Joined
·
132 Posts
I have Hotbodiesracing bodywork that came with my ’03 (slightly used bike). While not the most attractive stuff in town, it works well enough. Thought I heard here or elsewhere they’re practically giving it away to licensed racers, too. Oddly, I don’t see ’03 bodywork listed on their website. Well, it exists.
The paint job the original owner used left much to be desired. I couldn’t stand it anymore, so I stripped the paint with methyline chloride from a rattlecan. Stripped that paint right off, indeed, though without a respirator I’d have croaked for sure from fumes.
Painting sucks, plain and simple, without both extensive know-how and a paint booth/materials. I have neither. Rattlecan jobs look like rattlecan, i.e. amateur-hour in the worst way. There’s a body shop here in town (BrandX) who paints decent jobs for a decent price, but I just didn’t feel like shelling out the dough and prep time (roughly five hundred bucks and 8-16 hours of prep). I’m always looking to try something different, too.
Enter my buddy’s ’03 Ford Ranger. He had the bedliner done by some outfit up north for $400 and it came out quite well. I looked into bedliner for the ZX bodywork. A local guy offered to do it, alright: $500. Colors extra. Oh, and it’s a quarter-inch (6mm) thick, adding maybe fifteen pounds to the bodywork. Yah, right: another idea bites the dust.
Enter Herculiner, a do-it-yourself truck bed liner product. The product's sold in various forms, including a convenient kit including a gallon of product, rollers, and abrasive pad. Any color you want, too, as long as its black, red, or gray. (Visit their website for more info.)
I covered the ZX bodywork with Herculiner, stirring thoroughly first with my cordless drill and paint-stirring attachment per the instructions. I again used my respirator, since the product's a polyurethane (I’m fairly sure) and heavy on xylenes and VOCs. I did most of the work outside, too, to maximize ventilation.
The Herculiner went on very well with the supplied roller. One coat did the trick, plus a second for touch-up. The product isn’t very thick, and didn’t add much weight (couple pounds, max). All dried in about 24 hours, too, though it’ll take awhile to fully cure. I coated two bodywork panels, tailpiece, and the fender with about 3/8 gallon of product.
The finish is about what you’d think: black, semi-glass, pebbly. Truck bed liner, man! It’s about as tough as an old boot and looks quite odd. Well, it’s race bodywork so I could give a shit about the looks: at least the color’s uniformly black now. Stickers don’t appear to be an option, which works great for me. The stock black metallic tank contrasts well, too, in addition to my silver body panel fasteners.
Upsides are ease of application (rough the surface with included pad, apply product with roller and brush), extreme durability (I fear for the track if I crash, not the bodywork), uniqueness, and freedom from worrying about scratches, chips, etc. Downsides are the wild, “disturbingly avant-garde” look and slight degradation in aerodynamic efficiency.
Total cost was the Herculiner kit, $88 at Pep Boys. Time was about four hours to strip the old paint and (later) another four to apply two coats of Herculiner. I used about half the kit. I’ll probably sell the rest to a buddy if I don’t use it elsewhere around the house. It sticks to metal, fiberglass, and damn near everything else with frightening efficiency (note: fiberglass is listed as an “approved” application surface on the product blurb).
Pictures don’t do it justice, though I might post some the next couple days.
-=DRB=-
The paint job the original owner used left much to be desired. I couldn’t stand it anymore, so I stripped the paint with methyline chloride from a rattlecan. Stripped that paint right off, indeed, though without a respirator I’d have croaked for sure from fumes.
Painting sucks, plain and simple, without both extensive know-how and a paint booth/materials. I have neither. Rattlecan jobs look like rattlecan, i.e. amateur-hour in the worst way. There’s a body shop here in town (BrandX) who paints decent jobs for a decent price, but I just didn’t feel like shelling out the dough and prep time (roughly five hundred bucks and 8-16 hours of prep). I’m always looking to try something different, too.
Enter my buddy’s ’03 Ford Ranger. He had the bedliner done by some outfit up north for $400 and it came out quite well. I looked into bedliner for the ZX bodywork. A local guy offered to do it, alright: $500. Colors extra. Oh, and it’s a quarter-inch (6mm) thick, adding maybe fifteen pounds to the bodywork. Yah, right: another idea bites the dust.
Enter Herculiner, a do-it-yourself truck bed liner product. The product's sold in various forms, including a convenient kit including a gallon of product, rollers, and abrasive pad. Any color you want, too, as long as its black, red, or gray. (Visit their website for more info.)
I covered the ZX bodywork with Herculiner, stirring thoroughly first with my cordless drill and paint-stirring attachment per the instructions. I again used my respirator, since the product's a polyurethane (I’m fairly sure) and heavy on xylenes and VOCs. I did most of the work outside, too, to maximize ventilation.
The Herculiner went on very well with the supplied roller. One coat did the trick, plus a second for touch-up. The product isn’t very thick, and didn’t add much weight (couple pounds, max). All dried in about 24 hours, too, though it’ll take awhile to fully cure. I coated two bodywork panels, tailpiece, and the fender with about 3/8 gallon of product.
The finish is about what you’d think: black, semi-glass, pebbly. Truck bed liner, man! It’s about as tough as an old boot and looks quite odd. Well, it’s race bodywork so I could give a shit about the looks: at least the color’s uniformly black now. Stickers don’t appear to be an option, which works great for me. The stock black metallic tank contrasts well, too, in addition to my silver body panel fasteners.
Upsides are ease of application (rough the surface with included pad, apply product with roller and brush), extreme durability (I fear for the track if I crash, not the bodywork), uniqueness, and freedom from worrying about scratches, chips, etc. Downsides are the wild, “disturbingly avant-garde” look and slight degradation in aerodynamic efficiency.
Total cost was the Herculiner kit, $88 at Pep Boys. Time was about four hours to strip the old paint and (later) another four to apply two coats of Herculiner. I used about half the kit. I’ll probably sell the rest to a buddy if I don’t use it elsewhere around the house. It sticks to metal, fiberglass, and damn near everything else with frightening efficiency (note: fiberglass is listed as an “approved” application surface on the product blurb).
Pictures don’t do it justice, though I might post some the next couple days.
-=DRB=-
Or instead dress up like one of those bikers out of mad max 2 and scare the crap out of everyone[:M17]
