Front Fairing Crack Repair

I've got an 03 VFR that has a couple cracks in the front fairing (courtesy of a guy found on Uship).

Attached are the photos, the cracks line up well. My plan is to use a plastic weld / cement to put them back together, then try and find a local paint shop for the shiny side.

Any advise / experience on this repair?

 

Be certain that the cement you choose is for ABS plastic to rejoin those cracks. Best IMO to remove the paint surrounding the cracks first. The cracks (fissures) even when correctly fixed are going to show. Filling the surface with automotive primer and sanding back may be sufficient to hide the repair

I'd gouge out (V groove) the area adjoining the cracks and fill that with one of the lacquer based spot puttys followed by the appropriate filler primer.

Do some research on the Honda color codes for the best chance of actually matching the old with the new paint. Do not let the local painters talk you into a spot paint repair. They don't last.

 

I just did a rebuild on the left rear under cowling tab with some JB putty epoxy along with a dremel+v-tip drill bit for channel building--tack welded it on and then filled in with Bondic plastic uv weld. Rock solid. I also took care of some spider cracks with the v-tip/Bondic on the mounting points too. Just be sure to understand some basic welding techniques for putting butt joints together.

 

That's a fairly easy repair with a plastic welder and some abs rod. The one below is the ideal tool for this small job. They are on sale right now for $15. Buying new tips is about $20 if you can find them, and they WILL eventually break at the threads. Just buy three or four of the damned things and keep them ready for when the tip breaks.

http://www.harborfreight.com/80-watt-iron-plastic-welding-kit-60662.html



Use a dremel to put a V into the crack and sand away paint about 1/2" on either side. Weld in the mesh on the back and ensure it all lines up nicely. Build up the back so it has additional strength and then fill the front. Build the front up just a bit higher than the surround and then use a small block to sand it back down level. Then it's ready for paint. Color Rite makes OEM matching paint kits if you are willing to paint on your own.

Jose

 

There is an interesting repair video on youtube out of Great Britian I thing that showes a guy making a plastic weld repair using a soldering iron and a zip tie as the welding rod. Apparently zip ties are made with the same plastic.

 

If the entire crack is not "welded" with a solvent (usually MEK) there is a possibility that the repair will fail. The crack may extend further than can be seen. The solvent can be injected into the crack with a syringe used normally for insulin injections. Hobby stores that sell model cars and bikes and a shitload of other plastic items carry small amounts of MEK sold to "glue" parts together.

Be very careful using epoxy or polyester on ABS. The bond is not all that secure. Key words here are "adhesion" and "cohesion" .

Many of the plastic coat hangers are ABS.. Some may even be in Honda colors..

Block sanding is great for some things. Rubber sanding blocks are available at full service paint stores. They are used mostly with Wet N Dry sandpaper. 3M now has two lines of sponge sanding blocks. The black ones have been around for years. The new ones are a kind of lavender color and are wedge shaped.

These are great tools but not great for other than flat surfaces. Concave and convex shapes sanded will end up having high and low spots.

Sanding is a process sometimes utilizing several "grits". Or, in the case of a Bondo type filler beginning with a Surform File. A pitfall is sanding to the point on repairs using grits of 1200 and above to remove high spots or prepping for coats of filler primers. Sanding increased surface area and provides "tooth" to the surface that becomes the substrate. Too smooth and the next application of a paint or coating might not stick and at sometime down the road fail and there goes the paintjob that ain't cheap.

Buy a book and RTFM.

Great deal on that "welder" from Harbor Freight..

A little trick to fixing broken tabs that are not visible is to back them up with some aluminum or stainless shim stock.

Be careful using generic ABS techniques on older model bikes and cars. Up until a few years back the ABS was coded and the formulas could be somewhat different.

