BMW R1200R R1150R/T F800 K1200R R1100R/T R1250R RnineT Message Board

I too. like Johno, lost control off my '04 last fall. bike slid for like 20 yards, right in front of my house! only damage to bike is a badly scuffed/scratched valve cover and left rear turn signal broke off. i know, i know i should have bought valve cover guards, well now, i have them!
I'm thinking i can take my:
belt sander or grinder to the metal and work it down from rough to fine etc? it looks like these covers have some surface paint on them. haver any of you had success with this method or any other? thanks for the input.
babyz

After I dropped my Rockster, I sanded and tried to match the color. I failed and gave up and drove it another 2 years. Just ride and forget about it...

Very difficult to 'sand' out the scratches from a road slide, , but easy enough to paint if you can afford to have them off the bike for a while.

However, the covers are not all that expensive to replace, so you may be happy with your local parts dealer's price, or one of the many mail-order specialist dealers you guys have acces to. Check that out and keep the scratched one as an emergency spare.

I repaired some scratches to my valve covers using Metal Bondo and some auto spray paint. Duplicolor DSGM340 is a nearly perfect match with BMW silver paint used on the magnesium valve covers.