Primer for ABS fairing repairs

[Rcgreaves]

I have some cracks in my k75s engine fairings..  May 1 2016 my pal went to post my brick on Craigslist the day before I showed up cash in hand...Anyway he set it on the center stand on his lawn for a photo shoot only to have it tip and shatter the the right side belly fairing/engine cover.  More recently my wife tipped it to the left cracking the left panel and the side fairing at the blinker so its high time for some fairing work. The bike looks to have been repainted by a PO in the original  Columbia Silver color.

Can I get away with priming my repairs with an off-the-shelf enamel primer? I plan to use the OEM glasurit style paint any recommendations?  Also I read that the factory paint has the clear right in the paint very cool never work with anything like that before thanks for any advice

[The Mighty Gryphon]

I just did the fairing for my K75RT in "Mystic Red".  Since it's such a pain in the a$$ to find Glasurit paint I just took a side panel to the local auto paint guys and asked them to mix a half pint in Chroma 1 part base coat.  They didn't have the formula for the BMW color, but got a nearly perfect match with a Ford color(I can't tell the difference).

I don't know what color your bike is, but the Glasurit system is a tri coat for Mystic Red.  Some kind of silver sub base followed by a color coat followed by a clear.  I used a simple base/clear system over a light primer and got the same appearance.

After doing my repairs I primed with SEM 42013 high build primer/surfacer in light grey and wet sanded with 320. 

Shot the base with a $12 Badger 250 airbrush(don't laugh before you see the finished product).  It does an excellent job with very little overspray and wasted paint when doing complicated fairing parts, the downside is that it takes a couple hours to paint what a full size gun can do in ten minutes.  Then I hauled the parts to the local collision shop to have the clear professionally applied in their booth.  Cost to have the clear done was $80 for the complete RT fairing plus a spare right mirror.  That was probably about $40 over what the clear would have cost me.  At that price it makes absolutely no sense for me to invest the time and money in trying to do it myself.

Should have things put together by Friday and will post a photo.

[The Mighty Gryphon]

I just noticed you are doing the belly pan for a K75S.  When I did mine last spring to repair some scrapes I used all the same stuff.  Paint for that job was Dakar Yellow.

Only difference is that for flexible parts I use an adhesion promoter under the primer.  Especially if there is any raw plastic being finished.  So far, the only finished parts I have found that require the adhesion promoter are mud guards, belly pans and inner fenders.  The rest are fiberglass and take a regular primer.

[Martin]

I had a crack repair, scrape repair and repaint on my RH fairing and a hole repair and gouge repair on my belly pan and repaint the whole pan. I was going to do the job myself but after pricing all the paint, undercoat, base, clear,  filler, fibre glass repair kit and other incidentals. I came to the conclusion I was not really saving much at all just giving myself a lot of work for a possible inferior job. All up the job was $385.00 Au. Small jobs that can be done with a pressure pack I would undertake if I could get a good match.
Regards Martin

[Rcgreaves]

So OEM Glasurit paint is laquer and Colorite.com has it available for $40/pint.  My original ignorant query about using enamel primer turned out to be instructive..

Many aerosol "off the shelf" primers are lacquer such as the grey Rustoleum I chose.  The majority are enamel and generally not suited for laquer.  My brick has been repainted and certainly might be a different paint system...i guess as a garage mechanic that's the chance I take. Anyway laquer worked well.

 For the cracks- the belly fairing is in fact epoxy impregnated fiberglass with a seriously solid, substantial feel compared to ABS components.  While  the best/touqhest repair would have included fiberglass cloth, I chose to dremel furrows in th cracks and fill with Permatex plastic weld epoxy only with great results.  it spread a bit thicker than ideal but bonded very well and sanded smooth with block/disc sander and Dremel sanding drums.  It would have been easy to coat light 2 ounce fiberglass cloth and start by filling the V furrows with that but in hindsight- that would have been a much greater hassle.  We have a few weeks of riding left in WI so I'll be interested to learn if my repairs hold up to several "red line vibration runs" in primer between now and mid November. So back together it went without the final finish color.

Ive painted many many projects over the years...poorly.  Even at 105k this bikes finish is spectacularly beautiful ( Columbia Silver - code #616) or is is 204?? bike plate reads 616 but online searches yielded the other??

Anyway, Ive decided to prep and prime everything  and hire a shop to spray it this winter.    I'm a road racing fan so perhaps I'll ad either a Gulf Racing orange strip detail or perhaps some Brumos blue/black racing stripes? The fairings are masterfully designed (especially the fit around the curved radiator cover WOW! , perhaps less is more in this case.  I know there are Noooo strong opinions here :hehehe  Cheers!  time to hit the road.

[REGerlach]

Great project and result.
And Epoxy is the way to go for repairs.
From my point of view, the only reason you would need glass cloth or matt for the repair is if there are bending or twisting stresses on the part.
I recently purchased a 'Boat Repair Kit' from WEST SYSTEMS and am using it to fix my RT faring components.
Congratulations!

[Rcgreaves]

ReGerlach- cheers!


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[Rcgreaves]

As fate would have it I stumbled upon the emeritus owner of my local collision shop and his vote would be to use Urethane paint... I have yet to stop in for a quote.

As for the fixes, plenty of redline vibrations and so far so good.  My inner fairing plastic re cracked so reassembly exposed a bad bond there...This has been instructive and I now have a path to run.