Hey everyone. Long time reader, first time poster. You've heard it all before.

I lent my younger brother my GS while his F650 is in the shop. Long story short, some moron pulled out in front of him, and he had to ditch the bike. He's fine, sore knee, bike a little worse for wear.

He's put a fairly sizeable crack along the right hand side of the bike, smashed the indicator through the fairing as well. My first thought was replace the fairing, but I was quoted $450 for parts, plus labour. Is there any other way to patch it up instead? I thought maybe some araldite in the cracks to hold it all together, and repaint the appropriate sections, but I figured I might get some help from some experts out there as to what my best plan would be. Damage photos are below

   

you can araldite or fiberglass the back side of the cracks.. with varying success .. the Orig owner of my bike did the fibreglass/resin attempt and it was ok for awhile but the overall job was not good and the cracks travelled further with time and vibration .. I ended up taking my fairings to a bike panel shop to get a pro repair and paint job ... mainly cos i didnt feel up to the challenge at the time.

they repaired them with 'plastic welding' .. basically trim out the rough edges, use a high temp and high speed blower to melt some suitable 'plastic chips' back into the cracks and then continue as with smooth down bondo etc .. and the original paint job .. cost me $1100 AU all up.. which i didnt mind cos i had lack of ability but surplus cash at the time.

there are a few posts on this board about the plastic welding thing and i believe 'several' members have done their own repair this way with good results.

they may see this and respond for you but a quick search function away may be the starter info you need.

I have used Plastex to repair plastic and even build up missing parts. That stuff is fantastic. My neighbor repaired the fairing on his CBR600. Holds together great. It melts in and bonds with the plastic where fiberglass will just stick to it.

Hold it together with tape on the outside then use plastex on the inside to glue it back together. get the clear in case any leaks through.

Lower fairing removal is easy. Watch: http://youtu.be/U2lIhoUUewo

Top not much harder. Just take your time.

You must not be from the USA because you spell "labour" funny 

Tell us where you are. That makes it easier to help you get stuff and find places to help.

yeah .. thats how we Aussies spell Labour ... all proper like!! .. 
Welcome fellow Aussie?! 

Yep, Aussie. Living in Central West NSW, about 400 ks from the closest capital city.

not many twisties out there then .. 

as adidas said the repair is possible with the right stuff... the plastex is avail in Aussie, google it up eh! ...

depends on how 'handy' you feeling ... reckon a good country lad like yourself should know how to mend a few things 

if i was repairing my fairing again now then i would do it .. or at least attempt to do it right .. myself .. $$ wise .. plus having gotten more used to doing things on my bike i am confident that its possible.. the damage is a little more than i had from the look of it.. you can always just stick it 'well enough' for now and source a 2nd hand replacement fairing from a wrecker in the future maybe?

one option a mate did last year was to take his fairings for his '92 GSXR 600 to a local TAFE .. panel beaters class .. did a bit of a 'deal' where they repaired and painted for the experience value and he just covered the cost of materials...took several weeks to get them back tho... also maybe an option?

just thinkin out loud .. one 'bush mechanic' to another kinda thing 

Not alot of twisties out here, but plenty enough to give me a thrill. Besides, it gives me a reason to put more kilometres onto the bike to get to the good ones.

I'm usually pretty ok with getting it done myself. Most of the work I've needed to go has been done with my own 2 hands. I'm just concerned that if the cracks go the wrong way, I could be looking at a part of my bike flying off and cracking someone else in the face. I mostly ride with a crew of other guys, wouldn't want anything to happen from there.

I've had a bit of a shop around town looking for parts, I found one at the wreckers, in pretty much the same condition as mine. And they wanted $130 for it. Crooks...

The TAFE idea is not a bad one. I'm not sure how much of this sort of thing they're supposed to learn, but I'll have a chat to the boys up there, see what they can dig up for me.

For the price I've seen them on ebay, is it really worth investing time and materials? Buy another and keep this one as a backup is my opinion

I have no problem investing the time. I have another ride to use while this is out of action, and I have nothing better to do on my next couple days off.

Looked on E-Bay already for used or new parts. All I could find on the AU site was in as bad shape as mine or a bit too rich for my tastes. Once I add shipping to this shithole I live in, it's an expensive venture.

make it naked and be done with it.

when I bought my GS500, I had a choice, fairing or naked.  the sales person said if you drop it (faired) be prepared to pay.  so I went naked.  I really like the fairing bikes, they look good, but I read stories like this and am glad I went naked.  repair it then do a carbon fibre wrap like weedahoe has done.   then you don't have to paint it.

I know i didn't start the tread but thank you.  I was getting ready to start trying to mess with fiberglass or some other crap i saw on youtube where someone melted chips of abs in abs cement.  This looks like it should work a lot better.

Well, its been a couple of weeks, and I've ordered all the gear I need to get old Spewey sorted out. Plastix and some paint kits from Colorite, as well as clearcoat stuff too. My old man has experience with this stuff, so he'll be helping me through the respraying side of things. I decided to respray the other fairings as well, as they are a little sad from the previous owner. Nowhere as bad as the pics above, but enough to irritate me.

All this respraying stuff got me onto thinking about what I want the bike to look like when I'm done. Sort of over the red/black/silver look thats on it at the moment, needs something that screams me.



Put together this mockup of what I would like it all to look like when I'm done. Basically removing all the OEM vinyls, putting the black ones on instead, which I will have to have cut to shape. A couple of mates suggested having a "SPEWEY" sticker made up to go where the Suzuki one used to go. I'll see what this looks like, and go from there. In my own opinion, even just a flat silver and black bike looks better than the poor beaten up look he has now.

drill the end of the crack out with a small drill bit to make sure it does not travel any further,

when I cracked my fairing I took a soldering iron and some zip ties and plastic welded it back together, sanded, painted, looks like new. You do have to be careful though and add a lot of plastic if you do weld it, the original plastic is very porous and I had to add maybe a zip tie every 2 inches (normal sized) because of how much it shrinks, it is also harder but more brittle than factory because it shrinks and gets thicker.

I did the same thing. Several drops, fairing cracked in several places. Even cracked some of the tabs that connected it to the headlight assembly. I decided to go naked, because all you need is a headlight, which is a lot cheaper than having to re-paint a fairing you'll probably drop again in the future.