Thinking About Buying A 1994 Honda VFR750

Hell yeah, that'll work! Looks good. Not too hot about the color but you were going to do something about that. Fix a few things you mentioned and should have a nice bike to ride. Good luck.

 

steph, billy is good guy. congrats on the 4th gen. we rat bastards like photos or it aint true

 

look up Jamie on the forum, he will give you the best advise on your rear shock. and can provide a 929 rear conversiom for your bike. best bang for your buck

 

Just picked up an abs rear shock for $109.99 ebay..thanks OOTV...again....waiting to sandbag a few more greenbacks to send to Jamie....then inserts for the front and braided lines....then I'm done.....I swear....riiiiight
Sorry about the jack...
Good luck

 

It seems to have a fairly new one with heat sinks on it and after a few hour drive is still pretty cool to the touch. But I will definitely look into getting a spare for when this one does go out but hopefully not soon.

Yeah im with you on the color haha not my favorite but also not too bad. I hope to repaint it to the factory color or just completely red with some black accents to make it easier.

Did not realize that one shock on a motorcycle could cost almost as much as 3 shocks for my car haha but it is definitely a good sounding package since it is customized directly for me.

 

Calling PlasticMan!

Hey badbilly I was wondering if you could enlighten me on what is used for the plastic repair on 4th gen ABS plastic fairing. I have spots that need filled and 2 cracks that need structurally repaired. I know you said bondo will not work. I read online that I could use JB Weld and it will work pretty well, but I wanted your opinion on what to you as I have never worked with ABS before. Also are there any brands of paint that you would recommend to use or to stay away from? I was thinking of using dupli color paint for the cheapness of it but with cheap usually comes bads things later and I want to avoid that.

One last thing when sanding these panels down, I found on some of the recessed bolt holes I was spending WAY too long try to sand those. Is there and easier way or a tool? Or is it just gonna take forever doing those spots?

Thanks, Stephen

 

Hey Stephen there's stuff called panel bond made by 3m. Works great. Did some repairs on my kawasaki.

 

IMO due to the color and sheen of the finish whatever it is on you bike, I suspect the ABS plastic is going to need a shitload of repair. Even the wheels seem to be duller than OEM..

Best bet to save a few pesos is hit your public library for a book on this type work. If nothing like that is in stock, request an interlibrary loan. You can look up almost every book, CD, DVD that's around in a site called "WorldCat.. Amazon is good. They like to sell their new books. Their used books are not always used and are inexpensive sometimes the shipping is more than the book.

To fix that plastic (step one) you need a place to work with some ventilation. You need tools. Clamps, clothespins, even stripe of rubber cut from innertubes.. I use superglue to hold things together temporarily. Best stuff I have found to make the joins is some stuff that NAPA sells in one of those two component syringe-dispensors.

Fibreglass cloth is great. The resin does not hold well to ABS. Best stuff there IMO is triaxial cloth. Aluminum or even plastic sreenwire can be used too. If you have a few pesos left over spring for a plastic welding rig from Harbor Frieght. Yeah, I know aboot tools from Snap on and even some that the Ferrari Race team uses but we are talking fixing a few chunks of plastic and not running a shop or just spending a shitload of pesos to impress everyone.

When you get your superglue. Get the gel. To speed up the cure time and add some bulk (aggregate) toss in some baking soda.

This doesn't get much mention.. for any sort of work on ABS plastic, if it's painted, ditch the paint at all points of the repair. If you need something to practice on, pop for a couple of chunks of plumbing pipe that's black. Try a recycle builders supply for that.

BTW , where you got the fucking idea that I thought getting somebody hurt was a good idea, you need to read much better than you do and lose the fucking attitude sonny.

 

Those are all excellent tips, I'm filing them away for future reference.

Welding is best for structural repairs like bolt holes and tabs, but if you're only repairing smaller cracks I'd recommend ABS cement. ABS cement repairs aren't as strong as epoxies and it's a slow process. OTOH, I'm told that the cement is just ABS plastic dissolved in acetone...so it's just as flexible as the original plastic. Best of all, it's less than $10 to fix all the minor problems on the whole bike.

