In the Shop with Ron

by Ron Johnson a reInForcInG rePaIr

Hope everyone has been able to take advantage of the few decent riding days we’ve had so far this season. It has been a very wet and unseasonably cool spring so far and the long-range forecast doesn’t look all that promising. Keep hoping; it is still early and this is Michigan! Enough of my lamenting about the weather… This month in the shop, we are doing a structural repair of a nut allocation on the fairing of a 2002 Harley-Davidson FLHTPI/ Road King Police Edition.

There is a nut allocation on the outer fairing, where a bolt goes through the inner fairing and holds the outer fairing in place. This bolt will get corroded and when you try to remove it, the composite material (being weaker) will often break. get a wrench on the hex part of the nut allocation and hold it while getting the bolt to come free before it breaks the composite material. If it does indeed break—like this one did—again, with a bit of patience, it can be repaired. I’m not sure how well this will show up in the pictures, but if you can see it, the tower for the nut allocation is hollow, as is the base where it broke off from.

To make this repair, we will be using a two-part epoxy material that is compatible with the material we are repairing. The first step—and probably the most important—is to make sure all the mating surfaces are clean and free of any dirt, grease, oil, wax, and paint. I use a wax- and grease-removing solvent. The next step is to lightly sand the mating surfaces so the epoxy repair material can get a good bite. This repair will require the addition of some type of reinforcing in order to make it strong enough to allow tightening of the bolt and also not break loose due to engine and road vibration. In this case a section of ¼ x 20 coarse thread bolt fits perfectly in the hollow part of the tower and base.

Make sure the bolt is clean. Also, we want the epoxy to stick to the bolt as well as the composite material. It is important to testfit everything dry to make sure everything lines up where it should, including the allocation lining up with the hole in the inner fairing. This is also the time to figure out a way to clamp or hold things in place while the epoxy dries. I cut the bolt off to the correct length to allow the bolt to go into the bottom of the base and all the way into the tower while making sure the tower and base come together as they did originally. The next step is to put some epoxy in the hole of the base and tower. Not too much; we need to make sure the reinforcing rod (cut-off bolt) bottoms in base and tower. Now we can use a liberal amount of epoxy on the mating surfaces and around the outside of the tower and base and clamp in place.

Allow epoxy to dry thoroughly before removing the clamp. Carefully run the bolt in and out to make sure it threads in easily with no resistance before we bolt the inner and outer faring together.

As Always, RIDE SAFE RIDE OFTEN... WE SHARE YOUR PASSION Ron

Ride n ’ Win!Ride n ’ Win! Ride n’ Win!