take lots of advice on this before you decide, and if you even go this route. I've done a few over the years, just make sure nobody convinces you that this can be glued - it cannot (successfully/long lasting-ly). If the fragmented portions are not at all polluted by oil, then plastic welding is your best bet. I don't know anyone currently who excels in this, but hopefully a search will reveal a few.
If you can still buy new panels I don't see why you'd bother repairing it, surely new ones will look much better.
If you do decide to try the repair option, I’ve recently used this chap to plastic weld a few fairing panels & he did a good job, although he wasn’t so keen on completing a fully painted / finished job, so I had this done elsewhere. For two panels requiring welding in a few places, he charged me £100 cash. https://plastics-surgery.com/contact
No idea tbh mate was only a reference to that ginger idiot off the telly and his fake obsession with originality. If it were me I’d want it looking the best couldn’t care less how old the parts are, or where they came from (assuming it’s not like the very first ever 916 ever made or something daft).
I have a 1994 also. Does the lower fairing also have a date stamp showing it to be a 1994 panel, like the other bits of the fairing? (I suspect it does, can't immediately recall). If you want to maintain the originality/provenance of it being a complete 1994 model, then careful repair is almost certainly the way to go. If this is not an issue for you, then a replacement panel is fine. I do remember a NOS 1994 set of fairings being listed on ebay two or three years back, but the asking price was super-expensive. And also - as answered earlier in this thread, the original lever would have been non-adjustable (I also have an adjustable one fitted on mine )
Thanks for the recommendation, it’s much appreciated. I have sent him some photos and hopefully he will get back to me.
All my panels are stamped for June 94 so it would be good to keep them original if I can. If needed I’ll get a new one and still have the old one fixed and painted; just don’t want to be off the road all summer for the sake of a panel. I checked my levers and they are dated 93, with all the history and photos I’m sure they were fitted from new and the guys at pro twins confirmed that the early 916 S (199 made) came with the ohlins rear, adjustable levers and different livery. If you look at the tail piece the centre section is tapered, on the other models it’s parallel.
I've got the quotes back for the repair works if anyone is in a similar position it might help. £140+Vat for just the welding works. £245+Vat for Welding, Skim filler and primer. £410+Vat for Completely painted finished panel. or £400 Inc Vat for a new one from Ducati. I'm just looking in to the use of filler and if it is flexible enough to be a permanent repair.
Personal opinion but: Replacing a broken panel -or anything else- with an original one, made by Ducati & being NOS is ideal. The date stamp on the panel could be from a different year, but did any of us ever check prior to purchasing a bike? On the odd occasion after removing a fairing only to find that one or other of them has previously been broken/ repaired I've always found a little disappointing. Not so when it was simply from a different year from the 90's. Ducati are well known for raiding parts bins themselves! A near obsession with 100% originality that a few people have seems extremely off to me when the alternative is identical, period and 100% reliable. As opposed to broken, repaired and probably fail over time. Almost everything we all own is mass produced in large numbers, there is no special originality of a particular part of a bike or car. Imagine someone were to find an old ex Barry Sheene or Hailwood bike, on which he won the world championship, in a rusted to fcuk state in a barn? The bike would immediately be "lovingly resorted to concours condition" and sold for a fortune. Which means replacing everything with NOS or brand new replica parts including ones newly made... In reality, "originality" is a word banded about by salesmen when is suits them -to force up a price to the gullible. But that's my opinion, others are available! Here's a good example. In the end it doesn't really matter... https://www.autoevolution.com/news/...-remains-most-famous-dino-156970.html#agal_10
I’m thinking that this is the best way for me, I’ll order a new panel and then have the original one repaired later on and just put it up with the standard exhausts and other bits for whenever it gets another owner.
Good luck buying a new panel from ducati, I was told early last year by JHP, they have stopped producing them, and they had a customer who ordered and paid for a 996 panel was still waiting after 3 months
