Back to Black

[suffolk58 2,286]

Taking advantage of the nice weather yesterday, I gave the bike a jolly good wash and polish. And if I say so myself, she's come up looking good for a four year old, all weather bike.

However, over the years the once black plastics around the headlight and back towards the side panels have started to look a bit grey.

I've used silicon spray and also WD40 before, but the greyness returns after a few short weeks.

I've also used a black liquid shoe polish type stuff, that's supposed to be for car plastics (remember the days before we didn't all have body coloured bumpers)? Again, good results for only a few weeks. Plus, if you get it on the paintwork (white in my bike's case) it makes a nasty dark mark, which is even harder to get off.

I've also got white polish marks o the saddle too. Being a textured surface, it's even more of a pain to lose the polish marks.

Does anyone know of a magic polish remover?

[Mikdent 4,070]

Spray paint.

 

If they're looking that faded, whip em off and give em a few coats of (undercoat first) black. 

 

I did this with that horrible grey lump of plastic below the rad and it came up really really good and has stood up to all the crap and abuse it gets from the road. 

 

See here.

 

 

[pjm 6,041]

Ma’e sure you use the correct undercoat/primer for the plastic you are spraying. That way it creates a bond between the plastic and the paint so it doesn’t flake off. Might even be cheaper to whip them off and take them to a local body shop.

[outrunner 4,456]

Try gentle heat from a heat gun, I have seen it bring faded black panels back to as new looking on a Pan a while ago, just be careful not to heat it too much! 

 

 

Andy.

Edited February 19, 2018 by outrunner

[CFB 4,601]

Simoniz back to black SAPP0081A

 

I've been using this for a while. Best I have found so far.

The finish lasts for ages and brings the black to brand new.

My lad is a bit of a detailing nerd and swears by it. 🙂

[Mr Toad 9,022]

10 hours ago, CFB said:

Simoniz back to black SAPP0081A

 

I've been using this for a while. Best I have found so far.

The finish lasts for ages and brings the black to brand new.

My lad is a bit of a detailing nerd and swears by it. 🙂

 

On my NC it's not black, it's definitely a dark grey. Would the Simonize restore the original colour or would it put a black coating over the grey, something I wouldn't want to do. 

 

At the moment it's not a problem on my bike but I suspect as it gets older I will at some point be in the same position. 

[Guest KeithReeder]

Autoglym?

 

It's not limited to black...

[PoppetM 16,793]

1 hour ago, Mr Toad said:

 

On my NC it's not black, it's definitely a dark grey. Would the Simonize restore the original colour or would it put a black coating over the grey, something I wouldn't want to do. 

 

At the moment it's not a problem on my bike but I suspect as it gets older I will at some point be in the same position. 

Would put it to black. I too swore by it on my car on the black bits 

[CFB 4,601]

1 hour ago, Mr Toad said:

 

On my NC it's not black, it's definitely a dark grey. Would the Simonize restore the original colour or would it put a black coating over the grey, something I wouldn't want to do. 

 

At the moment it's not a problem on my bike but I suspect as it gets older I will at some point be in the same position. 

 

Well it doesn't put any black coating on mine, a 700X, which also has dark grey plastics.

It just brings the colour back to what it was.

With WD40 and Armourall they work for a short time but as soon as they dry fully, stains etc just come back.

The Simoniz seems to remove the stains when you buff it off.

[Guest Silversurfer]

Had something similar on my Tiger 800. The wind blew it off the side stand and scraped, (more like gouged) the wing mirror and handguard. Rubbed the gouges out with wet and dry but once you take the top surface off the black plastic is actually grey. Tried all sorts but eventually tried some black leather dye I had in the garage. Gave the scuffed bits a couple of coats and let it dry thoroughly then a couple of coats of Armorall, (similar to Back to Black) - problem sorted - the parts stayed black. Probably the roughish surface left by the wet and dry allowed the leather dye to soak in to the surface of the plastic.