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Questions for those who have purchased new OEM replacement fairings for 5th gen


garcenw

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If you have bought new OEM red lower fairing panels for 5th gen US models, would you mind answering these questions:

1) How well did the lower fairing paint color match that of the front/headlight fairing?

2) Did the OEM part (in my case lower left, p/n: 64320-MBG-670ZA) come with the "VFR -Interceptor" decal? I ask as the decal is no longer available from Honda. Replica decals exist online, but they are not quite the same and I'm trying to preserve the OEM look as much as possible.

Thanks.

- Walt

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Can't help with red, but I can tell you that even brand new, the colour matching of the yellow 5th gen. fairings was not good. 

 

I believe that oe replacement fairings come with all applicable decals, they did way back when I needed a replacement.

Btw, Honda customizes the decals for each body colour. Also, the text varies depending on the market. For instance, in Canada and other markets the decal read VFR PFM-FI CBS

Good luck.

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The Italian Red is prone to fading, it wouldn't surprise me if the new side panels looked darker than an original top fairing. When they all fade evenly it is not obvious. 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Color matching can be tricky, even when you have a sample to compare against.

 

I bought a touch up pen from Automotive TouchUp. I painted a test sample on the card they enclose in the kit and and it looked like a match, but when I applied it to a a large stone chip you could see the the difference.

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My experience lines up with Lorne's and Terry's: the red fades, to one degree or another, and even Colorite [The paint manufacturer recommended by the Honda dealers near me] carefully prepped, primed, and clearcoated doesn't match perfectly. I've gotten away with having a pro repaint all the bodywork so it would match, and nobody ever noticed that the tank was a slightly lighter shade of red. As Lorne observed, if you pay for OEM bodywork, it will come with the OEM decals already in place.

 

Also, I posted a response on the other site about VFR lower side cowl decals; I have reproduced them. the reproductions have a perfect fade across the VFR logo, and are printed on 3M decal material like OEM, but they do not have a red or yellow background color, so any paint will match perfectly. Here is the right side OEM decal with red background:

IMG_0891.JPG.068211fa1265c5ee8f1fef39bacc420d.JPG

 

Here are reproductions v2.1. The latest version 4.0 starts with a darker grey at the rear of the VFR logo and goes to a lighter grey at the front. Also, the thin, light silver outline is brighter. V4.0 is perfect.

IMG_0885.JPG.ea3269be2730827b73cfc89164048e11.JPG

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Thought I'd show the final version. The right side panel on my 2001 needed a VFR logo decal, so I laid one on it.

 

Blank panel beside faded and otherwise abused OEM

IMG_0379.thumb.JPG.46279b3228e162845087c33b5fce5916.JPG

 

OEM red background seams and color contrast with paint

IMG_0377.thumb.JPG.006ccd53c0561bdff69892b08e5f37e0.JPGIMG_0378.thumb.JPG.ffe330b12868fc14e3e6ed1b60a2bd7e.JPG

 

 

 

v4.0 decal installed

IMG_0380.thumb.JPG.1597c05e4c0fbac9e8b526c992308561.JPG

 

Lack of seams, lack of color background, each letter is separate, laid out in position on the backing tape

IMG_0381.thumb.JPG.bf0a651c0d3d0d0812ec78e02501363f.JPGIMG_0382.thumb.JPG.00e9f4eb8288463cb1e888c0fb46b600.JPG

 

Here's v1.0 when we were still trying to match the red background. I call this one the orange-headed stepchild

IMG_0384.thumb.JPG.fc26a4e5d24e5eb03a10fecb411101a6.JPG

 

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sfdownhill,

 

Nice story on evolution the decals and I will admit that they look great in the pics.

