Hello this is Brian's XVZ12 body work repair description page

The following discussion came about in response to queries about body work

repairs on www.venturers.org's members only discussion forum Sept / Oct '05

See the pictures HERE

 

I have had great success with automotive fibre glass. The kind that comes in a paint tin like can with the epoxy and the glass mat already mixed and a tube of hardener on the side.

Although I find little uptake for my method from the folks here, I have many thousands of miles on my repairs. I bought the bike as a cosmetic basket case. Most of the panels were duct taped on when I got it!

I have completely rebuilt missing corners and ends of side panels, locating pins etc etc. One piece, that I was missing, I even fabricated completely from scratch with this stuff. It really is great to work with and bonds to the plastic very well in my experience. (mixing it a bit hot seems to help with adhesion)

I have given this testimonial here before, sometimes complete with pictures but I always sense that I am shouting into the wind proposing fibre glass to repair plastic.

For what its worth, that's my 2 cents. My old girl is no show piece but she holds together. Give a shout if you want pix.

 

Its a Mastercraft Canadian Tire product. I get it at my local CTC store in the auto body area. I am sure all auto parts places have something similar. CTC is probably just repackaging someone else's anyway.

There are two kinds, long and short strand glass fibre mixed into epoxy. For big repair areas or those requiring strength I use the long strand and for small areas I use the short. (mostly I use the long) I rough up the inside surface of the plastic parts under repair, to encourage adhesion and as I said, I mix the epoxy a bit on the hot side which also seems to help it stick. I could get you the CTC part numbers if you want, but they are not at hand right now. I also have pix of my repairs that I have posted before that I could repost. Let me know.

My most impressive repair is to the rear end of my RHS side panel. It has a C shaped notch that engages with a grommet on a pin on the chassis. Mine was broken out about a 2" radius around the C shape notch. Essentially the end of the side panel was not there. I took a mold of the same area on other side panel and constructed the C shaped notch part first. Then I embedded the new home made part into a repair that replaced all the missing material in the end of the side panel. I am impressed with myself every time I look at that repair. I purposely didn't paint it so it is evident to any one I show it to just how complex the repair was. And I don't impress easy let me tell you. Fortunately it doesn't show when the side panel is on the bike so paint wasn't really necessary.

Both long and short strand kinds tap a thread quite nicely too, but I don't know how well they would hold a thread long term. If I know I'll need a part to hold a screw, I embed a nut in the epoxy while its wet. Once it sets up, that nut ain't going nowhere! I leave a long screw in place through the nut and sticking out of the epoxy till it sets. That way I have a proper size hole aligned in place ready to go when I take the screw out. I have also put a nut in afterwards. If I need to align a part to decide where the screw goes, I'll do the repair then once I mark the screw hole, I drill it oversized enough to get the nut in the hole. I put a nut onto a long screw and then coat the nut in the wet epoxy. Then I push the gooey nut into the hole by holding onto the screw. The epoxy sticks to itself well and the nut is in place permanently once set. (I use the Nylox nuts with the nylon bushing in them so that vibration doesn't shake the screw loose later on)

My fuel refill door was broken off its hinges when I got the bike. the studs that join the plastic to the metal hinge were broken and drilled through. The P.O. had used some wood screws to do a very UGLY bit of repair! I rebuilt the standoffs with the epoxy and set some bolts in them. The heads of the bolts are embedded in the epoxy and the threaded ends stick out in line with the holes in the metal hinge part. Nuts on the other side and the fuel door works like new again and looks 100% better than before.

I use the aluminum foil tape that sheet metal workers use to seal duct work. If I need a repair to be flush with a surface, say an outer surface, I stick the tape on that surface, overlapping the area under repair, and apply the wet fibre glass stuff to the other side with a spatula. Apply the epoxy through the hole or crack under repair right onto the sticky side of the tape, work it into the edges of the hole or crack and overlap it onto the back side of the good plastic. When it sets up, I remove the tape and the repair comes out flush. Usually a few air bubbles get in to spoil the fun. I use the short strand stuff to fill them in, sand and paint (or not).

I had a long gaping crack running the length of my front fender ahead of the forks when I got my bike. I repaired it mechanically by doing as above but for added strength, I also drilled 3/16" holes at about 1" intervals all along both sides of the crack. I counter sunk the holes flaring them on the visible side of the fender. I then filled these holes from the inside of the fender as described above using the tape. The epoxy filled the flare on the good side and joined the main repair patch on the inside of the fender through the holes. Once it hardened the fender was mechanically sound, probably stronger than it had been originally. I just spray painted over it with a spray bomb and drove it like that till I found a good colour matched fender on ebay to replace it with. This was just too high a visibility location to get the repair to disappear. It had a kind of Frankenstein look to it but it got me on the road in the meanwhile though.

I use a fibre glass reinforced composite cutting disc on my Dremmel tool to grind and shape the epoxy once it is set. These discs (also a CTC item, an imitation of a Dremmel part) cut this stuff like the old hot knife through butter. I usually hold a vacuum cleaner nozzle close by to suck up the dust as I work. Other wise breathing masks would be in order. (warning, I think this abrasive F/G dust did in the motor bearings in my built in house vac system, so now I use an old shop vac that I don't care about too much instead.)

