GSX 750 Katana Pop up head light plastic renovation.

 

Even though plastic welding has been around since the seventies it is still surprising when a faring from that era comes in, how much fibre glass has been used to patch up the damaged areas. We were asked if it was possible to repair the plastic panel on a GSX 750 Katana the one with the pop up head light.

From what I have already said you would have gathered that these panels were in a bit of a state. Of all the farings that turned up it was the left and right side nose panels 

( the nose cone in this case is divided into three section two sides and a Bezel that fitted around the pop up head light) that presented the biggest challenge. The customer wisely turned up with two panels for each side. The problem was to work out how much of each panel was the original plastic and which pair had the least fibre glass holding it together.

Fortunately the headlight bezel only had a cross shape lug missing. In itself not a difficult repair

 but time consuming to reproduce. All the side panels were heavily damaged where the side mirrors would be mounted. One of which had a big bit missing.

The first thing that needed to be done was to get rid of the large quantity of fibre glass from the damaged areas. 

Once it had been ground off the outside of the panel. The stuff caked over the inside was gently persuaded to leave home, coming away in one piece. Almost leaving it clean enough to weld. It just go’s to show if it had not been fibre glass both sides it would have fallen out ages ago.

The one thing plastic welding does not like is contamination of any kind. Which meant we had to remove as much of the residue as possible to be sure it would repair properly.

Once that was done new plastic was cut into shapes to replace all the missing bits. Because alot of the damage was concentrated in one place we had to be careful about over heating. By phasing the repair it would keep the heat shrink to a minimum, making for a better repair over all. You also have to take into account when renovating old plastic it has a tendency to get very brittle. A way round it is to temper the area with some heat before you start welding it together. This also helps to drive out any water that the plastic has soaked up over the years. This leads to a stronger weld and a satisfied customer.