I'm beginning to dislike the silver/black combo of my f4i and I wanted to change it to something different...oh say all white maybe. I can order the fairings from Auctmarts no problem, but the gas tank has become a bit of an issue. Would it be easier to just vinyl it rather than paint it, and has any1 done this before? And if so, where did you get the work done?

 

Any auto body shop will do it.

 

I find it cheaper to just have the bike painted.. Specially if your doing a solid color.. Im having mine painted Pearl white over the winter and its only going to cost around 600... Thats how much it costs to get you a set of fairings sent to you!

 

can they do it with the tank still attached? Or will I have to remove it either way?

 

do they need you to do any prep work? I'm jsut worried about removing the gas tank

 

The more prep work you do, the less it'll cost you. If the shop has to pull everything off and sand it, that'll be the man hours in the bill.

 

If you do not know what you are doing as in preping do not do it. It could end up costing you more in the end because if you by chance mess up the prep work it will take more time for the shop to fix it and reprep.
But if you were going to go the vinyl route just order it your self and apply it on with a hair dryer or heat gun and a good pair of gloves so you dont burn your hands.

 

True. But there are varying degrees of prep work

if he rides the bike up there and tells them to paint away, the price can get ugly. Taking the fairings and tank off will drop the price significantly. Removing any decals (hair dryer and patience) will drop it some as well.

Going beyond that into stripping and sanding when the tough prep comes in.

 

When I got my new race plastics, I painted my tank that was already painted by someone else who did a ****-poor job at it.

Basically alls I did was Scotchbrite everything the best I could, give it an alcohol bath and keep the finger prints off it.

I forget the grit of sandpaper that I used after the Scotchbrite but my process was prime, wet sand, prime, wet sand, paint, wetsand, paint, wet sand, clear, wet sand, clear.

Came out okay but it's a race bike so my only goal was to make it look nice from 100 feet or 100 mph.

 

If he is scared of taking the tank off then more involved prep-work is probably out of the equation as well.

(you can't paint the tank with it still on the bike btw)
Maybe you (donuts) should consider selling the tank and buying another one in the color you want (could end up being way cheaper if you look for a bargain and get a decent price for your tank)... though that is assuming you will be going to a color that is/was made by honda.