 

I have to say it, I used Bondic UV liquid plastic weld and it was so damn easy to use and control. Lay a bead down in a chanel, check it, good? Hit it with the UV light for 4 seconds. Done. Keep going, messed up the bead? Take a paper towel and wipe it away and bead it again and then zap it with light. Hard plastic ready to sand in seconds. If it's still not right, dremel it out and refill. So damn easy and the pen is so precise!

 

That's a valid point Billy, but unique ABS formulations are generally about adding UV resitance or color. ABS as a substrate has been pretty much standard for quite a long time, which is mighty nice. I can go buy black ABS pipe at a hardware store, cut it into strips and weld away. When you run into something like an FRP (fiber reinforced plastic) it is generally not a thermoset and can't be welded anyhoo.

RTFM for sure when prepping any kind of plastic for paint. You should always use an adhesion promoter too.

The guy that was welding with zip ties, must have been welding on PTFE, or possibly looking to just get a brazed joint. To actually "weld" you have to melt new material into identical substrate. So it HAS to be ABS to ABS, PVC to PVC, polyethylene to polyethylene. One caveat to polyethylene is that there is high density and low density poly. You can use low density poly (refrigerator ice maker hose) to weld high density poly items, but not the other way round.

VFRvogt-That liquid stiff likely an epoxy. Strong for sure, but not the same as a weld using the same material as the substrate.

Jose

 

The older plastic welding rigs were supplied with rod that matched the coded ABS on older bikes for whatever reason served to do the job. I don't have a list of specifics. I'm sure it would be long if someone were to even publish it.

I'm overly familiar with the hardware store fixes.. even to point of twiddling me thumbs whilst the chunks of ABS pipe dissolves in what is by the can a lot of pesos for some MEK. Best deal there is to do the DIY chemistry in a closed container. The MEK evaporates real fast and it stinks too.. I hope anybody that has to use the stuff doesn't use heat an accelerator.. KABOOM!

A good allround hose (IMO) is the trusty Tygon.. A fave of us old aerospace dudes and many Canadian hosers..

I missed the welding with cable ties?? Used them to hold things in place and they are great for compressing a crack if solvent is used to cohese the joint. Drill a couple of small holes and use the cable ties to "stitch" the repaired area.

Prep being a shitload of the job is so very true especially when fixing broken/cracked fairings. Some of the DIY repairs fail not so much that the plastic is not welded or cohesed but not enough area is prepped. This is counterproductive since the area is going to be repainted anyway. Or better said the whole piece of the fairing or cowling.

The commercial adhesion promoters are or can be MEK or Methylene Chloride fractions.. They work by softening the substrate but have little viscosity and could migrate into a crack.

Used to use the stuff with great success but for a great adhesion promoter/ and first coat primer combo, I use, as much as I dislike.. The rattlecans of "Fusion" by Krylon/Sherwin-Williams.

Never had much luck with any epoxy or polyester resin types on ABS.. Used plenty of triaxial cloth but the resins are just not great for permanency. I suppose the reverse is true using all this "plastic" fixing on "fiberglass" .

 

Now besides springing for that 15 peso welder, I now have to get some of the Bondic too.. Those tab fixes are a bitch..

 

I can't even get MEK in Cali. anymore. The best I can do round these parts is buy ABS glue and melt some more into the can.

I have also had good results using Marine Tex to bond FRP and fill in holes.

Jose

 

Hopefully Governor Moonbeam will not outlaw indoor plumbing in your time.

A couple of tab fixes on the mach one 91 were done with the plumbing stuff. I practiced with some chunks of fairing I got from one of the dealers in Seattle. As I recall, even when a few days old the joins were still flexible not quite "dry".

I got some stuff once from a really savvy fabricator up here that was used by NASCAR to plug punctured fuel tanks in the roundy-round cars. The stuff had to be kept in a freezer. Set up time was as you might guess, quick like Bugs Bunny.

 

I was going to use marine tex too but I hate messing around with 2-part epoxy. I made a shape with JB putty epoxy and welded the new tab on with that liquid plastic from Bondic. Sanded, painted. I'm never going to have to worry about broken parts or repair again when it comes to fairing fixes. What a relief.

