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I was looking for a 750 Katana, or a VFR, but, I mean... a Hurricane for $1350 and I won't miss a summer of riding? Sold.
I've got no reason to doubt the seller's story: the poor bike got abandoned by its buyer after 10k miles, left in storage where it got **** piled on top of it and shoved into it, eventually taken in a storage lein, passed to the storer's son, who put another 2k on it before putting it up for sale because he's moving.
12k on a 1988 bike. Poor thing probably has never even needed pads or a chain.
Unfortunately the fairing panels have taken a lot of abuse. Everything except the tank and tailpiece, and instrument surround had breaks or cracks. The left sidecover only had a broken mounting tab, so I decided not to repaint that; I just welded up the plastic as it was. There's a little distortion in the paint but you'd need to know what you're looking for.
Yeah plastic welding has been the bulk of my month since buying it, that and sanding. I tried to soda blast off the paint, but it was getting through this factory paint at a glacial pace. So I tried a stripper. Citri-Strip is supposed to be gentle! It said not to use it on fiberglass, but this isn't fiberglass, it's thermoplastic!
Yeah well it swelled up and softened all the ABS plastic, partially polymerized one piece... Since then I've been grinding and sanding, sanding and grinding... where there's cracks, I've melted in ABS filler, and where mounting tabs were broken, I melted together what was there and reinforced when needed. The thin piece behind the right turn signal was gone completely, so I had to rebuild that with strips of ABS from a sheet I bought, welding and grinding and filing and sanding into shape. A few other pieces also needed chunks welded on and ground to shape, especially the rider-facing pieces of the fairing.
Now I'm finally at the body filler stage. Bondo? Nah, polyester won't bond properly. Instead I took more ABS plastic and melted it in a glass jar with acetone, and I've got a perfect filler putty to fill in gouges and low areas. That's been applied and is curing now on the patio.
Coming up? More sanding, then primer. I ordered a flexible, water-borne primer made for bumper covers. And Summit Racing down in Tallmadge has a single-stage gloss black urethane with a little bit of metalflake that should match factory just about perfectly. Hurricane87 was nice enough to provide me with some photos of the big 1000 decal on his bike that I can use as a guide for replacing it on my fairing.
Finally going to get the title and registration sorted tomorrow, maybe I'll have her on the road this weekend. Maybe not.
You might want to try using some good old ABS black pipe cement to fill in the cracks and holes, I have done this quite a few times to mend pieces on my CBR1000F
You might want to try using some good old ABS black pipe cement to fill in the cracks and holes, I have done this quite a few times to mend pieces on my CBR1000F
All filled! ABS dissolved in acetone makes a good putty or glue, but using a soldering iron to welding melted ABS together allows it to be ground and sanded to shape as soon as it cools.
Before this post, I would have thought that my Hurricane had some of the worst plastics on the forum. Like mine were really bad. Almost none of the tabs were left, thing had been flat-blacked, oil-saturated bondo literally falling off the belly pan, cracks everywhere, one of the (many) PO's had hotglued a 3/4" bolt to replace one of the broken posts on the mid covers, no fewer than three layers of paint on everything, glass patches falling off, massive heat warp on the tail, list went on and on. I even found a piece of baling wire that someone had bondo'd over at a laughable attempt at structural repair
But I think yours might be worse. Good to see you've decided to fix them. Aside from the stripper, it looks like you've done your homework. Good luck and much patience
Before this post, I would have thought that my Hurricane had some of the worst plastics on the forum. Like mine were really bad. Almost none of the tabs were left, thing had been flat-blacked, oil-saturated bondo literally falling off the belly pan, cracks everywhere, one of the (many) PO's had hotglued a 3/4" bolt to replace one of the broken posts on the mid covers, no fewer than three layers of paint on everything, glass patches falling off, massive heat warp on the tail, list went on and on. I even found a piece of baling wire that someone had bondo'd over at a laughable attempt at structural repair
But I think yours might be worse. Good to see you've decided to fix them. Aside from the stripper, it looks like you've done your homework. Good luck and much patience
With the Bondo, I think yours are still worse. I'll gladly take runner-up.
Well, it was running fine a month ago, but now the carbs seem to have gummed up. It starts on full choke, but the moment I try to open the throttle it dies instantly. Time to take the carbs apart!
Screws on carbs required impact driver to break loose. Damaged a carb casting in the process. JB Weld and a Dremel tonight to fix that, while I boil the carb jets. Two screws with completely ****ed heads need replacing.
There was water in the gas. More like the was gas in the water. Tiniest passages in carbs gradually clearing with fresh gas and seafoam. Rode to work Mon-Tues and today (Thurs). This thing is a beast. And it whispers to me. It tells me to do naughty, illegal, dangerous things.
Restoring my poor '88
