Tales from the lazy-ass school of bike mods

[Joe Frickin' Friday]

To run the wiring for my new accessories, in December I pulled the gas tank from my shiny new R1250RT.  I ended up pulling just about all the plastic off of the bike, except for the long skinny pieces that ran along the edges of the saddles:

 

 

To get those out, you have to pull the silver-painted panel from the rack, remove the grab bars, and deal with the front sidecase attachment before you can even start loosening the blue panels.  Thankfully, with some finessing and flexing of those panels, you can weasel the tank out from between those nicely painted blue panels.  You can even get the tank back in there, provided you exercise a bit of care.  And I did so for a test fit, before taking the tank back off for some final adjustments to my wiring job.

 

And then when I was putting the tank back in place for the final time, I wasn't so careful.  The tank snagged on this narrow plastic tang:

 

 

And I heard the snap.  And I heard myself say "aw, shyte."  

 

 

 

I checked; a new panel is $400 with tax.  Ouch.  Seems like a lot for one little broken tang.  So I opted for a fix.  

 

Not much plastic for a glue joint there, just two narrow little bits of it on either side of the screw hole.  That won't hold up without a major helping hand. 

 

Enter the major helping hand, a bespoke sheet steel splint:

 

 

I knew the glue work was going to be messy, so I masked off the area around it with tape, and I also taped the outer surface of the splint:

 

 

I even taped the faces of the clamp I was going to use to hold the whole sandwich together while the glue dried:

 

 

To start with, I glued the broken plastic bit back in place without anything else:

 

 

Not much strength, there but enough to keep it from moving around while I slide the glue-lubed splint into place.  The glue is 3M Plastic and Emblem adhesive.  Messy, but effective.

 

Once those tiny glue joints dried, I slopped up the steel splint with more glue and slid it into position:

 

 

And clamped it:

 

 

The tape on the clamp's jaws worked well. It stuck a little bit, but much less than it probably would have without the tape. 

 

The next day, I pulled the clamp and peeled the tape off of the splint:

 

 

I suspect this is now stronger than the original part.  And with the threaded clip back in place:

 

 

The squeezing action of the clip should help prevent the glue joint from peeling, so the glue should only ever see shearing forces.  

 

Whew.  Dodged a $400 bullet.

 

Moral of the story?  Resist the urge to be lazy. It's very stressful and a lot of work in the end.  If you insist on being lazy, be more careful than I was.  Get a spotter/assistant to spread those panels apart while you remove/install the tank.  

[walton66]

Same happened to me when I was helping a friend work on his F800GT last year.  I epoxied some f-glass on the back side and it has worked fine but the steel splint is a better idea for net time.

 

[duckbubbles]

I did a similar repair on my R1100S a while back where the two fairing side pieces overlap right behind the steering head and use a lever type of fastener to clamp them together.  A piece of .020 aluminum to back it up  and 3M Emblem glue.  Stronger than before.

 

Frank

[Skywagon]

I broke one on my old 1150RT.  I used tie wraps and melted them over and around the tab with a soldering iron and heat gun.  The tab was definitely better than new.

[Joe Frickin' Friday]

24 minutes ago, Skywagon said:

I broke one on my old 1150RT.  I used tie wraps and melted them over and around the tab with a soldering iron and heat gun.  The tab was definitely better than new.

Lemme guess - was it the one on the big side panel, up next to the headlight?

 

 

The whole panel had to be flexed a bit to get that tab/in/out of its slot, and they were famous for breaking if you didn't exercise good technique.  

[Skywagon]

Thats the one....

[Cap]

1 hour ago, Joe Frickin' Friday said:

...And then when I was putting the tank back in place for the final time, I wasn't so careful.  The tank snagged on this narrow plastic tang:

 

 

 

I have a matched pair of those side panels in Alpine White.  For anyone who needs one or both, they are free to a good home for the cost of shipping. 

 

Cap

[Trash Hauler]

Nice work

[strataj]

Joe Frickin Friday, that is some nice work that seems will last forever.  Can you tell us if you made the steel splint or know of a supplier of them?  Thanks.

 

 

[Joe Frickin' Friday]

10 minutes ago, strataj said:

Joe Frickin Friday, that is some nice work that seems will last forever.  Can you tell us if you made the steel splint or know of a supplier of them?  Thanks.

 

That splint was custom made, somewhat tediously:

• I took a photo of the broken-off part, pasted it in a CAD program, and drew the splint to fit it.  Knowing what the final shape needed to be, I drew a template for a flat piece of steel to be folded/drilled  Here's what the flat template looked like:

• Printed the drawing on adhesive-backed paper, stuck it to a sheet of 0.012" galvanized steel, and cut it out with snips.  
• Filed/sanded all the edges smooth.
• Drilled the hole through the front face of the splint (the right hole in the drawing above).
• Drilled a 1/8" thick piece of steel with a hole the same distance from one edge as the hole in the broken plastic piece.
• Inserted the drill bit into hole in that steel piece, then slipped the hole in the still-flat splint over the drill bit; the drill bit kept the hole in the splint aligned with the hole in the 1/8" steel piece.
• Clamped the two pieces in a vise. 
• Folded the splint over the 1/8" thick piece of steel, at least as far as possible to fold while the whole thing was being clamped in a vice.  Then removed it (but kept the drill bit in place to keep things aligned) and finished folding it to its final shape.
• Reclamped the whole sandwich in a vise, and using the hole in the 1/8" steel piece as a drill guide, drill the hole through the back face of the splint.   
• Filed/sanded the edges of the holes smooth.
• The steel piece I was using was 1/8" thick (0.125"), but the plastic was only 0.107" thick, so the splint was still a sloppy/loose fit on the plastic.  Working with some 1/16" and 1/32" nylon sheet scrap I had lying around (adding up to 0.09375"), and a few Post-It notes (adding another 0.014" or so), I put together a total thickness of about 0.107", stuck it inside the splint, and gave it a hug with the vise to get the splint squeezed down to where it juuuust slipped over the broken plastic part.  

 

I've been doing this kind of thing for years, i.e. laying out templates in CAD, printing them out, and sticking them to metal or plastic stock for cutting stuff out.  It's a lot easier to accurately lay out complicated shapes and exact hole locations in CAD than it is with a straightedge and a scratch awl.  It makes it easy to draw in rounded corners and other curvy shapes.

 

[realshelby]

Mitch, that is a NICE job of fabricating a  splint! The only thing I can think of to improve it would be to use 24 hour cure JB Weld to secure/reinforce the tab. Instead of the 3m adhesive. That stuff would be perfect for that....except you really need to leave it set for at least 18 hours ( 24 hours is better ) before doing anything to it. 

Let it set up for about an hour, you will know when ready as a razor blade will cleanly slice any excess away. Drill the hole back out and you have a stronger than stock tab ( you may have that anyway, but the epoxy is adding much strength).

[Rinkydink]

Great job. 

[DBULL]

I love solutions like this!  My 2000LT had the famous mirror disease of falling off/breaking at many points.  I think in 220,000 miles I had at least 3 sets.  My go to repair was picture hanging wire, JB weld, web clamps and trips to my local painter to match.  It took me a long time, but my last set of mirrors were screwed in.  

Love reading this post!