Plastic side-cover pins

[Anonymous]

My 1980 GS1000g had both the side-cover pins missing when I bought it, the whole bike was quite tatty & has now been fully restored.
As you know, these pins only act as a locator/retainer and don't really have to be very strong, so they get broke!
A very simple & CHEAP fix is as follows. You will need to buy 2-3 inches of hardwood dowel, a small block of wood, a brass or plastic compression fitting olive that fits the dowel & a little bit of superglue.
First, get yourself a bit of wood dowel that will slip through the rubber locating grommet in the bikeframe, not tight & not too sloppy.
Next, locate the area inside the plastic cover where the original pin was, now when this was one moulding it was quite strong, so just gluing it, or another on will not be good enough. clean this area thoroughly with some gas & then rough it up with glasspaper or similar.
cut about 1.5 inch of the dowel & place it it the rubber grommet with about 3/4 inch sticking out , carefully lower the cover onto the 2 mounting lugs & line it up with the air filter cover,if you look down inside you will see there is about 1/2 inch or so between inside of the cover to the grommet.
Remove the cover & apply some superglue to the outter end of the dowel (don't get it on the grommet) carefully re-fit the cover & let the dowel glue itself to the inside, you might want to 'push' the dowel from the inside with a screwdriver to make it reach. What you have done is to glue a new pin in exactly the right place, but it's nowere near strong enough yet.
Leave a few mins to set then carefully remove it.
Remember the gap between the inside of the cover and the grommet?
Cut a block of wood about this thickness & about 1inch square, drill a hole through its center the same dia as the dowel, drop the block over the dowel down to the inside of the cover, check for full contact, you may have to 'fettle' it a few times to get a good fit. Superglue or epoxy the block to the cover & dowel,
You should now have a very strong pin assembly, refit the cover & note how much of the dowel sticks through past the grommet, mark with a pencil, remove the cover & superglue on the compression olive onto the dowel, cut off exess dowel. I actually painted mine the same colour as the cover & it looks original! I always put a smear of silicone grease on the pins & grommets & they slide on & off like silk!
Sorry if it seems a bit complex, it is'nt ,took longer to explain than to do!
P.S. the idea of the block is twofold, it's a depth stop for the cover & it makes the pin much stronger than original. The idea of the olive is that it will 'plop' through the grommet & out the other side thus mimicking the original. the secret of sucsess is CARE!
If this topic has been mentioned before & its a better idea than mine then I apolgise in advance!
Lawrie

[Dink]

Lawrie that is a great idea and very well explained too!!!
Dink

[dgeorge]

Lawrie, what dink said! I've got one broken on the "83" GS1100GK that I'm trying to restore, and I'll definitly be trying this to replace it. I'd tried using modeling clay and some epoxy putty but all that did was stick everything together. By the way great job on the one that you restored it looks great.

[Anonymous]

Another thing to try.

We just had to fix a cover on my friends '79 GS1000L. Since we are just coming out of maple syrup season here in Maine, every place around has plastic taps. These are hard plastic with ridges on them to hold plastic hose. The end is a round knob.

We cut the end down so it was flat, roughed up the inside of the cover and the end of the tap with emery paper, and glued it on with 30 minute epoxy. The ridges on the pipe hold it in the grommet, so there's nothing to do after the epoxy dries, just snap it on.

We worked it quite a bit before we installed it to see if minor flexing would break the epoxy loose, and it appeared to hold very solidly.

Rene

[Anonymous]

Great idea that, I like it!
Lawrie

[Anonymous]

side covers for 81 850L

Will the side covers from any 81 850 work? or does it have to be a L model?

Thanks in advance!!! 8O

[Anonymous]

Tried that with the epoxy. didnt work PVC pipe glue holds that plastic together best. I just removed mine, drilled a small hole in the cover where the peg once was, went to a hardware store and got a threadded bolt long enough to put it through the rubber grommet on the frame and peep out of the cover. then I put it on held in place by 2 large flat washers and nut threaded down to retain it. Put the cover back on used a stainless steel cap screw to hold the cover on. Doesnt look bad and I know it will never come off unless i want it to.

[Dink]

Re: side covers for 81 850L

Will the side covers from any 81 850 work? or does it have to be a L model?

