| Cosmetic Mods? |
| The interesting part about this page is that it mostly written before I began to look at it. Everything that you do to a bike is cosmetic from the trick brake lines that you added for improved performance to the cool new CDI box that peeks out of the vents in the side cover. The purpose of the page is to cover the changes that one can make to the appearance of the bike without adding any aftermarket parts. I will discuss the little bit that I know about paint systems, powder coating and chroming. Any additional tips that I have collected on repairing parts will be here as well. The cosmetic changes that one can make by purchasing aftermarket goodies such as windscreens, fairing lowers, luggage, etc... can be found on the accessories page. |
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| Replacement Body Work | ||||
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Alright... So I lied a bit
in the paragraph above. A link was sent to me sometime back for an Australian
company called Replico.
I could not ignore it nor could I think of a better place for it. Just
when you think you have it all planned out someone has to come along and
show you a product that you never dreamed would exist. Replico makes hand
laid fiberglass bodywork for sport bikes. I do not know what the quality
is like but, the prices do not seem too bad for hand laid glass. Here's
what they have for the FJ.
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| Paint |
| The Poor Man's Approach, Spray Bomb | |
| I have had very good results with the frame and engine using spray cans. It took me about a week to mask and paint the bike. I disassembled very little. I might regret this later. I sanded all of the exposed aluminum surfaces and clear coated over them. I did this as a temporary fix so that the bike would look okay for the summer. I am going to disassemble and do it all right this winter. I will probably use | |
| powder coat over most of these surfaces in an attempt to gain some longevity from the repair. The biggest issue with spray paint is that it does not have a great life expectancy. Two years, if you treat the finish well, is about all that you can really plan to see out of the best spray painted finish. The finish is also very soft by comparison to powder coat or catalyzed enamel. Typical spray paints are unhardened enamel, which as you may know never really cures. There are folks that have done just a beautiful job of painting their bikes out of can putting hours into wet sanding and prep work. This is wonderful. I am impressed! Though, it is not for me. | |
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| Professional Paint Jobs (More Than You Wanted to Know) | |||
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It is very important when you start thinking about painting your bike that you understand the chemicals involved in the process. They are not something that you want to handle yourself. The average life span of an auto body tech is about 60 years. That is why I got out of that business. Look around and hire a shop that you can get along with to do the work for you. The standard automotive paint that are in use today are poly-iso-cyanide hardened enamels. They have an average life expectancy of five years, however, if well cared for they can last longer. The price of paints can vary dependent on the brand and pigments used. Red is by far the most expensive because the pigment is very difficult and expensive to produce. (It is also said that they will get you a speeding ticket faster than any other color.) Metallics of any type are next on the list. Silver will make the body man cringe, as it is very difficult to get silver to appear consistent on larger surfaces. I have primarily used Roger's (a subsidiary of Sherwin Williams) products. They produce a quality product that on an average is less expensive than the higher profile brands like Imron. The new Chromalusion paints by Dupont are selling for 20 USD a fluid ounce. OUCH! Though for a small job Chromalution can still be tempting because the product is so damned beautiful. I prefer to do the prep
work myself, as some shops are in the habit of running an orbital sander
over the part and then putting paint on it. This looks fine for about a
year and then as the paint cures out and swirl marks magically appear under
the surface of the paint. By then it is way to late to go back to the shop.
This is particularly offensive on dark non-metallic colors. What you really
need to do the work yourself is a good eye, a lot of elbow grease and an
well tuned sense of touch. Most of the surface checking is done with your
hands. You can also use a squeegee to wipe the water away as you wet sand.
The dark spots in the surface are low spots. The fill agents that are typically
used to remove these low spots are bondo (Dreadful stuff! Don't ever buy
anything from the Bondo brand name product line. Go to your local automotive
paint supplier and buy whatever they stock.), catalyzed spot putty and
lacquer based spot putty. For dents bondo is the stuff to use. for deep
scratches the two part spot putty works well and does not shrink. For tiny
scratches the lacquer based spot putty is fine. There is not much difference
between the lacquer putty and lacquer primer. It shrinks! You must have
the facilities to spray lacquer primer to do this yourself. (Wear a good
fitting charcoal respirator mask and spray in a well ventilated area.)
