Unplanned Man Shed time SoCal

[FJmonkey]

One more important issue to pay attention to while plastic welding. When the opposite side of where you are welding happens to be the cosmetic side... Use a cold pack to prevent distortion on the cosmetic side... It can be fixed when and if I repaint, but a cold pack on the cosmetic side would have saved me the added lesson. And hopefully save anyone reading the same learning pains... Weld on guys, fix them broken tabs and lower fairings...

[ken65]

gday fj monkey, if you use the ice pack it doesnt need repainting? is that what your saying?  the reason i ask is i have a side cover from another bike that is candy apple red and i cant paint it myself, thanks ken

[FJmonkey]

gday fj monkey, if you use the ice pack it doesnt need repainting? is that what your saying?  the reason i ask is i have a side cover from another bike that is candy apple red and i cant paint it myself, thanks ken

Heat from the welding caused distortion, some cold on the cosmetic surface might have prevented it... I am nearly certain that it would have saved the cosmetic surface...

[ken65]

sweet, thanks for that, i was wondering what i was going to do,
ken

[skymasteres]

gday fj monkey, if you use the ice pack it doesnt need repainting? is that what your saying?  the reason i ask is i have a side cover from another bike that is candy apple red and i cant paint it myself, thanks ken

Heat from the welding caused distortion, some cold on the cosmetic surface might have prevented it... I am nearly certain that it would have saved the cosmetic surface...

Oh man. I didn't think about that Mark. I only ever had the one instance of heat bleed through when welding on the fairing. (That thin spot I was trying to thicken up.)

It's funny that you mentioned the ice packs because after you left I  got to my broken headlight tap and mounts. I ended up using big ice cubes to cool those really thin supports down so I could get back in there quicker. (It also helped with the overall heat buildup)

This is the welder that I'm using. It's WAY overkill if your just doing your own fairings. But if your fixing busted fairings for the local motorcycle shop it makes sense. That and I have a variac hooked up to it to fine tune temperatures. (They wanted another $300 for a 6 heat setting box)

http://catalog.seelyeinc-orl.com/item/all-categories/plastic-welders/pn-1002?

Thanks to Marks help we got the old girl running again. (After finding out that the battery was REALLY dry.)

It is nice to be able to hang with fellow garage rats. It's been forever since I've had company in the man cave.

[rktmanfj]

I'm looking for a few (later model) broken FJ airscoops... I have a couple of ideas I want to try out, and practice plastic welding skills, but I don't want to do it on good parts.

Anyone got parts laying around that are going to eventually find their way to the scrap heap?

US only, as I'm sure shipping would be a bit too high otherwise.