Frame indention ?

New to me is another 76kz900. It came with a Vettet front fairing . Bike is all apart and ready to sent to powder coat but would like your opinion .
When fairing was installed ...looks like the bottom u bolts were over tight in and made a indention on the frame tube if repair is needed ...What should be done.

Assuming this is cosmetic and won't affect the frame strength significantly, I'm thinking maybe braze or building up the dent with weld then smoothing? I prefer paint for frames so I'd use plastic filler.

Must have taken some serious force to dent the tube like that, short of cutting and shutting new tube sections in there I' not sure what the other options are?

Depends a lot on the geometry of the dent and the stress at the location but I would be careful. while round tubing is very strong, it loses a significant amount of strength when creased. Just a word of caution.

Depends a lot on the geometry of the dent and the stress at the location but I would be careful.

I guess the question being, the strength of a tube is a function of it's diameter and wall thickness, will a small deflection here be signifiicant, or are there other metallurgical factors that may have weakened it to consider?

It never ceases to amaze me how ham fisted some PO's are...surely the U bolts would be rubber mounted anyway for a fairing?

The main factor is now that it's creased it has an increased crack propagation risk in the direction of the crease, the bar is no longer round so it is no longer "strong in all directions". The short of it, if it's mostly superficial your probably OK. If it's not, the deeper the crease the more I would worry. The reason I posted/ what worried me is that creases can cause round tube to fail suddenly when the crease is really bad. In the end it's a judgment call depending on factors like location, and crease position relative to applied stress.
It seriously is amazing how badly some people need a test before they are allowed to buy a wrench! :lol:

Clean off all the paint, fill with weld, blend, repaint. Move on.

Kidkawie wrote: Clean off all the paint, fill with weld, blend, repaint. Move on.

+1
Then you don't have to worry

Boy, I don't know but a few really good race car builder friend of mine told me welding on a motorcycle frame like this is best served by annealing the entire frame after welding.
I'd be talking to someone about sleeving that spot and filling somehow.

Clean off all the paint, fill with weld, blend, repaint. Move on.

+1 Mission. this is what i was hinting at with the metallurgical aspect which I'm not sure about.

It is a good point to be made, that it will become more brittle when welded. If the metal is already of a harder nature then not only do you want to be careful in how you fix it, but makes the crease more dangerous as well. However, it may not be that bad considering it wouldn't be a full penetration weld.

Inspect the area around the indentation for cracks. If there are none, leave it alone. You will do much more harm trying to fill that small flaw with weld then you will do good. Keep an eye on that area but you won't have any problems.
I worked in the Vetter design studio. The mount for a Vetter fairing is designed to be held on with hose clamps. Using U blots is a kludge.

I had a Vetter fairing on mine with U bolts and that didn't happen. My crash bar has them too. How the PO did it I have no idea. The U bolts would snap before that. Maybe a crash?
Steve