I would not use the stuff in the spray can at all. After all you intend
to put an expensive paint job over this mess, right? The process is to
knock out the big ugly stuff with coarse papers first. Usually 120 grit
to start. Spray a layer of primer and move to a finer grit. Repeat until
the part is baby smooth and you are using worn pieces of 600 grit to sand.
The last tip I have is watch the corners. Never sand directly on them.
You will break through to the base material without trying even with 600
grit paper. There are books available on this subject I recommend the use
of one if you have never done this before.
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| Replacement Decals | |||
| Tapeworks Graphics has several replacement logos, however, no strip kits are available. Custom colors can be selected for an additional fee. They seem to be willing to do custom jobs for their customer, though. I should think that they would be happy to reproduce an entire stock kit for the FJ. As to whether it would be cheaper to buy the decals from Yamaha. I don't know. |
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| Metal Finishing |
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| Powder Coat |
| Powder coating is a process where by a powder is sprayed onto a statically charged part, the excess powder is removed and the part is baked to cure the coating. There are a great many number of finishes available and colors can be matched just like with traditional paints. Powder coating is only available for ferrous and non-ferrous metals due to the extended exposure to heat. There are two basic types of powder coats. |
| Thermosets: Most powder coating is done with thermoset polymers derived from three generic types of resins: epoxy, polyester, and acrylic. There are five basic coatings made up of combinations of these. All thermosets require an oven cure at 300 to 400 deg-F and once set, do not re-melt since these molecules cross-link to form permanent bonds. These coatings have a smooth high gloss, good weather resistance, and are used in such applications as wheels, bike frames, engine parts, and lawn furniture etc. Thermosets are available in almost any color, metallic, transparent color and clear coat. |
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Thermoplastics: on the other hand such as polyethylenes, polypropylene, nylon, pvc, polayamids and some polyesters require heat to melt, flow out and form the coating but will still re-melt above 200-300 deg-F. These coatings are excellent for corrosion and abrasion resistance which makes them perfect for suspension parts, trailer frames and seawater drilling rigs. Thermoplastics are availble in a smaller variety of colors including clear. Depending on the base used in formulating the powder the coating take on different properties. For instance the epoxy based thermosets are terrible for long term exposure to the elements, however, they have a very strong resistance to certain chemicals. It is very important if
you are interested in this process that you find a service provider that
will talk with you about your needs. The results that you get depend entirely
on what sort of coating you use on a part as related to what the part will
be doing. There is no shortage of places providing this service. Shop around!
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| Plating: Hard Chrome & Decorative Chrome | |||
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Hard chromium plating is just chrome plating, but it is applied as a fairly heavy coating (usually measured in thousandths of an inch) for wear resistance, lubricity, oil retention, and other 'wear' purposes. Some examples would be hydraulic cylinder rods, rollers, piston rings, mold surfaces, thread guides, etc. It is called hard chromium because it is thick enough that when a hardness measurement is performed the chrome hardness can actually be measured. It is almost always applied to items that are made of steel. It is not really shiny or decorative. There are variations even within hard chrome plating, with some of the coatings optimized to be especially porous for oil retention, etc. Many shops who do hard chromium
plating do no other kind of plating at all, because their business is designed
to serve only engineered, wear-type, needs.
