Re: mounting head protectors on R1100

[Robert Silas <robert.silas@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Mark,
These are baby scratches on your valve cover.  At my lowsided I had 1/8 to a 1/4 wide scratches and almost of the same depth.  I cleaned them up by sanding and used ordinary auto body filler to fill those scratches, sand them, just like regular auto body job, primed and painted them with closely matching lacquer can-paint  with off the shelf from Canadian Tire (it's an Auto Shop chain in Canada).
That was in 2000 and now, five years later, they still look new.
In fact I will repair a set of valve covers shortly again, I picked them up for spare. (bad habit)
Bob Silas
'94 RS 
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Marco S Hyman 
  To: oilheads@xxxxxxxxx 
  Sent: Monday, May 30, 2005 11:46 PM
  Subject: Re: mounting head protectors on R1100


  Robert Silas writes:
   > I meant that anybody can fix a few scratches on his own valve cover.

  My RT dropped on its side when my foot slipped while putting the bike
  on its center stand.   A bit of rain made the boots extra slippery.
  Of course the bike fell away from me, on its right side.   Falling wasn't
  enough... it then rocked back and forth making sure that any pebbles on
  the parking lot got lots of chance to dig gouges into the valve
  cover.

    http://www.snafu.org/smbc/trips/dvspring03/p-20030404-162731.jpg

  Yeah, I could have cleaned it up a bit, but at $84 I figured I'd make
  it pretty as new.

  Fast forward a year or so.   I see backup lights as I'm doing about
  1/2 MPH in a parking lot and hit the brakes, fast.   Too fast.
  The front wheel wasn't quite straight.   I didn't quite drop the bike;
  more like laying it down gently on the pavement.   I figured another
  scratched valve cover is better than a hernia :-)   That valve cover
  is still on the bike.   Didn't do enough damage to warrant replacing
  it nor have I bothered trying to make it look better.   Unless you
  get down and really look, you can't see the scratches, anyway.

  I figure that head protectors wouldn't have helped on the first fall.
  I also figure that if I had them on the second fall the scratched
  protectors would look worse than the scratches on the valve cover.
  On the other hand, should I wind up getting a GS I just may use them.
  Confused?   I am :-)

  // marc

------------------------------

End of oilheads-digest V2 #130
******************************