I had cracks on my front upper fairing, a broken rear corner on the left side panel and a lot of damage to the rear fairing around the taillight. They all needed different techniques.
For cracks on the larger panels:
I removed the panels from the bike and drilled small stress relief holes at the end of all cracks (maybe 1/8" bit or so). I also brushed off the dirt inside the panels with a damp cloth.
Next I used a Dremel with a burr bit behind the panel to bevel the cracks open a bit. You'll have to remove any paint that's in the way too, ABS cement won't really stick to anything but clean black ABS.
Then I masked the areas with blue painter's tape to close up the holes and make barriers. ABS cement won't stick to painter's tape.
Finally, I painted on a nice thick layer of ABS cement (1/4" or so).
I'd check it every few hours, and if a few spots needed more reinforcement I'd paint on another layer until I was happy with it. it takes about an hour for the cement to set up and about a day for it to totally cure. You could easily incorporate some fiberglass fabric into the cement too. Don't rush it and don't make the layers too thick - the acetone solvent takes too long to evaporate. One of the cool things about ABS cement is that it doesn't stick to paint. So if a little cement works its way through the stress relief holes, it's easy to clean up with a fingernail or razor blade. The panels didn't get distorted by the solvent either.

On the rear panel corner I used wide painter's tape to make a form, then filled it with thin layers of cement. It would sometimes distort the tape forms as it dried, so I just kept making more temporary forms and painting in this layers of cement until I was happy with it.

On the tailcone I had more problems - the screw brackets were cracked and there was a lot of missing plastic. I used blue painter's masking tape to make temporary forms, then painted in a thin 1/4" layer of ABS cement. When it had set up for a half-hour or so it's still soft and is easy to shape with an exacto knife. Then I'd repeat the process until I was happy with it. Adjust the tape forms, paint in another layer of cement, shape it with a knife. The ABS cement takes about a day to fully harden up.

 

Welding is not all that great for tabs. Allowances should be made for the type welding too. Conventional, using rod and heat and solvent welding are types. Tabs are very small. When broken off, many times they are lost or are secured with body clips. Better IMO to solvent weld them or just cut new ones from some old ABS stock attaching same using a combination of fiberglass cloth and solvent or the slurry used to "weld" ABS plumbing pipe. There are much better solvent welding compounds than the plumbing slurries.

Making one's own from ABS pipe ground down with a rasp or a Surform tool and dissolved in MEK is today best saved for the practice fix.. Acetone will dissolve ABS but it evaporates at a quick pace. Makes a good cleaner for prepping joins and removing paint around the proposed joins. Further prep by abrasion is also a good idea. This increases the surface area promoting cohesion greatly.

Drilling small holes at the both ends of a crack should be SOP. Some part of the crack should be incorporated.

Reliance on epoxies and polyesters to fix ABS is not a great idea. They do not play nice together over time. We are talking the resins and not the cloth. The cloth is great. The resins work but not in the long haul. This includes aggregate and matrix compounds like the original JB Weld.. Great stuff when used right but not good for permanent fixes of ABS. ( or cracked engine cases..Yikes)

The " Why" of this is the repair or fix may look great then ya spring for a couple of hundred in paint (or more) a shitload of work and more prep and more labor and in a couple of months your crack or holle or busted tab fails and it's back to square zero..

There are several versions of not only 3M's version of the now famous blue tape, but the clones. Better to use one of the masking tapes that are hot solvent resistant and engineered for "hot" paints. The plumbing pipe adhesive slurries have a hot solvent fraction that will dissolve the adhesive that is on the sticky side of the tape.

The blue tape by 3M was made for long term masking and essentially weather resistance. It was a big hit for the commercial guys and another hit with the DIY and homeowner folks because of the color. The bright blue is easy to see as opposed the the standard brown of most of the other masking tape oot there. 3M caught on to this real quick.. seeing amateurs using the stuff for a whole job. The blue tape is more pesos than the others.. 3M is a great company but in some circles is Minnesota Mining and Money not Manufacturing..

Lots of tricks in the fixing biz when it comes to plastics and especially the plastic fairing on the VFRs and others. One example: A busted off tab. There are half a dozen ways to fix one. There is nothing that says making one a bit larger to fit in a larger body clip that is not seen or even using something other than another chunk of ABS to fabricate same. Shim stock works great..

Using superglue with or without adding sodium bicarbonate to speed up the cure time is a big help. Another is using a hot glue gun. The "glue" doesn't play well with ABS but I great for holding a couple of chunks together. Just don't let the tip hit the ABS..

 

Thanks all for the responses. I have started the process and other than 1 panel there is not much wrong. I have fixed all the cracks with abs cement for a goo bond and repair and then went over that with fiberglass and the panel is still flexible but is a lot more solid than the original. Only repair left is a bolt hole that I have to abs cement back in and make the tabs on the middle left fairing that attach it to the upper fairing.

Sadly I live in florida and the rain is making the process take longer. I was hoping to be almost done painting this weekend but am just now getting to the priming stage for most of the parts.

Thanks for all the help, Stephen

 

Here's some links on ABS repair you may find handy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4RECGjEOnE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stO4pDw4L94

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9DrfxHy2GU