Restoring Dirt Bike Plastics - ABC- From Sanding to the Clear Coat

 Most of the time when you buy a used bike the plastics are going to be banged up.

  From minor scratches to some pretty major gouging.

*( Click on any image to enlarge)


For the minor to medium scratch problems I do a sanding and clear coat. It turns out pretty decent in less than an hour (minus dry times)

 This is less than 10 minutes using a 240 grit paper by hand (not power disk).

slowly getting scratches out.

 After a cleaning with alcohol I then go to a 600 grit paper (blue)

 I then heat the plastic up and lightly hit any scratches I see with a 1000 grit.

Do NOT get to close to the plastic and Do NOT touch the plastic with the gun or you'll get a nice new scratch -- and start over.

 I then take the 1000 grit and do a wet sanding.

 After a cleaning with alcohol it's ready for a clear coat.

 You can see what everyone calls "orange peel" in the clear coat finish. I go over the clear coat with a light pass of *1500* grit sandpaper to get it really smooth.
Clean again, and then spray on another clear coating.

Finished plastic BEFORE even hitting it with a buffing polish!!

A CRF230 OEM Fender can be more than 29 bucks plus shipping and waiting 5 days to get it. - so being able to fix one up for pennies, and an hours time, is GREAT!!

Once again - thanks to THOSE on youtube  and forums and google for answering HOW TO problems without which I wouldn't know how to begin to experiment on my own with success.