Bikini fairing/headlight CB250RS

[xwhatsit]

Hi guys,

Now once I have the engine all sorted and a new pair of (unborrowed) wing mirrors (btw... where can you buy mirrors? I just need ones with 10mm thread (I think), I don't mind that they're not original, the originals were shit until I smashed one with my foot in a lowside ), the next thing I want to do is some bodywork.

In the above-mentioned lowside, I scraped the rear bodywork slightly, I think I can fix that nicely with some bog and touch up paint (any tips on finding the correct shade of touch-up paint? Will the Repco stuff work?). One thing though is the headlight. In general I think the bike has quite nice lines, I especially am fond of the fuel tank. It looks quite good for an 80s creature; however I am not at all keen on the rectangular headlight. Where could I get a round one? Is this practical? What sort of expense am I looking at here?

Next up is a bikini fairing . I've seen some quite nice ones, looking around on Google, in old photos. I'm pretty sure they never came from the factory like that, so they must have been 3rd party and I don't really hold out much hope of acquiring one. So what I would like to ask is, is it possible to do fairings? I don't necessarily want a windshield, but just a nice little scoop at the front to wrap around the instruments, perhaps extend down around the headlight too.

When I was a wee lad, my pa built a gokart. He got a slightly broken up fibreglass seat for it, which had a hole in the bottom. He got some kind of wondrous fibreglass patching kit; you got the fibres, put them over the hole, then got some special glue and spread it all over it and magically overnight it turned into clear fibreglass. Could I, first make some kind of mould out of wood or plaster or something, then use a few patching kits to make a fairing? I think this would be a really fun thing to do.

Any thoughts? Anybody tried this before?

[98tls]

As per the touch up paint dont bother with the Repco stuff..its crap..a couple of weeks ago i bought 2 cans of red....they were both different (very) to what was specified on the can...when i took them back and did a whinge repco wasnt interested and said no guarantee..even though in bold type on the can it says cap matches color of contents as for bikini style fairings etc have a look at www.sportsbikesnz.co.nz

[xwhatsit]

Thanks for the info regarding the touch up paint! I wasn't too confident in it, but thought I'd check anyway because it's only about $20 or something.

Whoah those fairings at www.sportsbikesnz.co.nz are a bit steep! Hahaha. $400... blimey. I've seen a few of those fibreglass kits for about $35, if I got a couple of those it might be enough.

What about headlights, though? Where does one purchase these?

[HenryDorsetCase]

most automotive paint places will put paint the colour of your choice in spray cans.

Repco and places like that are OK for lights, if you have a standard 7 inch round headlight.

keep an eye on tardme, though stuff like those fairings tends to go a bit dear (I really like the lines of roundcase ducati SS bikini fairings personally)

[xwhatsit]

You mean like this?

That's almost exactly what I was thinking of ^_^. I think with a round headlight on a CB250RS it wouldn't look too ridiculous. Repco sells headlights? Sweet, I'll have a look there. I don't currently have a 7" round headlight, I've got a square one that I don't know the size of; I imagine mounting a round one might not be totally straightforward, but I've seen photos of Japanese CB250RSs racing with round headlights.

I'm rather enamoured with the idea of building my own fairing. I'd say the roundcase fairing pictured would be a rather difficult thing to build with the sweeping side-pieces, but something a little more simplified might be manageable. I've seen a few tutorials on fibreglassing (surfboards and kayaks mostly, but it's all applicable) on the web, and it looks doable. Sculpting the mould/plug would be the hardest bit... but it's fun to give these things a try I think.

Cheers.

[classic zed]

My Bikini fairing I found on eBay, cost me $19.99 US + shipping.

It was a universal unit for a round headlamp bike, but with a bit of plastic welding and plastic filler I managed to make it fit