Last year on my dual sport ride ( https://www.kawasakiforums.com/forum...ad.php?t=25678) I smashed up my left side radiator shroud. Sucks, but hey all in the name of fun, right?. I didn't realize what replacements cost! These costs aren't exact just off the top of my head tonight, the shroud was around $94 the swoosh sticker(07) was $43, and the Kawasaki sticker above the swoosh was $27. $160?? for a piece of plastic? I looked for some used shrouds, but didn't have much luck.

 

Ended up buying a plastic welding kit at harbor freight for $30. For $30 I thought I'd give it a try, definitely had nothing to loose on the shroud.

 

The plastic welder works by heating the air from your compressor and directing it to a small area on the part you are repairing. You use a welding rod that is made of the same type plastic that your welding. (Polypropylene for our shrouds) The hot air softens and melts the area, and the welding rod, in the stream of hot air. Your job is to walk the rod down the crack, and melt everything back into one piece. Structurally the welder will give a good repair, cosmetically, good luck. The plastic welded back together and seems very strong. When welding, it is impossible to get anything close to a smooth finish, and the gobbed up polypropylene is hard to work to a good finish afterward. I got it sanded fairly smooth, but nothing I tried would get it anything close to shiny.
Frankenstein stitch work on the inside. I didn't worry toomuch about that.

Not bad, not great.

Really didn't matter much in the long run, because I ended up doing a trade and getting some new-ish "06" shrouds from Horizonod here on KF.

 

I have a "off subject" question. How do you attached photos like that?

Welding looks interesting. The orange handle tool is the welder?
Looks like you match the green pretty good.

 

throw a sticker on that and your good to go. I'm always smashing the snot out of my shrouds. I'm gonna go get one of those welder kits and be ready for the next casualty.
thanks for the post

 

I thought about plastering it with stickers, looked at aftermarket graphics too, but they are expensive.
Now that i have two sets of shrouds, I can toss the beaters on for the times when the riding might get ugly, and run the clean ones the rest of the time.
Slap. Yes the orange handle tool is the welder, sorry I didn't take a good pic of it.
As far as matching the color, the blue-ish green on the backside of the shroud is the color of the polyprop welding rod that came with the kit. I cut strips out of my stock roost deflectors/handguards, i don't use anymore, to make my own color correct welding rods. To post pics like that open a free photobucket.com account. Upload your pics to photobucket, and then copy the link under your pic on photobucket and paste it in when you are posting.

 

www.slapdrum.com Cool stuff there Chris, Well done!

 

It actually looks like a pretty good seem from the front of the shroud. Especially taking into account how screwed up the shroud was after your incident.

I've never understood why shrouds and stickers from the factory are so expensive when they've seen extensive production. I think if they were reasonably priced then the factory would sell more of them instead of everybody going to "plan B" and "C". I've been looking to get a shroud for my KDX for a couple of years now but won't pay the price that retailers or even e-bayers are asking for them.

Thank God for UFO. At least we can get decent side panels and fenders for a reasonable price. The fact that a company like UFO exists is proof that the factory product is outrageously priced.

Mike

 

My understanding is that you can take a heat gun and use it on the plastic to restore some of the shine, if you are careful not to melt the plastic.

I have a Cycra 3.7 gallon tank for my Yamaha YZ250 that required some work to remove scratches from so I am planning on using a heat gun on it to see if that works to restore the shine.



Stop it James! You're hurting me!

 

Wow. Good job on the weld. FYI... when you buy OEM plastics they come w/ the decals. My experience anyway...