Ducati Monster Forum

Doing a little repair project for a mate who dropped his 848 at Wakefield
low sided @ 140 when his front wheel let go.
Frame sliders helped but a naked bike would of faired better IMO ;D
Lucky for Billie(Rob S will remember him) most of the damage to his body was bruising and torn leathers .
The bike did not fair so well hence my favour.
Along with the race fairing's obvious damage which I am repairing for him he snapped the weld holding his expensive bling rear sets  :-[
damaging the frame which still may be a right off now destined forever to be a $18,000 track bike  :'(.
some pics below of the repair in progress.







(http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff57/ohana181/P4280620.jpg)
(http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff57/ohana181/P4280621.jpg)
(http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff57/ohana181/P5010625.jpg)

That's a big job.

I swore off fairings (and four cylinder motors) while changing the plugs on my old across.  Took half a bloody day, in between pulling the bloody fairing off and fabricating a tool to get to an almost completely inaccessible plug.

Besides, any excuse to get the gear off...

OUCH!
I feel hurt just looking at it.

I like my women Bikes naked too ;D

oh the double meanings in all of this  ;D ;D

glad to hear your mate is ok, and thats a nice project!

yes i do like to be naked [evil] [roll]

Meh.... Photos or it never happened..  ;D

I'll pm you some later Unge ;) [roll]

  Me too!;D

Last job I did before leaving the Ducati dealer up here in Cairns was to quote on an 848 that was thrown down
the road, mainly cosmetic damage, I got to nearly $14000 plus labour.

But the second the Insurance Bloke spotted the bent brackets for the Rearsets, he wrote it off.

It would appear the Rearset brackets Bend/Break very easily on the 848's

yeah whilst fairings are nice and comfy to hide behind nothing like getting out there in the wind and being buffeted on the chest - grrrrr!!! real men (and ladies on this forum) ride naked!!  [moto] (well not literally there are safety concerns and I love my epidermis and do not love skin graphs and recently there are very good examples of people wearing good protective gear on this forum too!  [thumbsup]) ok disclaimer finished! ;D

I remember once at at Malalla (small goat track 45 mins out of Adelaide  [cheeky]) I guy took his CBR1000 - road registered - out on a track day - he low sided scratched his fairings, and took off the lower footpegs on the left side.  the bike made it's way very quickly on to a bike trailer and under a tarp.  Fast forward a couple of months same guy has a new CBR1000 plus matching track bike!  Seems the insurance company wrote the bike off for what I considered cosmetic damage.  How easily it adds up!  ;D

Sometimes fairing is a good thing,who knows where the handlebar would have gone if the tail piece wasn't there   :o :-[
(http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4030/4569704861_537d00cc70_o.jpg)

I will admit I am a person that can grasp the majority of concepts, but can you explain to me how the tail piece would of prevented the handlebar doing damage? ???

Someone else's handlebar? Heading in the direction of "a place the sun don't shine".   :o

Now, your going to feel a pinch  :o

ah - oohh - actually copped a handlebar from another rider's bike in the hip once on the track - my leathers saved me there , no fairing there  [laugh].  kamikaze pilots and there extremely late breaking manoeuvres.... [laugh]

OMG. I hope there aren't any of those in the White Group on Sunday.  :-\  [bow_down]

Er... am I the only one that picked up on this ??

Good to see you 'revealing' more of yourself suzyj





                                     Mmick

All done
(http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff57/ohana181/P5040628.jpg)
(http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff57/ohana181/P5040627.jpg)

that is some very good work!  [thumbsup]

Mind me asking how much a job like that would usually cost??

I would like to know too so I can give Billie the bill [laugh]
I quoted him $200 but I will let him pay me what he thinks is fair
Nah his a mate so probably a case of beer [drink]

Looks good Dez.

Perhaps you guys could help to inform the uninitiated (thats me, stoopid). I have heard the terms 'plastics' and 'race glass' thrown around my guess at being:

. factory issue plastic fairings
. fibreglass replacements for the track

I am assuming that fibreglass is cheaper and lighter to repair, is that about right?

On a separate but kinda related note how do these things go with fuel?
I've heard about the 'expanding tank' problem in the US with the plastic tanks but how does fibreglass handle fuel (you know green frame tank, etc)?

So what are the pros and cons of plastic vs. fibreglass?

I should have known better I s'pose asking on here about plastic and fibreglass.

So to make it more palatable and hopefully to get a response I will throw carbon fibre into the mix as well. I have heard of carbon fibre tanks (and obviously body panels) ... so pros and cons of each ... comparatively speaking.

I'm no expert from a motorbike perspective, but from a manufacturing point of view, plastic would be immensely cheaper to produce in large volumes, but need very expensive tooling.  Fibreglass and carbon, otoh, need relatively inexpensive tooling but quite a bit of labour to make.  Materials for carbon of course are more expensive than fibreglass.

I'd imagine that a damaged plastic fairing would be very hard to repair, so fibreglass and carbon win there - as shown by Dez.

So for bike manufacturers who are wanting to build things by the thousands plastic is the go, as evidenced by all the plastic bits on our bikes.

For those who are making things in the tens, or even hundreds, carbon/fibreglass is much better.

Fibreglass is heavier than plastic and will resist fuels like methanol which would virtually dissolve most "plastics"!! But not ideal when you want to save weight! I have seen some racers fairings (who were prone to checking out the track surface fairly regularly  [roll] ) have fairings that were a good 2+ kgs heavier than the original pristine uncrashed product after a few repairs!  [moto] The term "autumn leaves" applied liberally here!  [cheeky]

As Kaz said, once the tooling (read... bloody expensive! [roll]) for plastic is made, the product can be banged out by the thousands, but firbreglass, carbon fibre and composites by their nature are quite labour intensive therefore expensive! ???

If you are looking at things from a "green" perspective, plastics are generally recyclable. Grind the old stuff up, add some virgin material and voila its reborn and on another bike, car, or even a bedside table! [evil] [thumbsup]

Thank you peoples.

What she Said  +1 [thumbsup]