To be quite honest I didn’t realise when I got the bike that there was a rear fender “b” to be missing.
Fender “b” it turns out is a plastic piece of the rear fender (the main more visible part of the rear fender being steel) which clips onto the back of the auxiliary fuel tank in front of the back wheel. It is hardly seen on a complete bike but it has to be assumed that Mr Honda generally doesn’t just add stuff for the laugh.
I suspect it’s main function is so that the previously mentioned auxiliary tank full of flammable liquid doesn’t have to survive the onslaught from whatever happens to be flung it’s way by the back wheel all on it’s own. Even if this wasn’t Mr Honda’s main intention it seems a pretty important one to me so I set about getting a replacement for this fender “b”.
Alas but also unsurprisingly the main Honda guys say it’s just not available as a new part anymore, so I hunt around the interweb and I find an ad by a young man up Drogheda way whose breaking a shadow and in his pics I see the very piece I’m looking for. When we meet I also snag a couple of other parts but most importantly I return with this..
Now obviously it’s that other colour that the Shadow came in at the time (candy apple red) but it’s in perfect condition and fits straight on to the tank clips. So I prime it with a plastics primer from hicote. I then add several layers of jet black so that I get this…
I was going to clear coat as well but then I thought it might work better if I did that after I did this to it..
I don’t remember if I mentioned before this but the design team (ahem) has decided it might be good to wrap some of the bike in the above 3D gloss carbon fiber look vinyl. I’ve never wrapped anything with vinyl before let alone the rather complicated shapes common on motorbikes so I got in a significant quantity to spare and had a go. In fairness this was a perfect piece for a novice to start on as feck all of the finished part can be seen and the area that can be seen is quite uncomplicated and so took to the wrap well. After that I clear coated just the wheel side of the fender to add a little extra stone chip resistance and maybe some extra adhesion to the edge of the wrap and this is what it looks like fitted.
I’m pleased enough with that and I look forward to seeing what the whole fender will look like on the bike but I do wonder how things will go when I’m wrapping the much more complicated and much more visible fender “a”.
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