 

At the Motorcycle show back in November, there was a small two man company selling a plastic repair kit that was really cool. I thought I had grabbed their card but can't seem to find it! Anyway this kit they sold was a "heated staple gun" for the lack of a better term, basically the gun heated a metal staple and you melt into the plastic across the crack. Once embedded to a particular depth, the two tabs that fit into the heating part of the gun, just break off at the surface, leaving the staple embedded into the plastic forming a strong tie. They had a little write up on the back cover of Motorcycle Consumer News but I haven't been able to find a copy of the edition it was in.

The only bummer about this kit was that it was a bit pricey for a one time job IMO ~$130 if I remember correctly, and that was a show special, but if you were someone who was into restoring and fixing bikes, it might be a worth while investment. The kit they sold had several different types of staples with it, some had bends that would allow for fixing tabs and stand offs. I was considering grabbing a kit but ended up spending money on a new helmet instead.

There was another guy I saw on YouTube, maybe the same one Randy was referring to, that was doing a very similar thing with his plastic welding using zip ties. He would take a short piece of metal, like an actual metal staple and heat it up and melt it into the plastic across the crack and then add the zip tie material to weld it up. Seemed like it created a strong fix.

I'll see if I can locate a link to the "stapler" product and post it up.

Cheers

 

Lot of good info it's appreciated!

This repair is more cosmetic it's not really affecting the fairing. Debating whether I want to pay for repainting the fairing or just try to patch it up.

 

If you truly can live with the crack in the paint, you could try the plastic welder but ONLY repair the back. You cut out a section of that steel mesh about 1/2" longer than the crack and embed it into the back. Then let things cool so it doesn't deform the front. Then carefully melt another layer of ABS over the mesh. Let it cool again. Keep adding layers until it's about as thick as the panel. Now it will move with everything else, but should not break/crack any more.

The hot air welder that Tink mentions is awesome for larger work. I have a polyethylene black water tank in my RV, that I will need to get a hot air welder to repair.

Jose

 

Well I found a similar product (video demo below) but it does not appear to be the same guys from the show, the concept is the same however. The main difference is the staples that the guys at the MC show had, were setup to break off easily, vice having to use flush cut wire cutters. For the life of me I cannot find the exact company who was at the show. The vendor list from the IMS did not seem to have them listed, and it was next to impossible to find the MCN article. The MCN website isn't too forthcoming with past articles, especially more current issues! Anyway, take a peak. BTW, listen to the price of the unit in this guys video, you can buy a whole new set of fairings for the price he mentions!

[video=youtube;oXeacki20Qc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXeacki20Qc[/video]

 

Give it a couple of months and Harbor Freight will have one for $29.95..

 

Hence the solvent injection method. A couple of bucks for some MEK, two bits or so for a syringe or something to pry the crack apart some and a little touch up paint.

Depending on a shitload of factors, paint matching is iffy. This is why when ya go to a real paint store, they tell ya to buy enough paint to do the job. Running oot of material with a couple of square feet to go and going back for say another quart can give ya migranes when it doesn't match. Just one example. Colorant dispensers can only deliver so much or little as the case may be. In some finish colors we can find four or even more colorants to make the wanted paint. Sometimes the dispenser is not made to deliver tiny amounts to color small amounts of paint. ie some formulas are only available in one and five gallon amounts. One other biggie is that paint is made with natural materials. Not all comes from the same sources and may be just differnt enough to cause a color shift.

An interesting parallel is the thinking by some that a "generation" of bikes using a 1990-1993 VFRs as a base, that they are all the same..Ain't no way..

For an entire repaint of a faired bike expect one of the standard colors for paint alone to run to a couple of hundred pesos or more. Lots more if the material takes multiple layers, has metallic type additives or even the color itself as in red.