‘I prodded the swingarm and a lump of fibreglass and silver tape fell out’
Mechanic Darryl Price found trouble lurking within this 80,000-mile Pan
‘It wouldn’t have been tricky to do the fix properly’
This 1995 Pan European had a bodge lurking beneath its fairing that proves why it’s always a smart idea to have a delve under the plastics. Although it already had 80,000 miles on the clock, the owner was confident it would sell for a decent price, as Honda ST1100s are well known as big-mile beasts.
But when Darryl Price, the boss of the Motorcycle and Metal Workshop in Norwich, had a look he got a nasty shock. He said: “Water and muck is thrown up by the back wheel so the alternator body can corrode and crack and the swingarm suffers too, so I knew what to look for.”
Sure enough, there was a 10mm hole in one side of the swingarm, so he gave that area an exploratory tap with a large screwdriver, but instead of a metallic ringing, there was a worrying dead sound.
“I prodded the swingarm with the screwdriver, waggled it about and a lump of fibreglass and silver tape fell out. You used to see this sort of thing on bottom frame rails and car sills. It reminded me of a 1969 Ford Zodiac I had where the windscreen pillars had been replaced with rolled-up newspaper and fibreglass.”
The 10mm hole was on the edge of a previous ‘repair’ which had replaced 50% of the main brace and up the sides of the arm itself, and it had been like that for some time. “A Pan is a heavy bike and I didn’t want to think about the consequences if it had failed. It wasn’t as if the repair was difficult. I used a manual grinder with a soft pad to clean it up, then a chemical rust treatment finished the prep. I fabricated a replacement brace out of 2.5mm mild steel and welded it in, then repainted the swingarm and refitted it. The whole job took about four hours and I charged about £200.”