Thanks in advance!!! 8O

Sorry no , it will have to be from off an "L" model
Dink

[QuaiChangKane]

All of the side panel tabs were broken off on my '83 750E when I bought it, but the previous owner did a pretty clean modification.

Get some blind nuts (don't know if they have an actual name) - they're basically a small piece of stamped metal folded back over on itself, with a hole in the center. I've seen 'em used for car speakers and door panels before. These will slip onto the hole where the panel grommets go (sans grommets). Find the spot on the inside of your side cover where the pin broke off, and drill a hole clean through the panel - 1/4" should do. Get some 1-1/2" by 3/16" coarse-thread screws, some rubber washers, and cap-washers (the kind that are like donuts and allow the screw head to recess into them - they look almost like a snap). Screw the panels into place, using a rubber washer and a cap washer on the outside - the blind nuts will allow a bit of movement so you can line the panel up to your liking, but make sure to get some fat rubber washers to use as spacers behind the panel so you don't over-tighten the screws and crack your panel. You can paint the screw heads and cap-washers to match your panel, used anodized screws, or any number of things to make this blend in or customized.

Drilling the panels wouldn't have been my first choice, but it's not at all unattractive, and I don't ever have to worry about a panel blowing off on the freeway, or having a dowel snap off...

If anyone's intersted (I know this was probably vague), I'll post some pictures...

-Q!

[QuaiChangKane]

Michael - did you get those pictures?

Word of warning. Drilling out the panels and using screws on the side covers works well - but be aware of the length of the screws you use...

I had the tank and panels off yesterday to change out my controls and cables. When I put it all back together, I replaced the screws that were holding my panels on with some nicer stainless hardware. It seems that the last screw I put in (where the panel mount is a tab welded to the tank) was about 1/4" longer than the old one. I didn't notice anything wrong when I put the panels back on - everything lined up and fit as well as it did before.

Today I went out to replace the choke cable. I removed the seat, and took out the tank bolts. I took off one side cover, then the other. As I was leaning down to the ground near the front of my bike to set the panel down, I smelled gasoline. I checked the hoses and the petcock, checked to make sure the new throttle cable wasn't pinched and holding the throttle open - then I leaned down to see if I could see any carb leaks. Nope - no carb leak. But I did see a steady trickle of fuel coming from a pinhole where the longer panel screw threaded right into the tank.

Of all the &#^@%!* bonehead moves. So I had to thread the screw back in the get the leak to stop - and that's how she sits right now. No leak with the screw in, but bound to get bigger if I have to take the panel back of. I feel like such a schmuck.

So be wary of this - and somebody please tell me if they know of a lasting fix for this short of having to take it to a metal shop to have them weld it shut.


-Q!


(BUT THE NEW KATANA CONTROLS WORK GREAT!!)

[dpep]

I broke off the pin on my side panel myself so I still had the original piece to work with. I reglued the pin to the panel. Then I built up a mound around the base using successive layers of Goop. The mound extends more than halfway to the end of the pin. The pin won't be breaking off at the base. I imagine the goop mound could also be used to provide some additional support the the wooden dowel.

[Anonymous]

Lets not forget the old velcro trick, it's super cheap and works. Use your adhesive of choice, two sided tape, rubber cement....etc stick one side of the velcro on the mounting point, the other on the body panel. You can use almost any soft rubbery, sponge type, or flexible material as a mounting area for the velcro on the panel. Dont stick the velcro direct onto the body piece. You need to have some small resistance when you push the two pieces together. Word of caution, dont use any type of permanent adhesive (ie JB Weld) one of my buddies went that route. When he decided to replace the panel with an intact panel installing the groumet was not easy. There was way to much, drilling, filing, and sanding involved. It's also not unheard of for panels to blow off at triple digit speeds.

If you're really serious and have a little money to spend you can have a new "Prong" plastic welded onto your panel. Should be about $20.00 a prong to place and finish. It will need to be painted after that.

[Anonymous]

Not sure if youve read this before, but I tried regluing my snapped off pins back on with Baking soda and super glue and they have lived for 12 years without a hitch. You basically make a little ring of baking soda around the base of the pin (tack in place with the glue first) and saturate it with Super glue. Works great on the side panels. Not very attractive on the B-side, but better than through bolting em.