 

In the mid-2000's, I was a development engineer at Polaris. I did mostly work for the snowmobile group (cooling, lighting, and later fuel systems), but did a little development work for ATV, side x sides, and Victory motorcycle. I had nothing to do with decals, but remember how they were applied on the assembly line. Decals like your VFR one above would be designed as a single large decal for ease of application on the assembly line. The main assembly line would be moving as some of these were applied (others would be applied to parts on feeder lines). I recall the large stripe decals on the 2004 EDGE Touring belly pan. New engineers were required to work all stations of the assembly line when they were first hired. The decal station was the only one I dreaded. While the sled is moving down the line, you are trying to prep the surface (i.e. clean), peal the decal, line up the decal, and then apply the decal with no bubbles. Now the pressure sensitive adhesive we used on decals didn't set up immediately, so you could peal it back up at least once maybe twice and re-align it. Even so, a few customer sleds on my watch ended up with the decals visibly misaligned. If a decal had all the letters separate, you couldn't do a quick re-alignment in a manufacturing environment, which, if we assume Honda used the same processes as Polaris, is why I suspect Honda has the "VFR" and "Interceptor" joined together with a body colored band.

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On 6/1/2018 at 6:23 PM, garcenw said:

If you have bought new OEM red lower fairing panels for 5th gen US models, would you mind answering these questions:

1) How well did the lower fairing paint color match that of the front/headlight fairing?

2) Did the OEM part (in my case lower left, p/n: 64320-MBG-670ZA) come with the "VFR -Interceptor" decal? I ask as the decal is no longer available from Honda. Replica decals exist online, but they are not quite the same and I'm trying to preserve the OEM look as much as possible.

Thanks.

- Walt

 

Walt, 

I recently ordered a replacement L side fairing from Bike Bandit, part number 64320-MBG-670ZA COWL, L. SI (TYPE4) 691958. To answer your questions. 

1) On my personal bike it matched it well. Then again, the bike had low miles are was constantly waxed and polished.

2) Yes, it came with the decal. 

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Thanks letting me know. Interestingly, I had ordered the same part from Bike Bandit a few hours before your post. If it came sans decal, I was going to order "sfdownhill's" decal. I haven't ordered from them in quite some time, but they were by far the cheapest this time around.

It is interesting that Honda includes the decal with the cowl, but no longer has the decal available separately. Perhaps the body work we ordered was made years ago and the stock in Honda's warehouse is all that's left.

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  • 2 weeks later...

The lower left cowl I ordered arrived yesterday. I haven’t had a chance to do a color comparison in bright sunlight, but I did a color comparison last night in the dark with an LED flashlight and this afternoon in very overcast conditions. The paint match was very good under those conditions. The real difference is in “patina”. The old paint on the bike has fine swirl marks from I guess washing and the new one is pearly smooth. You could tell which plastic was new and which plastic wasn’t.

The VFR decal was on the fairing as were foam parts 5, 6, and 7 (see pic below). Part 19 was not on the fairing. Part 19 doesn't even show up in the parts list on the various websites I checked - it just shows up in the fiche picture.

I was not impressed with Bike Bandit’s packaging. The box was soft without support and had buckled at various points. The leading front corner of the cowl was poking thru a tear in the box, but still covered by the bag it shipped in. About a 1 mm x 10 mm section of paint got scraped off. It isn’t really an issue as that is the tab that goes into the nose piece. The lowest trailing corner of the fairing (what would be by the kickstand) had paint got worn off, but were talking about 1 mm x 1mm area that you can’t easily see. I suspect that got rubbed off in shipping as that corner was pushing up against the inside wall of the box as there was no foam packing to brace the fairing in the box. All they used was brown paper stuffed haphazardly in the box. As soft as the box was, I’m surprised the cowl didn’t arrived cracked. I checked the part over very carefully and found no cracks. I suggest anyone ordering plastic body parts do the same. Other than that, I’m happy.

VFR_cowl_fiche.jpg

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Part 19:

 

The set of Chinese knockoffs I got for my RC51 had no foam bits whatsoever. Comparing with my oem panel, I picked up a bit of dense packing foam and cut to size. The stuff used for instance if you buy an aftermarket lever :-)

Wrapped with aluminium reflective tape and double sided sticky tape.

For like 5 and 6 I used self expanding foam tape, the stuff builders use to fill minor clearances around window frames.

 

you will get color difference, c'est la vie

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