When you have an old dirt bike and you want to paint the plastics as they’re tough to replace, what do you use?
Well, there are certainly some options for repainting:
To paint dirt bike plastics, it’s best to use paint designed exclusively for plastics with 2 to 3 coats applied. Before this, you’ll need to lightly sand back any heavily scratched areas and then use a high-quality paint such as Krylon Fusion spray can paint. This particular paint holds up well to the tough conditions that dirt bike riders face.
Avoid going for the cheap stuff that you find online or through hardware stores. This stuff will start peeling within a few rides and make your dirt bike look like a cheap machine, which means you effectively wasted your time painting it in the first place.
Paint for Dirt Bikes
Most modern-day dirt bikes don’t need to be painted for at least 10 years. Even then, most riders simply order the replacement plastics online and install them at home. Others actually just place some stickers off the top of their dirt-scratched paintwork. Thus, they cover up their spills on the tracks and can spend more time riding rather than worrying about how ‘new’ their very used dirt bike looks.
So consider this before you start painting your dirt bike. Do you really need to do it? Probably not. We actually like seeing dirt bikes which are a bit beaten up with scratches everywhere. They earn a ton more respect than that shiny show pony who rocks up with his polished dirt bike at the track. Can he actually ride fast and claim a championship win? Probably not.
There is a real trick to getting the right paint too. This is because of the Pantone color guides and very few paints actually lining up to the true colors of KTM, Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki or Kawasaki. So you might find that you get two grades of the same color on your dirt bike and it looks….well….somewhat weird.
You won’t really need a primer or undercoat. Any popular brand such as Dupli or Performix does well. You’re typically going to spray paint this with a can instead of using a paintbrush. Get yourself some masking tape first and seal up all your exposed areas such as your seat that you don’t want stained. This specific paint is sometimes available at your local dealership though typically Amazon does stock it.
Again – question yourself as to whether you really need to paint this.
In Summary
Dirt bikes are meant to be ridden and experienced hard. Over time they always earn their fare share of battle scars and this includes scratches to the paintwork.
You can pretty much use any paint that is plastic friendly. Spend up for high quality stuff and keep to either black or white shades, but ideally black. Use this to cover up any unsightly stuff but focus more on improving your lap times and your skills on the track, rather than the judgement of what your dirt bike actually looks like.
