Front bumper fairing repair

[Mike Leary]

I posted a pic of our encounter with a Vulture a while ago, Keyair was helpfull steering me to repair possibilities, as was Dan "The Washington Man", who had experience in replacing the fairing. The prep and alignment of the broken and split areas was the most time-consuming: being in a R.V. park, I had no clamps and had to improvise with blocks and pieces of wood to hold it together while gluing-up. I tried wire, but the blocking worked best. I used the MEK to clean the affected areas and sanded with 70 grit to roughen the surface. Once the areas were aligned, I used a q-tip and MEK to soften the cracks and lay a bonding coat on. Fibreglass cloth was cut to size, a "sticky" coat of abs glue was applied to hold the cloth in place, and the entire area out 3" or so was covered with abs glue. I used numerous light applications and was pleased that I was able to repair such a trashed area. I did some experiments on the rear fairing and found that sanding up to 600 grit gets you real close to not even noticing the fix. The bumper comes off easy, (thanks Dan), though I did soak the screws with a solvent just in case the screws were racked after the Vulture eposide.

[Mike Leary]

Here's the pics (Don't get me started on how crappy Tengointernet is) :

[AirRowan]

That looks amazing nice job. The old plastic did not melt when you used MEK? I need to fix the rear plastic near the spare.
Thanks for posting the pics.
josh

[Smartstream]

Looks good Mike. Just goes to show us over the hill guys can get a few things done.

We just had a bye bye winter storm up here, dropped a few inches of the white stuff on us. They tell us spring is on the way.

Cheers, Dan

[Keyair]

Awesome job!
Works dont it!

[Airslide]

Looks really good Mikey!
The Britmobile could have used that too. There were a couple of places that I wish we could have fixed.

Vinnie

[Mike Leary]

Thanks guys. I was amazed how flimsy the front fairing was connected and how many cracks and splits there were in areas other than the Vulture attack. I'd suggest everyone remove their front bumper and take a look. Don't use heavy grit on the outside, only on the inside for the glass cloth "doublers".
While the bumper was off, I polished it with "Mother's".

[Airslide]

Looks perfect Mike!

[Mike Leary]

Originally Posted by AirRowan

The old plastic did not melt when you used MEK?

Our fairings are not plastic, they are abs, so the MEK only softens it and bonds it together. On the cracks and splits I had on the stern, where the repair could be seen, I used a cloth "doubler" on the inside and, after cleaning with MEK, applied the glue to the outside with a little MEK to thin it with a q-tip. Using Lego toys for repairs turned out to be a bogus suggestion; the Lego stuff must be no longer pure abs, never did get them to melt, waste of money.

[345bill]

Top Notch Mike, great work!

[dljosephson]

Originally Posted by Mike Leary

Our fairings are not plastic, they are abs, so the MEK only softens it and bonds it together.

Mike, looks like a great job. The PO of my 310 used fiberglass doublers on the outside and they look awful, I will take it all apart and see what can be done. I'm puzzled, isn't ABS a plastic too? Did the MEK soften it significantly at all? The usual solvent for ABS is methylene chloride, which is probably the main component of your ABS cement. If the ABS glue significantly melts the original fairing material, embedding glass cloth in it could be a real winner, unlike using polyester or epoxy resin which never quite bonds with the ABS.

[Keyair]

It "Wets in" just perfect.
Here was my spare wheel cover in process...