Silencer appearance

[Conman]

When I took my bike in for a service a while back, the kind folk at Ducati jet washed the bike clean. Unfortunately they managed to jet wash some paint off my silencer. Not the body of the silencer, just the hanger bracket.



I left it for a couple of months but it was starting to get on my nerves so I decided to paint it. I took the silencer off and masked the silencer so that just the hanger would be painted. I did this because I was worried the paint would not match the existing paint and the hanger provided a good cut-off point for the spray. The paint I used was a standard "stone chip" resistant type. It goes on a bit thicker and alarmingly it looks quite bubbly but it settled down nicely when it dries. I sprayed it straight on without any problems.

Imagine my horror when I pulled the masking tape off and it came away with most of the paint from the main body of the silencer    The original paint looks to be a few atoms thick and held on by pure willpower. So I had no option but to paint the whole silencer and give the shiny section a good polish. This is something completely alien to me; it took me two hours to dig out my almost unused Autosol and I had to have a lie down afterwards.

Anyway I think it was worth it in the end and hopefully the stone chip paint will be more resilient because winters coming and the bike will get no rest 

[Murf46]

Looks like a good job mate

[pmxbmega]

That looks good, but you should use a primary ink - or spray with hammerite - to prevent from rust... - and if the ink is not for Hot use it will peal in a no time.   

[Conman]

The silencer gets hot but I don't think it gets that hot that I need special paint. The bracket and silencer body is Aluminium. Hammerite does not go well on Aluminium unless you use their primer and whenever I've tried that it looks like a dogs dinner - all lumps, bubbles and runs. Aluminium doesn't rust as such but the problem with painting it is that if you get a chip, even a very small one, the metal corrodes underneath the paint as moisture gets in, and then it bubbles up and comes off in chunks. I used the stone chip paint to hopefully resist the chips. We shall see 

[resovoir]

Conman
I hope the paint stays on, but should you be disappointed try barbecue paint, it can be sprayed on and obviously has high temperature tolerance. Looks good what you have done.

[Conman]

It's a couple of months since I did it (1000 miles or so) and it's still looking OK  Winter will be the real test...   

[Wassers]

Conman - I've had exactly the same issue with mine, however the dealer touched it up whilst I was having heated grips fitted. I said I would keep an eye on it and if it happens again I'd be seeking a replacement rather than having it touched up again! They seemed happy with that suggestion. Time will tell.

[Conman]

Good luck with that! I can't see them replacing the whole box because paint if flaking off, I bet they'll just keep painting it until the warranty runs out 

I had an Aprilia that had a lot of painted aluminium parts, which was fine for a couple of years. Then it started to bubble up and flake off in big bits. The good thing about the silencer is that it gets hot so should evaporate off any moisture. I predict the bracket will be a weak spot as the bike gets older