Headlamps K4 SVS

Hello all,

Well all been fun and games with me. Recently had my SVS knocked over by my neighbourand fell on left hand side Thankfully I have R&G's fitted so much of the damage was saved by those.

One of the headlamps got a bit scratched but nothing major. Unfortunately I got a handy with a scourer one day trying to get the bugs off the front and, not realising they're plastic, have scratched both lamps anyway Anyway got my estimate today and the cost to replace ONE headlamp is £220 at my dealers excluding labour! The fella who knocked it over is in his 90's and is paying out of his own pocket and so my partner and I have decided to exclude the cost of this from the estimate cos I don't wanna fleece him, we think the garage may be fleecing us, and they're both scratched anyway. I'm not going to be getting a new bike in a while (not surprisingly although I am test riding a GIXER6 tomorra for a laugh) but in the future would probably wanna replace the headlamps and get some headlamp covers this time. Any ideas how I may get hold of some headlamps without costing almost £500! B/f thinks may be able to get the glass/plastic bit replaced even though it comes as one unit as someone may be willing to remove and replace that bit alone. Any ideas?

Cheers

Silly Shiv

[tigersaw]

On a small patch of the scratched area, try rubbing with a lint free cloth and metal polish. Metal polish will get scratches out of plastic, but of course the material the headlamps are made from is unknown.
There are also more special polishes out there, I have one thats for the ramps on pinball machines - you can imagine how the plastic ramps get ruined by the balls running up them, this gets them all clear again.
I guess it depends on how badly you have mullered them, and the material they are made from, but there may be hope.

[TEL]

Just read this, thought it might be helpful(?)

http://forums.sv650.org/viewtopic.php?t=38051

Ooooo fab! Thats brill! Has anyone tried any of these and what were the results? Would be interested in getting some really good stuff no matter what it costs if it gets the scratches out. I will try and get some phots of the scratches and see what some of you think. They're not going to be very deep scratches though as they were just done with a green kitchen scourer and I stopped rubbing once I realised it was scratching it.

Any experience with these products would be fab!

Shiv

P.s. tigershaw - I found the pinball machine polishes. I think I may ring Suzuki next week and ask them to tell me what kind of plastic it is - I would think acrylic but will find out first. I have some special autoglym metal polish aswell so may try that on a small section tomorrow. When you say lint free cloth - what does that mean? Also what direction should I rub do you think?

[tigersaw]

Originally Posted by Shivy

P.s. tigershaw - I found the pinball machine polishes. I think I may ring Suzuki next week and ask them to tell me what kind of plastic it is - I would think acrylic but will find out first. I have some special autoglym metal polish aswell so may try that on a small section tomorrow. When you say lint free cloth - what does that mean? Also what direction should I rub do you think?

Lint free cloth - just a nice soft uncoloured cloth with nothing rough in it, cotton hanky sort of thing.
The pinball polish I have is called 'Novus number 2', but I've used T cut and metal polish sucessfully as well. I would suggest rubbing pretty much the same way as the damage was caused originally, just go gentle, try a small section first. You will never get it back to original, but you may work out the scratches to something more acceptable.

Im sure you can get plastic polish of some sort that will do the job. Someone recommended it to me when I scratched my visor, until they saw how deep it was.
I would have had to polish for months to get it level

I'll ask on Monday if i remember

Try using BRASSO, this may sound daft but it does work providing the scratches are not too deep.

Found this on ebay

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Polish-for-Pla...QQcmdZViewItem

Kashby has it.

Brassos the thing.

If you own a drill, check out this link.

http://www.machinemart.co.uk/product.asp?p=060223083

I did plastics at school many years ago and I remember when we finished a piece the final stage was to polish it to remove sanding/filing scratches. We used a mop with a special soap like polish. It used to bring it up a treat.

Kind regards
Tim