I have used the short stuff to make molds also. It follows details quite well. For example, I was missing some of the grommets that hold the side panels on. I took a mold of the ones I did have and poured some two part rubber compound to make duplicates. Those homemade grommets are also still riding with us 15k miles later! Clearly a bit over the top, but it was winter time and I was bored cause I couldn't get out riding.
 

Long strand = 47-5629-6
short strand =47-5625-4
Read right off my current cans that are a couple of years old now as I haven't been doing much of this stuff lately.

Nope.

Nope.

Nope, some gets in the threads, I just try to minimize it as best I can. When comes time to remove the screw, it resists at first but breaks free with a little pressure. I am only talking of screws in the #4 to #8 size ranges maybe a #10 max. Nothing that I would call a bolt, although I don't see why it shouldn't work with big sizes as well.

Aluminum foil tape. I rebuilt the bit that goes across under the rad from one shin level side vent to the other. I made a frame of a dozen or so 1/8" ply wood pieces with the U shape profile I wanted, cut into them. I cut slots in a foot long 1/2" piece of M.D.F. at 1/2" intervals and stood the plywood pieces one in each slot with the profile cut facing upwards. Then I laid the aluminum foil tape in the trough formed by the cut outs. Then I coated the tape with the epoxy and let it set. Once set, I tore off the tape and I had the rough shape I wanted. I machined it down to size from there and embedded some nuts into it to connect it to the ends of the vent pieces. Some sanding and painting and voila! Still there 15K miles later and looks indistinguishable from stock to the untrained eye. I still have the mold, I could take some pix of it and the resulting part on the bike if there is interest.

Silicone grease. A GE product, I could find info on it but don't have it handy now. This stuff even stops the epoxy sticking to itself. When I made the molds for the grommets, I built a cube of the Alum tape and poured in some of the epoxy just to cover the bottom. Then when that was hard, I put the grommet in standing vertically and poured in more epoxy till it was immersed half way. At this half way mark is where I wanted my mold to separate when I am removing the new part. I lightly coated the surface of the second level of epoxy with silicone grease and poured in more epoxy to submerge the part completely. When the third pour was hard, I could take the cube apart at the second / third pour line to take the original part out leaving just a void which I filled with my 2 part rubber compound. Hope this is clear. I still have the mold, I could take a picture if there is interest.

Yup. The tape tears and is garbage after but it comes away with little argument. It leaves some stickiness to the surface of the epoxy at first but it seems to go away after a little while exposed to the air I find.

Well, it has stuck for me and I have 15K miles on these repairs now. Some repairs with small contact areas have pulled away but by far the majority of them have stayed put. I am looking for those pix I took for this once before. I'll post em when I find em.
 

Ya, I found that mostly, I'd be working with a wad of the epoxy no bigger than the size of a golf ball each time, and often smaller than that. Otherwise I'd waste a lot, as it would harden faster than I could use it.

I found that for this sort of batch size, I was using just a mere mention of the hardener. The long strand stuff I worked with is green and the hardener is red. When the hardener is added and mixed, the colour goes brownish. I got pretty good at judging the amount of hardener based on colour change. That is I'd add hardener a little at a time, till I got the colour I knew from experience was a good mix. You are right, that takes practice, but if I managed it, I am sure you can, (mandatory PC disclaimer) barring of course a red/green colour blindness issue.

My stuff came in a paint tin as I said but it also had a plastic hat on the top of the tin that A) gave the manufacturer a space to pack the tube of hardener, under the hat. and B) made a mixing vessel to mix up small batches. I worked with that to do my mixing. I have a stainless steel spatula that came from some laboratory supply place somewhere deep in the distant past of my career. I found it to be the best mixing tool as it has just the right amount of spring to it. I found a sort of mashing / folding action rather than stirring worked best. I'd put my dollop of epoxy in the mixing tub, judging by eye as best I could the amount I wanted for whatever I was going to apply it to. Then I would take the tube of hardener and put a dollop of it right next to the epoxy so they didn't touch and estimating what seemed the right amount. I would squeeze the hardener tube till the stuff just began to show at the mouth of the tube and form the round beginnings of a drop, then I'd push the mouth of the tube down onto my mixing surface and twist and slide the tube sideways a bit smearing just the stuff sticking out the end of the tube into as neat a blob as I could. Then using the spatula end, I'd deliberately take a small swipe at the hardener and take just a tiny bit over to the epoxy. Stir / mash that together for a bit and judge the colour. If it didn't look brown enough, I'd take another swipe at the hardener. I'd keep doing this till the I was happy with the colour. Sometimes I'd have a bit of hardener I didn't need so I'd wipe it away with a rag or sometimes I'd have to add a bit more from the tube till I got it right. Just trial and error but the colour change worked for me as a gauge.

Our long winters up here are good for something at least. :-)

Hope this is useful. Still looking for those pictures, sorry no joy so far. Might have to take more this weekend.

BJH