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9cherry9
| Posted on Thursday, June 16, 2011 - 11:30 pm: |
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I just replaced my windscreen with another color (red) and after hand snugging up the screws and riding for a week or so it's cracking around the screw holes. Is there some magic I missed on the installation ? The solid black seems tougher than than the translucid for some reason ? |
Firebolt020283
| Posted on Thursday, June 16, 2011 - 11:47 pm: |
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I have the same thing happening on my cherry bomb airbox cover around the screw on the front of it. To me the solid colors seem to be made of a softer more flexible plastic than the clear stuff how ever I will probably replace my airbox cover with another red one because i like look of the translucent stuff too much. |
Greg_e
| Posted on Friday, June 17, 2011 - 10:46 am: |
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Do you have all the little nylon washers on the screws? If you do then you may consider going to rubber washers. Not sure why the red screen would be more brittle than the clear screen, they should be made out of the same plastic. Now the clear air cleaner cover is definitely made out of a more brittle plastic than the stock solid plastics and I can see why that might cause cracking. If you really want to avoid the cracks, you can carefully drill out the mounting holes with a drill bit made for plastic (very important) and insert rubber grommets and metal standoffs so the screws have something to snug against. You will need to experiment with grommet size to get the correct parts. Again is is very important that you use drill bits made for acrylic, regular bits can catch and cause a crack and they also often leave a rough hole that cracks later. If you look at the stock windscreens, they have kind of rounded edges on the holes to help prevent cracks. |
Andymnelson
| Posted on Friday, June 17, 2011 - 10:52 am: |
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Greg, he rides a CityX, so he went from a solid color to a translucid color....no clear flyscreen for the S models! Yes, they seem more brittle. Rubber washers might help. |
Greg_e
| Posted on Friday, June 17, 2011 - 12:55 pm: |
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OK, I was thinking R model. You might be able to solve this on a new one with careful application of a fine file to each hole. Round off all the sharp edges and sort of polish the spot where it was drilled. Might help, might not. What I have found in working with acrylic is that the smoother the mounting holes, the less likely they will break. Stress risers happen all over to any sheet that was drilled. Cast products don't develop these cracks as easily. You can also heat polish these plastics, but you must be very careful or you will cause a change in shape, and if not heated as a complete unit and allowed to cool slowly, you could cause very large cracks. I suspect that these clear plastics were vac-formed from the originals and then drilled. If they are cast including casting the holes, then everything I mentioned doesn't apply. |
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