We seem to be lacking in foil tape experts; this must be a first on any Ducati forum, normally the place is teeming with fuggin' experts...
I consider myself to be adept at several subjects Pete - beer, pies, that kind of thing - but motorbikes? No Sir, I am merely an observer who happens to disagree quite a lot...
Fisrtly Nelson, a couple of questions, what bike is it first of all, and secondly are the downpipes contacting with the exhaust or is it just heat soak? What's there at the moment?
It's my 748 / 1098 jobbie. The exhaust (big mofo) is contacting the belly pan, about 1/2 way along bottom of bike....Think it's touching.
Ok, cool, well, you don't really need a huge amount of tape, that's the good news. The problem you have is a clearance issue, ie you have none, which doesn't heave you with a huge amount of choice. If it is touching you'll see signs of melting and rubbing. I'd look at your contact area and see where the downpipes start to give 10-15mm of clearance, this is really the minimum contact area you'd look at for the patch, you'll probably find it isn't that large. In an idea world you'd also look to relieve the bellypan in that area so you have around 10mm around your nice roasty zorst. Heat shielding will work to a point, but in reality over time will burn through as its surface to surface contact, and being near a source of heat is way different to being in contact with a source of heat. Of corse there's nothing stopping you from trying. Get the size of the patch you need, it may be just post card size, you'll probably find ideally you want something like 3M 20825 or 425 as the thickness will help alot, but bear in mind whatever you put under it will get rubbed by your lovely nice hot exhaust. Like I say, get the patch you need, and take it from there, as there may be better materials out there.
Thanks for that... Bit annoying as my nice new belly pan is already showing bubbles and a bit crunchy! :frown:
that's the joy of heat soak for you - the paint around the area will start to yellow as well as time goes on. Get the size of the patch and I'll see if I can send you the tape as I have some of the 3M tape at home. There's no point plastering the whole of the belly pan with it. The problem is that at the moment you're heat cycling the same spot over and over again. What material is it anyways, plastic, glassfibre, charcoal fibre?
Don't worry, I've just posted him a hundred metre roll of the stuff... Is it worth putting some exhaust wrap on the pipe where it's in contact? Obviously it'll make things even tighter.
the problem with exhaust wrap is that it just causes hotspots if its not done right and over time it breaks down as well, and as you say fig, it just makes everything that bit tighter. If I were nelson I'd seriously just get a dremel with a diamond wheel and just cut a relief slot in the belly pan. Nelson, is it a track bike? do you really need to have the undertray fully enclosed? With exhaust wrap you have to take it from the header down as its not really advisable to apply it in patches, and it still doesn't take away from the fact that its touching.
