finally polish like you've never polished before. That's as much as I know as well lol because I'm still workin on mine... The windshield, though, I haven't seen done before. I guess you could still patch and paint it over....

Tim are you going to put together a DIY on your plastex repair? It seems like an interesting product ... especially the mold. If it's easy to work with, I might pick some up for an upper fairing crack I inherited. It's at the upper right corner just aft of the windscreen, and I'd need to support it somehow. If I could use the mold to space the fairing properly and then pour Plastex onto it...

[Nemy]

Well I'm working on a smaller section right now that is already primed and covered up. I do have a camera at my disposal now, though, so I might be able to do a DIY for the next part I wanna do. But at the rate I'm going it might not be done for awhile

Anyways, the mould is great! It'll mould to anything you want, then peel right off when the plastex sets. Just watch out about drips etc., cause they don't come off easily

[zeroth]

Cool thanks for the tip. It will probably be awhile (weeks, if not months) before I get around to it, so I'll await your DIY eagerly.

[Verus Cidere]

Any word on the base coat for CP blue? I found some possible fairing replacements that are on the cheaper side, but they're white and I already have the replacement paint for the blue (gotta keep my bike the fastest color! ) I need the base coat and the primer for it, then I'll buy the fairings and have them painted, then airbrushed finally. I just don't wanna pay over $100 for the colorrite stuff. Anybody know codes or anything for the primer/base?

Edit -- I just thought of this... Would it be kinda cool to do a little front-to-back two tone with the perfect CP blue and a CP blue without the base? I'd still have the airbrushing over it, so that'd hide the unprofessionality of it all a bit. Thoughts?

[Nemy]

Here's your base and paint for CP blue. Good luck with the project. Mine's gone on 2 months now trying to get it perfect... but im also a slacker

http://www.colorrite.com/matrix-colo...TOKEN=38101733

[Verus Cidere]

Ok, so the base coat is listed as #1345 on colorrite. A quart of base coat is $200 though! I got a color match for cp blue from a paint store here that was only (haha ONLY ) $90 a quart. Do I still need the base? If so, is the 1345 a color code for it or just the part number from color rite? I don't want to pay $200 a quart!

[Nemy]

i don't know how much a quart is and way too tired to look it up but I would think you only need a couple of spray bomb's worth - I would say about 1 per fairing and you have 3, from what I can tell, that need to be repaired. So maybe a 1/2 pint or pint?! Dunno how much that equates to either

The 1345 should simply be colorrite's code but they make strictly OEM paint matches. So if you had your paint matched somewhere else you might have to check with them to see whether a base is even required... but you might also want to do a spray test anyways to ensure it is the exact same color code