Ideas for fairing repair / vinyl wraps?

So I incurred some "minor" fairing damage on my '99 (see "shiny side down" post). Front has two cracks each 3-4 inches long. one missing chunk (size of a quarter) behind the turn signal, very minor rash near headlight. Right side has two matching cracks 3-4 inches long, one tab broke off (but I have it!).

Day of lay down I super-glued everything a bit to ride back to work (my other bike was not running at the time). Its all there and is pretty minor in my opinion, I would leave it alone if I wasn't worried it was going to spread (roads are very harsh and shake fairings hard).

People have suggested plastic welding (very cool threads on this), but it seems like its going to make it a lot worse (visually) and require sanding painting etc. I was thinking of using some epoxy and reinforcing the backside of the plastics would do OK?

Another option would be to do $250 unpainted Chinese fairings, or $500 painted Chinese fairings. Buy used OEM for aprox $500 (and paint if diff colors).

I commute to DC year round and the bike is going to get a lot of salt/sand spray in the winter, may get backed into, tipped over, scratched, etc. also the paint on the bike is already very faded to the point you can see the primer/black plastic underneath the paint (PO from Texas). The way I see it the plastics are very "dry" or brittle, extreme sun damage weakens plastics, so they're not worth putting a lot of time/money into. Mechanically the bike is great, farkled up, new tires/chain, consumables, and it looks good from 10 feet away doing 10 mph :black_eyed:

I have done a lot of work with plasti dip (it currently is partially plasti dipped over sun faded bits) but I would rather paint or wrap areas like the gas tank, lower side fairing, any place which I will rub off plasti dip over time.

^For these reasons I was thinking a vinyl wrap would be neat. It would cover up the cracks (after I fix them best possible) and protect the bike from more damage, chips, rocks, etc.. I can get 3M 2'x5' sheets for around $25, I guess I would need around 5-6 sheets? I wish I could source bigger sheets for the side panels. I like patterns, not a huge fan of the fake carbon fiber look, though the chameleon look is cool

Any experience with vinyl, repairing fairings, thoughts, suggestions, vulgar rants, cat pictures, etc?

 

another option would be to plastic weld the backside of the panels, you would still have a hairline crack on the painted side but it would be strong, and would be very hard to see one the crack is closed. I'm not sure if plastic welding works this way. Can I just reinforce one side?

 

Duct tape or fix perfect and then fall down again-add to Randy's drop list. I believe I have six or more-sliders-is a must. Perfect plastic makes you go slower:stickhorse:

 

I believe the cracks and imperfections will show through any plastic wrap. If you have a matte finish on the wrap, it may not be too bad but with a gloss, those imperfections will stick out. Also, with the compound curves on the fairings, you will need to be fairly good with using heat to apply the wrap. I had my graphics put on professionally and it is still peeling a bit in the deeper recesses of the vent at the side radiators. Mind you, the wrap is now 4 years old and well exposed to the weather now.

 

. Wrapped the front fender in vivvid gloss red. It's more orange than Italian red. I'll leave it until I get a closer match. Wife says looks good so must be OK! 12" waide was not quite enough. Used 3 pieces

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Read the ads for the Chinese fairings very carefully for all charges.

Similar but not the same are vinyl graphics both OEM and repro and wrap. Kind of like the difference between music and rap..

 

See pics? Been working with vvivid vinyl wrap. Quality stuff and cheap.

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Randy how far underneath (onto the back side of fairing) did they apply your vinyl?Like did they trim right at fairing edge or wrap it around a bit? I was trying for a few mm extra that I was pulling over the edges. Back side of fairing is not as pretty as the top haha.

Really liking vinyl. It's a huge headache but the results seem great!

Also did/do you wax your wrap?

Going to order some more red vinyl for a closer color match. Mine is a bit orange-y

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Great pix! That stool looks almost like real wood.

 

They wrapped it about 1/8th to 1/4 inch around the underside. You can see it here under the left turn signal. The front wheel cowl actually over laps where the wrap is attached at that point. So far that has stayed in place. This was done in 2012 and has several thousand miles under it's belt, as well as exposure to all weather and lots of it.

Where the wrap covered over a separation in the panels, they just applied the wrap right over the two adjoining panels, then carefully cut the wrap along the crack between the two panels, then did their thing pressing it around the little edges. Nothing has peeled away here over the years. They even wrapped over and carefully cut around the fairing bolts. A nice touch by them. Only thing is now, because the left and right side are not perfectly book paged, I have to make sure the proper fairing bolt goes into the proper socket. And that they are tightened just so, so that the design lines all match up. The design has a crystal appearance so there are lots of lines to match up. Maybe I am too anal about that though.

Mine is also 3M reflective wrap. I suspect it could be considerably thicker material than the normal coloured wrap. When I mentioned it started to flake away, it was in the deep recesses of the fairing vents only. They did use heat but both sides in this location did start to come away from the surface, one more than the other.



There were a few locations in my design that had sharp points that immediately began to peel back. I took it back and had them trim the points to make them more blunt and less prone to peel back. Still looked as good.

I will polish and wax mine. But I think you have to remember, this is vinyl not hardened paint. And your product very well could be softer than mine. Polish just may leave minuscule swirls in the finish I just don't know. Hasn't with mine. I would think that a good wax only product would not hurt the wrap. Then again I don't know this for sure. It has worked for me for 4 years now. Also, mine were applied over freshly painted panels. One thing I did notice though. The colours did fade quite a bit over a sort period of time, but I did not notice this until I replaced one of the panels. A new decal was ordered up and that is when I noticed the difference. It is not too bad with mine due to the nature of the design, but a solid colour, this may be quite obvious if you were to do the whole bike at different times.

 

Wow thanks for input. Lots of info.

I was going to wrap the whole bike but I got a tail with good paint so I'm trying to match paint with vinyl. Thus color is close but not perfect. Only front wheel fairing done.

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