hello new to this site have had mc18 for a while now usually on rdlccrazy site(i have 5 rd's)anyway anybody bought pattern fairings from china are they any good?
Hello and welcome aboard !
The Chinese fairing for sale on the net I think you are referring to are a total waste of money.
The holes will not line up, there will be lugs and fixings either snapped or broken off completely and the paint-work is rubbish. Look pretty in the pictures but I learnt the hard way...............AVOID THEM !
I bought a set of Chinese ABS fairings for my MC18 R6k (Terra) and I found them to be "sort of OK".
I'd give them 6.5/10
I bought them back in June 2010, so maybe things have improved since then? Maybe not?
I had to do a fair bit of work on them to get them to fit:
Got the Dremel out to enlarge/align some holes to take the rubber bungs
Glue some foam rubber around the headlight to seal the light properly to avoid the inside of the fairing lighting up at night.
The fairing blade that came with it was just wrong and didn't fit properly, but was free.
I sent my tank to them and they repaired and painted it at the same time as they painted the fairings to ensure good colour match. This also was free excluding freight.
The area around the rear tail light was the worst. The little flat bottomed "V" shaped part just behind the passenger seat was not the right shape and I ended up using an original part. But it was just not a good job by the fairing manufacturers around this area.
A lot of the fairing lugs were either missing or weak or the wrong size.
I bought some Dzus fasteners and riveted them on to the side fairings.
The fonts used are not an exact match, but are close. This gives the whole thing a bit of a "Chinese rip-off" feel in my opinion.
I stuck strips of aluminium tape to the inside of the belly pan for heat protection from the pipes.
I think it really depends on who exactly you get them off, as to how good the paint job is.
My paint job seems pretty good, although the insides of the fairings had a lot of random overspray which was a bit ugly so I painted over this with white.
So, if you are not too fussy, and are willing to put some work into it, they can be "sort-of-OK".
But I suspect that you will never be completely happy with them.
Would I recommend buying them? Well it is borderline, and really comes down to the individual I think.
It can be a bit hit and miss with the chinese fairings but they arent all bad. I have a set in Terra colours for my mc18 which I use as track day bodywork and to be fair it looks pretty decent. It doesnt fit quite as nicely as oem bodywork but with a little effort its no big deal.
the paint work is decent as well, although the stripes dont quite align correctly from the fairing to the seat unit it doesnt notice to badly.
It really depends what you are trying to achieve, if you want a spot on original bike and are happy to spend months on end and lots of money trawling Yahoo Japan for original panels (Its very hard if not impossible to find good oem panels these days) then they are probably not for you. If you are working on a budget and you can put up with the odd flaw then in my opinion they are a very good alternative to oem panels.
thanks everyone for great and detailed feedback think i will stick with what i've got.the panels are original but it has been resprayed at some point looks okay .anydody know of decal sets for 88 mc18 in blue?
My two-penneth.
I decided to go the Chinese route, Rothmans ready painted and for track use, I thought I'd take a chance. I wasn't expecting original equipment quality obviously, that would be daft, but I gotta say, I'm reasonably impressed. It wasn't the cheapest set available, but for the money you cant go wrong. The paint finish is pretty good, the decals are pretty good, extremely close to originals in positioning and size and all the lugs etc are there. Having race pipes means I've had to modify bodywork fixing points anyway but they look like they're where they're supposed to be, all in thick ABS plastic.
I couldn't make it or paint it anywhere near as good as it is and for the money it cost.
In short, as long as you're not expecting a top notch exact replica set, it would appear some sets can be ok.
You get what you pay for.
Eggsy.
Hi Eggsy...........Sounds as though you did OK with the Chinese fairings..........Did you have to pay any import duty ?
Also can you let me know via a PM who the seller was on E-Bay if indeed that was the route you took ?
Thanks in advance...........Paul.
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