Heelsaver pipe mod & the wrong way to black'en forks... oh well

[stopintime]

My boot heels are melting and my forks need to be black, so I did some work on them.
Not very happy with the outcome, which surely will be much worse soon.

I managed to put the exhaust wrap on quite nicely, but when time came for the mesh screen...   I expect my bootheels to be saved though. If it falls apart, there must be some way of moving the stock guards (later)

The forks were already halfway covered by a carbon sticker from my suspension shop. Didn't stick, so I secured them with zip ties. The upper part of the forks are now covered by individual pieces of hockey tape - not going to look pretty after some time, but hell, I tried....

Feel absolutely free to give me better ideas 

[JEFF_H]

ceramic coat the s-pipe instead.
(wait till the winter when your bike is out of commission)

[stopintime]

ceramic coat the s-pipe instead.
(wait till the winter when your bike is out of commission)

Hi Jeff 

Does ceramic coating really reduce temperature that much? Didn't know....

[JEFF_H]

yes, you can touch it with your bare hand
 

might as well do the header pipe at the same time so they both look nice

[ProTeal55]

yes, you can touch it with your bare hand
 

I have to call BS on the above statement.
You come to Chicago and put your bare hand on my ceramic coated (both inside and out) pipes after the bike has been warmed up..
You will be going home with quite a nice burn...

[Rufus120]

IMHO-

You should ditch the stickers and do the whole fork in that tape. No offense, but the zip ties over the stickers looks The hockey tape looks much better.  Plus people know those aren't carbon forks to why have them try to look that way?  If you want to keep the carbon stickers could you at least move the zip ties closer to the top and bottom of the stickers?

I've had the say issue with my boots melting and went the exhaust wrap route as well.  I got some metal zip tie type things that say they are good up to 1500 degree and used them to keep my wrap on.  I just painted them black with some bbq paint.  Not sure if they're gonna hold up since I've only got a few hundred miles on em.  So far so good though. 

I'll get some pictures in a bit to show you what I mean.

[stopintime]

I have to call BS on the above statement.
You come to Chicago and put your bare hand on my ceramic coated (both inside and out) pipes after the bike has been warmed up..
You will be going home with quite a nice burn...

Jeff didn't actually offer to put HIS hand on them - he suggested I do it 

IMHO-

You should ditch the stickers and do the whole fork in that tape. No offense, but the zip ties over the stickers looks The hockey tape looks much better.  Plus people know those aren't carbon forks to why have them try to look that way?  If you want to keep the carbon stickers could you at least move the zip ties closer to the top and bottom of the stickers?

I've had the say issue with my boots melting and went the exhaust wrap route as well.  I got some metal zip tie type things that say they are good up to 1500 degree and used them to keep my wrap on.  I just painted them black with some bbq paint.  Not sure if they're gonna hold up since I've only got a few hundred miles on em.  So far so good though. 

I'll get some pictures in a bit to show you what I mean.

I'd be happy to see your pictures

Agree on the stickers - they look a little childish. I wanted to anodize when the forks were off the bike, but had to keep within my budget. They would have to take off some extra parts on the Marzocchi forks to anodize and ended up quoting me $340....
I expect the hockey tape to become ugly, hard to keep clean I guess. Maybe I could apply vinyl in individual pieces as and where I did the hockey tape - the lower part should be easy enough to cover in vinyl.

Thanks for the input

[JEFF_H]

I have to call BS on the above statement.
You come to Chicago and put your bare hand on my ceramic coated (both inside and out) pipes after the bike has been warmed up..
You will be going home with quite a nice burn...

i stand corrected, but are they cool enough to not melt your boot?

[rockaduc]

My boot heels are melting and my forks need to be black, so I did some work on them.
Not very happy with the outcome, which surely will be much worse soon.

I managed to put the exhaust wrap on quite nicely, but when time came for the mesh screen...   I expect my bootheels to be saved though. If it falls apart, there must be some way of moving the stock guards (later)

The forks were already halfway covered by a carbon sticker from my suspension shop. Didn't stick, so I secured them with zip ties. The upper part of the forks are now covered by individual pieces of hockey tape - not going to look pretty after some time, but hell, I tried....

Feel absolutely free to give me better ideas 

Nice Bike!  I agree that the zio tied stickers are  , but why not vinyl wrap the entire upper fork tube?  A few folks arind here have done so and it looks pretty cool.  Also, I thought "you guys" had snow on the ground year 'round over there !

[Rufus120]

Alright here are a few pictures of my exhaust.  I had never really worked with this stuff and I have no idea if I have done anything wrong.  It didn't come out quite as well as I had wanted, but oh well.  If anything needs to be done to the exhaust the wraps gonna have to come off.  And it was a major pita to get it like this.

The whole deal


This is how I tried to clean up the ends with those metal zip ties.


This is what they look like from the inside. I just bent the ends and then cut off the excess.  I'm curious to see how they hold up over time.


I didn't have a spring puller and I couldn't get the springs off, so I just went over 'em. Hope that wasn't a bad idea.  When I got to where the header meets the engine block I had a few extra feet left.  I just doubled back and tried to hide that end of the wrap under the bike, instead of at the end of the header.


The smoke is just the water I dipped the wrap in burning off.

[He Man]

Id just put a peice of exahust tape over taht specific area and tie a knot. keep it simple until riding season is over. ceramic coat cools down fast, but itll still bur nthe snot out of you while the bike is running.

or you can go radical and get foot surgery to make your foot smaller.

[psycledelic]

Or just lose the back half of your exhaust.  That is what I am in the process of doing.  Can't melt your shoes if it isn't there.  Added bonus, the exposed rear tire looks cool as hell.  I should have some example pics in a week or two.  I agree with getting rid of the stickers.  Vinyl wrap looks pretty cool.  I plan on giving it a try in the near future. 

[JimE]

You should liberally spray the header wrap with a silicone type spray paint. This will help seal the wrap and prevent fraying of the edges. Also helps with keeping the heat in the pipes. I just did a header on a truck of mine and this worked very well. The metal zip ties were a good idea, a bit expensive, but a good idea. Unfortunately I just couldn't get them as tight as I wanted and reverted to safety wire. If done well and painted over the safety wire almost disappears. the paint I'm talking about will be right by the header wrap at your local auto parts store. Rufus120: looking good! Nice job.

[ProTeal55]

My experiences with headerwrap:
1. Before you do anything dump the wrap in a bucket of water.
This gives the wrap more stretch (so you can wrap it tighter to the pipe) as well as ditches allot of the fiberglass so it doesnt get in your hands.
2. Wear some kinda gloves when wrappin your exhaust (as well as crappy clothes)
3. Wrap the pipe as tight as you can (sometimes a two person job)..
4. As you go use reg plastic zip ties to hold the wrap in place (so it wont come un-done).
5. When all is said and done use those metal zip ties (as shown above) to hold the wrap to the pipe.
Once ALL is done go over the entire pipe with some Duplicolor Low-Gloss engine enamel to give a clean look to what you just did.
6. Re-Install on bike, start it up, and walk away for awhile becasue all sorts of smoke and smells are going to happen.
7. If need be touch-up is just a spray can away..
Here's two pics of my old CL450 which I wrapped the custom exhaust I came up with (total pregnant dog) but came out good in the end:

[He Man]

that bike looks awesome, sure looks mighty hot for Mr. Righty though!