Repairing R1250GS/A engine bars
I decided to get some damaged engine bars for my bike off ebay my thoughts were to put them on my bike as already damaged and keep the good undamaged ones in case i did ever drop it, or put back on if/when i ever sell it.
So the LHS one was obtained a few weeks ago off ebay. It seemed like it was on a bike that had just simply fallen over the scratches were very minor although the factory finish had gone.
I thought i'd try and cosmetically repair the bar to at least hide any scratches even if it meant giving the area a coat of Hammerite spray silver smooth.
I used 600 grade wet and dry and sand out the scratched area. The BMW OEM bars give an apperance of a factory coated/plated finish on steel.
However the bars are stainless steel tubing,
I managed to sand out the damage as they were so minor fairly quickly, i then used 1200 grade wet and dry to remove any 600 grade scouring.
I then polised the area with cutting compound.
In the space of about an hour i had fixed the bars back to pretty much factory and then coated with ACF50.
Unfortunately i didn't photograph any before or after results as i had no idea how easy it was going to be, to repair.
So I managed to get a new RHS bar off Neil12GS off this site, however a few days later a very cheap damaged RHS bar appeared on ebay. I bought it to record how easy it would be to
repair it.
It arrived in more seriously scratched state than the LHS. This one had been in a slow slide with some deeper gouges in it.
This would take more effort and will require a Hammerite paint job.
I filed off all the metal burring around and in the deeper gouges. I then sanded down around the scratched area with 600 grade until i felt i got the worst of the damage off.
I then filled the gouges with fibre glass paste as a filler (because thats all i had at the time) and smoothed that out. As you can see there already was quite an improvement.
I used some Hammerite silver smooth in an aerosol and masked up the areas that didn't require painting blending in the paint with light coats over the damaged bar.
OK Hammerite silver smooth isn't going to give you an exact stainless steel finish however what it does do, is give a reasonable, presentable finish that if you didn't know would easily
be unnoticed by anyone looking at the bike and only on very close examination would you be able to tell.
So if your bike has fallen over or had a very slow off and you are facing replacing your bars for new, this is a fairly easy fix if your prepared to have a go at repairing.
I decided to get some damaged engine bars for my bike off ebay my thoughts were to put them on my bike as already damaged and keep the good undamaged ones in case i did ever drop it, or put back on if/when i ever sell it.
So the LHS one was obtained a few weeks ago off ebay. It seemed like it was on a bike that had just simply fallen over the scratches were very minor although the factory finish had gone.
I thought i'd try and cosmetically repair the bar to at least hide any scratches even if it meant giving the area a coat of Hammerite spray silver smooth.
I used 600 grade wet and dry and sand out the scratched area. The BMW OEM bars give an apperance of a factory coated/plated finish on steel.
However the bars are stainless steel tubing,
I managed to sand out the damage as they were so minor fairly quickly, i then used 1200 grade wet and dry to remove any 600 grade scouring.
I then polised the area with cutting compound.
In the space of about an hour i had fixed the bars back to pretty much factory and then coated with ACF50.
Unfortunately i didn't photograph any before or after results as i had no idea how easy it was going to be, to repair.
So I managed to get a new RHS bar off Neil12GS off this site, however a few days later a very cheap damaged RHS bar appeared on ebay. I bought it to record how easy it would be to
repair it.
It arrived in more seriously scratched state than the LHS. This one had been in a slow slide with some deeper gouges in it.
This would take more effort and will require a Hammerite paint job.
I filed off all the metal burring around and in the deeper gouges. I then sanded down around the scratched area with 600 grade until i felt i got the worst of the damage off.
I then filled the gouges with fibre glass paste as a filler (because thats all i had at the time) and smoothed that out. As you can see there already was quite an improvement.
I used some Hammerite silver smooth in an aerosol and masked up the areas that didn't require painting blending in the paint with light coats over the damaged bar.
OK Hammerite silver smooth isn't going to give you an exact stainless steel finish however what it does do, is give a reasonable, presentable finish that if you didn't know would easily
be unnoticed by anyone looking at the bike and only on very close examination would you be able to tell.
So if your bike has fallen over or had a very slow off and you are facing replacing your bars for new, this is a fairly easy fix if your prepared to have a go at repairing.
