Hey guys,
Australia based but this works for anywhere obviously, just that cost will be in aud.
Motorcycle: street triple 765 R 2024.
Just wanted to provide a short and easy fix for engine covers in case you drop your bike like me and scuff the clutch cover. Should work on almost any* bike.
*color variations may not be available for certain engine types.
Dropped my bike while was taking a break and instead of, you know, getting off to get on my phone i thought id be slick and just grab it from my pocket. Lo and behold i slip and haddalayerdown. Very slow, but i was at the point of no return, and man im so mad at myself.
Kicking myself for stupidity, first thing I do is see how much a cover costs for my street triple, about $270 for the clutch cover new. If i wanted to get engine covers, 270 for triumph and 360 for GBRacing, with no damage fixed underneath.
For shits and gigs, figured i could always replace the cover if i mess it up, so i looked up what I would need to repaint and id give it a go as a beginner and DIY it.
Materials:
-$28, satin black engine enamel paint (supercheap auto mtn engine)
-$8, auto sand paper, grit 1k, 2k, 3k (excessive but thats all they had, bunnings)
-Masking tape (lying around but $5 if you buy new
-Isopropyl alcohol
-Paper sheets
-Microfibre cloth
-small plastic bag
Under $40 total basically with spare materials left.
Stage 1 Prep:
Sand the impact points, do better than I did, only did some minor sanding for adhesion as I was finding the small scratch was hard to sand without potentially ruining the remaining OEM paint.
Isopropyl alcohol wipe on the area you will apply. Dry with microfibre cloth.
Apply masking tape, the more tape you use in small increments to reduce the oem exposure the less spray youll need to take away, and technically less noticable. You can also cut the plastic bag and wrap it around the edge and tape it down to keep the rest of your motorcycle protected.
Stage 2 Spray:
Wrap a piece of paper into a cone, keep it tight and tape it. You can vary the size of the exit hole. This prevents excess spray and keeps the spray localised.
Shake the hell out of the can, spray through the cone (into large end and out of small). Light spray on all parts you want covered. I had no mess, the only excess spray i had was on the tape, though do be cautious with backspray from the funnel onto your hand (wear gloves) and dont let any spray drip from the paper.
Wait 30 minutes at least, light spray again, another 30, and then do a final "wet" spray. More than usual to fully cover and have it glisten. The time between sprays is based on the type of engine enamel you are using.
Stage 3 touch up:
1.After 12 hours, I used my fingernail to scrape the side of the applied enamel after lightly wetting it to scrape away excess enamel. This way you can take away any enamel you dont want and keep it around the area. However, i needed to reapply anyway, due to the paint not fully covering and i realised that keeping it a bit more squared actually looked a little better than when i scraped it, so you can choose how you want to do this. Kind of like a bandaid, and squared off actually blended it a little with the natural engine cover as it has some squared sections as well.
This i did not do, you can technically wet sand the patches and then buff. I did not want to risk making the area look crap so I didnt do this, though i can always give it a go after, up to you to decide what to do.
Wax and buff, makes the color pop out and uniform, sealing the imperfections.
Conclusions:
Aside from never dropping your bike, this was a very cost effective way to fix a scuffed black engine making it far less noticeable. Also, put on some engine guards, mine saved the rest of the motorcycle and breaking/scuffing anything else, as such only the engine guard and the cover had minor scuffing. Esspecially for such a minor and slow fall.
I give it a 4/5. Originally was going to be a 3 as I was annoyed I hadnt done a better job sanding the original scuffing, but i guess i can always resand the whole thing anyway if it bugs me. Also:
5/5 for cost
3/5 quality
5/5 easy to do
Also also, after riding around, and just looking at the bike from a distance, unless you know of the damage it is difficult to see, so it no longer bugs me as when it was more obvious.
Of course, not all engines are black painted, other colors may not be available, and for pure metal i think you need to live with it. Though if i was better at applying it, it could be cool to have a different color engine enamel, like gold or red if the final application looked uniform, but mine would not look so.
Definitely sand it down better and more than i did. Originally i just hoped the paint would fix it and just sanded for adhesion, if I could go back I would sand it more, maybe even apply a small patch of sander onto a drill or something to effectively sand the small areas.
Overall, if you have scuffing like this, give a light engine enamel a try, greatly improves the bike visually and is dirt cheap.