I also replaced the pins on my lower fairing panels with 1/4 turn DZUS fasteners. You can rivet the receiver right where the Grommets used to reside and drill where the broken pins once were on the side panel for the fastener itself. These wind up looking racy too. I did this after one of the panels blew off the bike at about 140. Never again. You can get the DZUS fasteners about anywhere these days.[img][/img]

[Birdman]

I started repairing the side-panels on my '79 GS1000L this morning. I started with a piece of 5/16" diameter brass tubing (from my local Ace hardware store). The 5/16" tubing is a decent slip-fit into the grommets without any slop. I had earlier discovered an epoxy-type product called plastic welder (sold by Perma-Poxy, Permatex, and others as well). It is basically an acrylic monomer, similar to what is used to repair dentures professionally (and BOY does it stink! DO NOT USE THIS IN THE HOUSE IF YOU WANT TO KEEP YOUR SPOUSE HAPPY!!!). It actually melts into the plastic and becomes a part of it as it hardens. Works great on ABS, and can be sanded and painted (it cures to a sort of cream color). It also does a fairly decent job bonding metals to plastics. Anyway, I cut 2 pieces of brass tubing 6-1/2cm long (the only ruler I had handy was metric), one for each side cover. I cut into it to a distance from the end of 3cm, in such a way as to make 4 "petals" that could be opened up and spread flat (making a sort of cross or "X" on the end of the tube). One petal had to be bent to the curved inside shape of the "lip" of the side panel and then trimmed shorter. I then mixed up a big gob of plastic welder and spread it on thick where the original peg went. Then I slid the tubing into the grommet, indexing it to locate the petals where they would locate on the inside of the cover. Then I put the side panel on. By taking the seat and airbox off I was able to work easily from the inside as well as outside to get the best possible fit. I then held them together until it had "set" enough to not come apart just sitting (the Permatex brand sets especially quickly). I am leaving them in place while the plastic welder cures (about 4 hours to full cure). I will later put 2 5/16" (inside diameter) compression fitting "olives" on the tubing, one to act as a retainer and one to act as a "stop". I'll also build up additional re-enforcement arount the "petals" later on. We'll see how well it works, though I'm confident that it will.

[Birdman]

Update

I started repairing the side-panels on my '79 GS1000L this morning. I started with a piece of 5/16" diameter brass tubing (from my local Ace hardware store). The 5/16" tubing is a decent slip-fit into the grommets without any slop. I had earlier discovered an epoxy-type product called plastic welder (sold by Perma-Poxy, Permatex, and others as well). It is basically an acrylic monomer, similar to what is used to repair dentures professionally (and BOY does it stink! DO NOT USE THIS IN THE HOUSE IF YOU WANT TO KEEP YOUR SPOUSE HAPPY!!!). It actually melts into the plastic and becomes a part of it as it hardens. Works great on ABS, and can be sanded and painted (it cures to a sort of cream color). It also does a fairly decent job bonding metals to plastics. Anyway, I cut 2 pieces of brass tubing 6-1/2cm long (the only ruler I had handy was metric), one for each side cover. I cut into it to a distance from the end of 3cm, in such a way as to make 4 "petals" that could be opened up and spread flat (making a sort of cross or "X" on the end of the tube). One petal had to be bent to the curved inside shape of the "lip" of the side panel and then trimmed shorter. I then mixed up a big gob of plastic welder and spread it on thick where the original peg went. Then I slid the tubing into the grommet, indexing it to locate the petals where they would locate on the inside of the cover. Then I put the side panel on. By taking the seat and airbox off I was able to work easily from the inside as well as outside to get the best possible fit. I then held them together until it had "set" enough to not come apart just sitting (the Permatex brand sets especially quickly). I am leaving them in place while the plastic welder cures (about 4 hours to full cure). I will later put 2 5/16" (inside diameter) compression fitting "olives" on the tubing, one to act as a retainer and one to act as a "stop". I'll also build up additional re-enforcement arount the "petals" later on. We'll see how well it works, though I'm confident that it will.

UPDATE: I built up around the base petals with regular epoxy last night (running low on Plastic Weld). Put the "olives" on the left-hand sidecover brass tube with superglue (need to get one more for the right hand side). Works great!