'73 Suzuki GT250 - Part 19 - Carbon fibre rear fender

Here's a quick overview how I made a plug and one piece fibreglass mold for replicating '85-89 Honda CR250R rear fender out of carbon fibre. I used same method with front fender I posted earlier so I won't go through steps here with same detail. 

I'm pretty pleased with the result. I only used two layers of carbon fibre cloth which ended up with a very light part. I might do another one later with three layers of cloth to achieve a bit stronger and less flexible piece.

Next steps would be to make a lower piece for the rear fender and a seat pan out of carbon fibre. I have not fully figured out yet how to make plugs and molds for those pieces. I've also been planning modifications to my '01 Honda CBR600F4i PC35. Hopefully I can figure those out and share some of them within this year. Happy new year!

Plug made out of pieces of wood and
sheets of polypropylene

Plug waxed and taped

Close up of waxing and taping

Two layers of gelcoat

Fibreglass and polyester resin
applied on top of gelcoat

Excess fibreglass cut off with scissors and
trim lines marked with ballpoint pen

Edges trimmed with an angle grinder

Closer look of imperfections
in the mold caused by wax surface

Look after first round of wet sanding

Masking with vinyl tape

Surface after two coats of gelcoat

Surface after wet sanding up to 600 grid

Mold waxed and ready for hand laminating

Vacuum bagging after hand laminating

Vacuum bag, peel ply, release film and
breather cloth removed after vacuum bagging

Third attempt gave best result (left)

Part after separating it from mold
and before trimming edges of it

Edges vinyl taped and ready for trimming

Edges trimmed and part ready for clear coat

'73 Suzuki GT250 - Part 2 - Mount for '87-90 Honda CR250 rear fender

Some of you might caught your eye to the small piece of flat bar welded to the rear part of this bike's frame. I made that bar to work as a support bracket for the rear fender I bought. For a while a had search for a proper rear fender. I started by going trough a catalog of Ufo Plast plastics. Rear fender for '87-90 Honda CR 125/250 (UFO-HO02601061) caught my eye and seemed like an easy fit since it required two pieces. I contacted few persons who were selling subframes for '87 Honda CR 250 on eBay and asked some key measurements. Luckily dimensions matched and I ended up ordering one from my local motorcycle parts store.

'87-90 Honda CR 125/250 rear fender
made by Ufo Plast (UFO-HO02601061)

Once it arrived I started making a support bracket for it. I made a simple template out of wood and bent a short piece of flat bar against it. I chose to use flat bar since it is pretty easy to bend just by hand. Even with mild steel there's always a little bit of spring back so you have compensate it by overbending. Once I had a rough shape I cut it to right angle with an angle grinder and welded it to the frame.

Piece of flat bar bent to shape and welded to the frame.

From a different angle. 

Last thing to do was to drill holes for fasteners and tack a pair of hexagon weld nuts on the bottom of the bracket. I chose to use M8 sized ones since I had them in stock. I still need to drill holes to both sides of the rear fender, but I will do that later.

Pair of M8 sized hexagon weld nuts.

Tightened in place with hex screws and ready for welding.

Underside view.

Hexagon weld nut tack welded.

Top view of finished rear fender mount.

Rear fender on.

Underside view.

From another angle.

Brat style rear fender - Suzuki T250J

I wanted to make a small and simple brat style rear fender for my T250J. The bike came with a shortened front fender which was in a good enough condition to use as blank.

Suzuki T250J front fender.

I started by drilling out all small rivets which hold the two pieces of the fender together. I also made the rivet holes bigger by drilling them. I decided to use M6 screws so I used a 6,5 mm drill bit. I then traced an arc to the fender with a paperboard template.

A paperboard template helped to trace an arc to the fender.

I used a battery-powered angle grinder made by Makita with 1 mm thick cutting disc to cut the arc. Once that was done I removed burrs with a sanding machine.

Cut fender, a battery-powered Makita angle grinder
and a sanding machine.

Next step was to make proper brackets to hold the fender in place. I decided to use 2 mm aluminium sheet as a material. I used M6x16 socket head cap screws, washers and M6 nyloc nuts to hold the brackets on the fender. Two M8x45 hexagon head screws hold the upper brackets and a M8x20 the right lower bracket on the frame.

Upper and lower brackets and fasteners made out of
2 mm aluminium sheet.

Measurements for upper brackets.

Measurements for right lower bracket.

Brat style fender ready to be mounted to my T250J.

The bike came with an unused Michelin 3.25-18 59S M45 E2 tire so I decided to use one as a front tire also. I bought a Michelin 3.00-18 52S M45 E2 tire from my local motorcycle parts dealer Euro Motor Center. 

Old tires were in a pretty bad condition. Front tire was a factory installed Inoue 3.00-18. Rear tire was a pain in the ass to remove as it was dried and cracked and wouldn't like to bend over the rim. Motion Pro tire irons helped a lot to remove those tires.

Michelin 3.00-18 52S M45 E2 front tyre and 3.25-18 59S rear tyre

Side view with new tyres and fenders.