well im finally finished with my repainting job. I made the decision over winter to repaint it as soon as i got out of school. someone had backed into my F2 and laid it down on the left side in the parking lot of my apartment complex and my friends saw him do it and took down his tags. lucky for him he confessed the next day so i didnt need to file a police report (I probably would have taken him for alot more if he wasnt so honest). Anyways he was a nice guy and felt real bad about it. I ended up getting $559 from him in new parts which I thought was fair.

I told the guy I was going to repaint so that saved alot of hassle. I opted for an aftermarket 1 piece front fairing that I got from ebay. After a huge pain in the neck with the thingI honestly can not recommend anyone buying one, or at least the ones on ebay from cycletherapy. It requires drilling all your own holesfor the other fairings to fit into it and I had to stretch itinto place. ItI lined up the top part where themirrorsattach, the fairing was about 5-6 inches off from where it was suppose to mount to the frame. Luckily its made of fiberglass and hassome give toit,even still there are some cracks in the sides from where itis under the most pressure. I made it work, but it was not fun. I also bought a 1 piece tail fairing that gived the rear end a nice clean look in my opinion. Its pretty heavy and feels like its made mostly out of bondo. It has mounting points on the front (where the stock rear fairings meet the big side pieces, but there were no mounting points on the back of it. Needless to say I had to get creative with it.

Also, I bought some porch screening material from Home Depot, wrapped it around itself a few times and glued it to the side fairings where it shows the engine (pics below). I'm prettyhappy with how it turned out. As for the actual painting, I set up some of those plastic painters dropcloths (real cheap at walmart) in a shed and created a poor man's paint booth. It worked fairly well along with my $20 paint gun from ebay, and that includes shipping! I bought the actual paint from a local automotive paint shop and they were very friendly and even gave me tips on painting. The clear coat could have come out better but it looks alright.


Here is everything new I put on the bike:
smoked windscreen
black clutch and brake levers
new stator cover
1 piece front fairing
1 piece tail fairing
license plate rear turn signals
recovered the seat
decals from ebay
aftermarket black mirrors


now for some pics

heres what it used to look like:


all pieces bondoed, sanded, primed and on the bike ready to have the design taped off. there was a lot of road rash on all my plastics


here is the new paint job











I based the design on a picture of an F4i i saw somewhere on the F4i forum. I knew I wanted it to be a bit different so I came up with this. The white stripe where the black and red meet is 1/4' white pinstripping i bought from autozone for 3 bucks, not only does it look nice but it covers any mistakes I made where the two colors meet. I laid down clear coat overtop of them so they wouldnt peel.

Let me know what you think or if you have any questions or if you want to see a specific area closer up

 

If you want honest opinions/questions why is the Honda lettering over the tail light so far off-center?

 

Looks good for a DIY...Congrats!
RB

 

Yep looks good!

 

I like the inverted colors over the tank, butI would have gone with a different red, the red you used looks very flat. But overall very very nice job for a do-it-yourself

 

Yeah those decals were a pain to put on some of the pieces. I didnt really even realize that rear honda decal was off center until you mentioned it. im definitley no pro at this kind of thing but I did my best on it. I think it looks well enough but I dont really have any better explanation haha.

I didnt get my first couple of choices for the red because i went for a cheaper kind of paint as to keep the cost down.

thanks for the kind words

 

That's red? I thought it was orange...

 

yeah that looks like a good job there m8 well done will be good to get out in the summer and show it off

 

Hey I have just started priming my bike to repaint. Im curious how you went about removing all the stickers, or did you? It seems the my stickers have actually been glossed over so the only tip I have heard about was sanding the edges of the stickers so that there isn't any lip from the gloss over. Any other tips woul be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Jay

 

not sure about that "mesh" you have there. looks like window screen? and kinda wrinkled?