Inspection

["David Arnett" <DArnett@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Saturday I took all of the bodywork off of the bike and went over the entire thing with a magnifying glass.  I had a bag of "zip ties" and an old inner tube and some scissors, for which I used to protect and secure wires/hoses from potential chaffing.  The fuel lines appeared to be fine.  I was also able to clean up the wiring under the dash.  I also noticed the heat shield sticker on the lower right belly pan was peeling away and found a burnt hole in the spot where the exhaust collector welds are near.  The bodywork has not started to melt, so that's good.  I wanted to use some of that exhaust wrap insulated tape in the area, but was unable to locate the stuff in the time I had, so I went with an exhaust repair kit which contained fiberglass tape, resin, a metal sheet, and some way too springy bailing wire.   I thought that this repair kit could provide enough heat shielding in this critical area.  After cutting my fingers on the metal sheet and being punctured several times by the springy wire, I finally got the "repair" cinched down.  I didn't use the resin, as I felt that it would make a permanent mess, and is really needed for repairing a hole.  Anyways, the thing looked like crap (visible from the vent hole in the belly pan).   I ran the thing on the freeway around 80ish.  I inspected it and found that the glass tape had melted and dripped goo all over the place, so needless to say, I'll have to find some other way (probably using exhaust wrap...hot rodders use this stuff to wrap headers with which reduces heat under the hood and makes more power suppossedly).  The drawback is that the wrap is ugly, and can collect moisture, which will shorten the exhaust's life.  I figured by using more "stick on" heat shielding material, that it would start coming off just like the original, and start burning again.



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