Re: My CBX1000C Restore Project
Posted: Thu Feb 11, 2021 3:53 pm
I am not going to be able to do any real work on this bike for over a year as I am moving house next week and will have my time taken up with the new home.
In the meantime I thought I would have a go at repairing the damaged fairing and tidy up the tank and side panels. The fairing had a nasty crack around the right side mounting point, when I got the fairing removed pieces fell everywhere - I believe these fairings are ABS and finding a glue or resin to fix them can be troublesome so I dont try. I have had success in the past using a good quality acetone which melts the ABS and welds the joint rather than gluing it. Started out by holding the pieces in place and wicking in some acetone, a few seconds and they will stick - Then I used some plasticard covered in tape and vaseline as supports to make up the missing bits using car body filler - Once sanded to shape I covered the whole area with 3 layers of 25g fibre glass cloth held in place just with acetone which is worked in hard to melt the fairing material up through the cloth. This is here really just to stop the cracks showing through the paint, not much strength is added -
Then on the back of the faring I used a single layer of 100g woven cloth again applied just with acetone. for added security I brushed on a layer of super thin CA - Thankfully Honda designed this fairing to be non load-bearing (unllike Vetter fairings for instance) so I am confident this repair will hold. A coat of primer to see how it all looks - The tank gave me a fight, the area below the filler is quite rusty and the tank appeared to be full of crud. I am not sure what this was, it did not smell like old petrol and was too dense to be that anyway, perhaps something added to prevent rusting, not sure. Washed out what I could then left it for a week with a strong mix of caustic soda. This got rid of the crud mostly but I have to use some acetone and a few boiling hot washes before I was happy that the tank was clean. I then used some spirits of salts to kill off the rust followed by some phosphoric acid washed out with acetone. As soon as this was dry I swilled around some MMO and put in some petrol containing HEET anti water treatment.
After this I stripped the tank right back to bare metal, applied an etch primer and a couple of coats of 2K primer.
The plastics where stripped back, a couple of cracks in the lower fairings repaired again using acetone, a coat of plastic primer applied again followed by 2K primer. She looks a lot tidier now and so I can stare happily over the next year or so - Unfortunately try as I could curing the overflow leak from number 5 carb is beyond me. I tried two different forms of carb cleaner, penetrating fluid and WD40 plus some shots of compressed air and it still floods. Either the floats are very stuck, damaged or perhaps the overflow tube is cracked.
In any case I found the lack of ignition cause on number 6 was a bad HT lead, once replaced I ran the bike for a very short while, wow does she sound good.
One problem I spotted when the bike arrived was a torn headlight rubber, does anyone know of a source for a replacement or am I going to have to fabricate something to keep the outer glass cover in place? - Thats it for a while hopefully I will get the bike safely to bonny Scotland!
In the meantime I thought I would have a go at repairing the damaged fairing and tidy up the tank and side panels. The fairing had a nasty crack around the right side mounting point, when I got the fairing removed pieces fell everywhere - I believe these fairings are ABS and finding a glue or resin to fix them can be troublesome so I dont try. I have had success in the past using a good quality acetone which melts the ABS and welds the joint rather than gluing it. Started out by holding the pieces in place and wicking in some acetone, a few seconds and they will stick - Then I used some plasticard covered in tape and vaseline as supports to make up the missing bits using car body filler - Once sanded to shape I covered the whole area with 3 layers of 25g fibre glass cloth held in place just with acetone which is worked in hard to melt the fairing material up through the cloth. This is here really just to stop the cracks showing through the paint, not much strength is added -
Then on the back of the faring I used a single layer of 100g woven cloth again applied just with acetone. for added security I brushed on a layer of super thin CA - Thankfully Honda designed this fairing to be non load-bearing (unllike Vetter fairings for instance) so I am confident this repair will hold. A coat of primer to see how it all looks - The tank gave me a fight, the area below the filler is quite rusty and the tank appeared to be full of crud. I am not sure what this was, it did not smell like old petrol and was too dense to be that anyway, perhaps something added to prevent rusting, not sure. Washed out what I could then left it for a week with a strong mix of caustic soda. This got rid of the crud mostly but I have to use some acetone and a few boiling hot washes before I was happy that the tank was clean. I then used some spirits of salts to kill off the rust followed by some phosphoric acid washed out with acetone. As soon as this was dry I swilled around some MMO and put in some petrol containing HEET anti water treatment.
After this I stripped the tank right back to bare metal, applied an etch primer and a couple of coats of 2K primer.
The plastics where stripped back, a couple of cracks in the lower fairings repaired again using acetone, a coat of plastic primer applied again followed by 2K primer. She looks a lot tidier now and so I can stare happily over the next year or so - Unfortunately try as I could curing the overflow leak from number 5 carb is beyond me. I tried two different forms of carb cleaner, penetrating fluid and WD40 plus some shots of compressed air and it still floods. Either the floats are very stuck, damaged or perhaps the overflow tube is cracked.
In any case I found the lack of ignition cause on number 6 was a bad HT lead, once replaced I ran the bike for a very short while, wow does she sound good.
One problem I spotted when the bike arrived was a torn headlight rubber, does anyone know of a source for a replacement or am I going to have to fabricate something to keep the outer glass cover in place? - Thats it for a while hopefully I will get the bike safely to bonny Scotland!