In my recent crash I smashed up the headlight cluster of the Fazer. Unfortunately this item alone is £250 brand new, however I did find a much cheaper used one from a breaker, albeit missing one mounting lug. But I had the foresight to gather up many pieces from the crash, including some of the bust off lugs from my smashed lights. So my plan was to the weld a bust lug to my newly acquired lights, to get back up and running for not too much money.
Plastic welding is nowhere near as difficult as you may think and doesn’t need any expensive materials. You just need a good soldering iron, some cable ties and staples. The technique I followed was the outlined below in this video by Delboy’s Garage, do watch his howto and subscribe to his channel, he’s got some sound advice.
I started by mounting the lights and the lug on the fairing bracket to get them in the right position. The lug needed a little cutting down to allow it to marry up well, then I started tacking it to secure it. Next, I used some straight staple pins to help reinforce it. These bedded in easily with the heat from the soldering iron. Then using some cable ties as weld rods I built back up the missing plastic from the join and covered the staples. Once secure enough I could remove the lot from the bracket to repeat on the other side. The lug needed a further screw hole welding on, though this needed securing on more by eye with tape. However the welding and pinning process remained the same.
The result, although not pretty was perfectly functional. It’s not on show, hidden by the fairing and plenty strong enough to mount the fairing to light cluster and in turn lights to brackets. The buried staples and built up plastic provide a good deal of strength. Overall a cheap and easy way to repair expensive plastic parts.
Note: melting plastic stinks and the fumes are almost certainly bad for you. Work in a well ventilated area. I can also recommend setting up a fan to blow the fumes away from you too.
