Plastic Repair

[Greg]

I purchased a GS this spring and spent soem good time and money getting this used abd abused bike ready for the street. One thing that was difficult was repair to the side panels. I found it difficult to locate someone to repair a badly cracked side cover. I went to the dealer and developed chest pain when I was told one side cover was $340.00 Canadian.

This was the fix:  I had nothing to loose so I did it myself. A previous owner had tried to repair the plastic with heat, I think a torch by the amount of scorched plastic around the crack, this is a big mistake, but on the right track.  The plastic can be melted, but if you get the plastic to hot, you burn off certain chemicals and ruin it, just like overheating bread in the microwave, too much and it's a rock. You can't  " melt " the crack together with heat, you have to weld it together with a hot tool, not a flame.

Myself, I used a wood burning tool, it's a carvers tool, now I'm not sure what you could find, but a sharp knife, and a torch for heating it may well work. I used the little bits of extra plastic that are on the bask of the panel ( mold marks ) for material. The plastic melted well, and you need to blend it with the existing plastic, ( weld them together ). You can work on an area, then leave it to cool for a minutes and attack it again.  It worked very well, took about 2 hours for about 5 inches of cracks.  A bit of bondo and paint and you can't tell.

[The Buddha]

I have seen decent repairs with a heat gun and a nozzle tip that brings it down to the size of a soda drinking straw... som people use air compressor and a similar tool made for plastic welding... usually the GS panels are cheap enough we just buy used crap and call it a day.
Cool.
Srinath.