The saga of the broken back box continues.

The back box or "trunk" of the Road Show Beemer has been the subject of this column before, but the fun continues. The "trunk" box and bracket that it mounts to is actually made by Honda and is superior to anything manufactured specifically by/for BMW in its sheer capacity and its value as a safety mechanism/backrest for my faithful pillion. The previous owner had a custom rack welded together and mounted for the box which, after some adjustment and lots of loktite, works out really well.

So well in fact that we have just used it to death and it has become considerably worse for the wear. As we all know though things are tough all over these days and a new trunk/backrest is currently out of the question. So we thought we would apply a little expertise we had gained on some previous projects. My wife Patti worked in the special effects industry in Hollywood for a time and has a good working knowledge of bonding plasitcs. I have developed some exprimental techniques of my own rebuilding crashed motorcycles and fashioning non-available parts.

In part I of this series we explored some of Patti's techniques for using light industrial plastics at a strenthing component.

In this part of the series we take a look at a technique involving fiberglass cloth and J B Weld. This actually works very well believe it or not.



Here Patti fashions a piece of fiberglass cloth to shape and size for the repair.



The surface is prepared by roughing it up slightly and then putting on a layer or JB Weld....next the cloth is laid into the prepped area and additionally impregnated with more JB.




Here both cracks have been mended and reinforced.



And then reinfored again at the stress point where the new hinge attachment will be



And a little judicious metal shaping gets things ready for the next step which is bending the new hinge material to the proper angle