After being rear-ended by a wayward Kawasaki the SP1 needs a bit of a polish to get it back to its former showroom condition ... plus a few bits and pieces to replace the ones which don't appear to be the right shape any more.

The tank was well dented on the right side by young David's knee as he ejected rather unexpectedly and then on the left side by the road as the bike fell over. It's probably beyond repair ... so that's a new tank, then.

The fairing and seat unit have taken a bit of a battering with various bits broken off and a few splits and cracks. Hopefully most of this can be repaired with plastic welding.

When it was hit by the errant Kawasaki the exhaust whacked itself into the swing arm brace and has gouged out a few scratches - they appear to be only cosmetic so not really a problem, especially as they'll be mostly hidden by the new silencer. This is just as well, as the price of a new swinger would rather put the kibosh on this whole idea of a cheap repair.

The silencer itself has had a right hammering as it took all the initial impact, flattening the can and bending the connecting pipe. It's made of stainless steel - extremely heavy and bloody strong, lucky really as it absorbed so much of the impact and saved David's leg from worse injury. However it did trash both footrest hangers on the right side when it was pushed forwards and bent the stub connector on the downpipes.

Depending on the chances of repair it's either a new Honda silencer or an aftermarket system, which would be nice as it should save a few hundredweight of, er, weight. But standard stuff should be available cheaper secondhand.

Micron are bringing out a full race 2 into 1 titanium system for £779.91 (single can) which would be nice. They're also doing road legal slip-on titanium cans at £739.89 which retain standard headers - so no good here if we can't get the headers back into shape. The standard silencers each weigh over 5kg so replacing them with something lighter would save a fair bit of porkiness. Loads of other makes of cans are appearing on the market for the SP now but we need to ensure we stay below 100db in the noise department to avoid problems at track days and the 'Ring.

Strangely, the most expensive bit of the lot to replace is the stainless header pipe - £556! The impact bent the right branch of the Y piece and has kinked the pipe slightly. Specialised Exhausts (020 8648 4786) have had a go at bending it back - but as we don't know where the proper position actually is it's all a bit trial and error.It's not too far out but needs another tweek sometime to get the alignment spot on.

Prices so far ...
Petrol tank £359.39
Right hand silencer £292.20
Header pipe £556.15 (!)
Seat unit £238.57
Top fairing bracket £59.82
Left hand mirror £46.82
RH front footrest hanger £56.48
RH rear footrest hanger £40.95
LH front indicator £47.38
Exhaust clamp £14 (!!)

Don't even think about fairing panels - this is supposed to be a cheap repair not a concours show bike.

Looking bettter ...