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Decorative chrome plating is sometimes called nickel-chrome plating because it always involves plating nickel before plating the chrome. The chrome plating in decorative chrome plating is exceptionally thin, measured in millionths of an inch rather than in thousandths. It is still a very hard surface, but simple 'anvil' type hardness measurements don't detect the hardness because the anvil just punches through such a thin coating. When you look at a decorative chromium plated surface, such as a chrome plated wheel or truck bumper, most of what you are seeing is actually the nickel. The chrome adds a bluish cast (filtering the somewhat yellowish cast of the nickel), and it protects against tarnish, and minimizes scratching. But the point is, without the brilliant leveled nickel undercoating, you would not have a reflective, decorative surface. Some metals, like zinc die castings, cannot be directly nickel plated but must be copper plated first. Other materials, like aluminum, cannot be copper plated until they have been zincated. Chrome plating is hardly
a matter of dipping an article into a tank, it is a long involved process
that often starts with tedious polishing and buffing, then cleaning and
acid dipping, zincating, and copper plating. This may be followed by buffing
of the copper, cleaning and acid dipping again, and plating in two or three
different types of nickel plating solution, all before the chrome plating
is done.
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| Repairing Plastics | |||
| There are a few different techniques used to repair the factory plastics. Unfortunately the better part of fixable damage to these plastics is simply a result of age and poor quality out of the factory. In other words the stuff is thin to start with, it doesn't need any help. | |||
| Plastic Welding | |||
| This is the professional solution. The process involves heating up the plastic slightly while forcing a melted stick of like plastic a little at a time into the damaged area. It is not too dissimilar to welding steel with a MIG. The process is very cranky in one respect. You must use the same type of plastic rod as the plastic you are trying to fix and, you guessed it, there are dozens of different types of plastic. The down side to this process is that the welder is pretty expensive. If you just have your plastics to fix and you have no desire to turn this into a hobby, hire it done. | |||
| Epoxies | |||
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This is the latest and greatest. It apparently works very well on the FJ's plastics. It was stated that you could not tell where the part had been repaired after it's use. It, unfortunately, does nothing to strengthen the plastic. So, if the piece has been weakened by a chemical or time then you might want to choose a different solution. I am not clear about the name of this plastic repair kit but, it should be easy to figure out. The name of the company that supplies it and their contact info follows: Swanee & Company1550 South Main Street Milton Freewater, OR 97862 (541) 938-6174 Acraglass is what I normally
recommend for tough repairs. It is a mill spec epoxy that is used as a
bedding material on some of the most powerful rifles on the planet. Yes,
you read that right. It is supplied by Brownell's to the gun smithing community.
It does not shrink, it can be colored with any powdered substance, it can
be thinned with mineral spirits and sprayed with an air brush and it is
tough enough to not stress under the incredible force of a 50 BMG round
being fired. I use it in conjunction with fiberglass mat to reinforce the
FJ plastics, but I am getting ahead of myself. You can pick it up at most
gun shops or order it though Brownell's
site.
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| Reinforcing With Fiberglass Mat | |||
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To avoid further issues this practice is recommended. It works as you might imagine it would. Cutting the mat into small strips makes it easier to control. I use Acraglass to bond the mat to the plastic but, I imagine that standard gel coat would work too. This process removes most of the flex from the part, so, you will need to be more careful when removing it. One of the standard things
that happens to the chin fairing on the FJ is exposure to DOT 3 brake fluid
when the clutch slave unit goes bad. This will flatly tear the plastic
up by making it very brittle. I repaired mine using fiberglass mat. It
is holding up nicely.
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| Other Cosmetic Repairs |
| Repairing the Instrument Cluster |
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There are two issues here: Speedometer and tachometer needles that bounce: This can be repaired with a syringe and a small amount of dimethicone (a common chemical used in hair conditioners). You will need to disassemble the instrument cluster of the bike and get to the back of the fuel gauge. Gently separate the windings on one of the upper corners. Drill a small hole and inject some 12,500 Centistoke silicone oil (thicker would be fine) dimethicone is the substance of choice because it is easy to obtain. When you are finished fill the hole with a dab of silicone, let it dry, re-position the windings and re-assemble the bike. [Source: AC Pugh] Instrument cluster vibration:
This is a simple fix. The mounting points for the instrument cluster are
comprised of a hard spacer and a rubber grommet as the rubber ages it shrinks
causing the instrument cluster to not longer be rubber mounted. The solution
is to pull away the rubber grommet and file off some of the length of the
spacer.
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