Plastic welding, and all the little parts.

[NONE_too_SOFT]

wow. who would have thought melting plastic could be so fun. For those of you with a soldering iron i highly suggest you wreck and then proceed to melt all of the cracks on your plastics back together. and kill some bugs with it too. its also a great way to burn your fingers and melt your shoelaces.

i only had a couple small cracks to do, so i started to practice on my front piece, and i realized very shortly how easy it was to fix these things. Just gotta have some spare plastic pieces and a little patience and you can melt that shit good as new.

heres a piece i practiced on
http://img507.imageshack.us/img507/5421/img0007ww3.jpg
http://img246.imageshack.us/img246/6910/img0008xh1.jpg

and heres the only two spots i had to actually weld on a good fairing. Just VERY small cracks on a mounting tab. not even noticeable when installed.
http://img295.imageshack.us/img295/56/img0010hd5.jpg

Now the biggest thing i've got to worry about is finding a way to fix this headlight unit. as you can see in this pic...
http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/2130/img0003cq3.jpg

the only problem with the unit is two mounting points have broken off and become scenery in a ditch somewhere down in north carolina. I dont want to have to buy a whole new unit just because of two little tabs, so i figured i can just buy that back piece that has all of the mounting points. only thing is i cant figure out for the life of me how to get it off. any suggestions people? specially those of you whom have installed HEDs and had to take that back plate off... trip?

[No Worries]

A couple years ago, Motorcycle Consumer News tested a plastic welder by Harbor Freight: http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=41592. They loved the thing after they learned how to use it correctly. If you are at all interested, I'll see if I can find the article.

As for the missing tab, make a cast of the whole one using clay or something. Put a similar size bushing in the missing part and place the cast on the missing tab. Then melt the plastic into the cast.

[NONE_too_SOFT]

that sounds out of my leauge.

[ceo012384]

I tried this on a side piece and it worked great:

http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff187/ceo012384/2008%20Bike%20Rebuild/03/DSC02929Large.jpg

http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff187/ceo012384/2008%20Bike%20Rebuild/03/DSC02931Large.jpg

[NONE_too_SOFT]

that looks pretty good ceo.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWAX%3AIT&viewitem=&item=190232927891
Imma try to snag this from egay for 30 bucks and see if i cant just weld the cracks back together. best case scenario i save 150 bucks on a front fairing. worst case scenario it doesnt fit right and i have to modify some shit. no big deal.

my bikes gonna be straight frankenstein'd bythe time i get the thing street ready again.

[ceo012384]

I just used an old soldering iron I don't care about... I didn't even use filler plastic.

Also, that tab isn't visible when the seat is installed so I didn't try to smooth it out at all.

A quick little job turned out good.


If I had a real crack I would use filler plastic and then sand it smooth before repainting, like in your case for example.

[NONE_too_SOFT]

I just used an old soldering iron I don't care about... I didn't even use filler plastic.

Also, that tab isn't visible when the seat is installed so I didn't try to smooth it out at all.

A quick little job turned out good.


If I had a real crack I would use filler plastic and then sand it smooth before repainting, like in your case for example.

yea absolutely. i used a little bit of my old front piece for filler for my last job. likes yours, i only had to do some mounting tabs before.

i used the same, an old soldering iron i just found in the basement. actually works really well.

[ceo012384]

yea absolutely. i used a little bit of my old front piece for filler for my last job. likes yours, i only had to do some mounting tabs before.

i used the same, an old soldering iron i just found in the basement. actually works really well.
Cool.

Yeah I think I might try to repair a couple of my old plastics before selling them to make some extra cash to buy more toys haha

[NONE_too_SOFT]

Cool.

Yeah I think I might try to repair a couple of my old plastics before selling them to make some extra cash to buy more toys haha

being able to fix broken plastics now opens up a WHOLE new world of opportunity.

[ceo012384]

being able to fix broken plastics now opens up a WHOLE new world of opportunity.

Seriously... there's a place in my area and that's all they do... plasticweld and repair/repaint of motorcycle parts... they do pretty well I think.