Fixing broken tabs with fiberglass

Many motorcycles have plastic body parts with flimsy plastic tabs. It only takes overtorquing the mounting bolt once before the tabs break off. This was the case with many bikes I had seen, and also with the Bandit I bought last year.

Taking things apart, the little tabs were falling off. Since I did not feel like replacing the broken parts with new parts featuring the same weak design, I decided to fix the broken parts with fiberglass mat and some polyester resin.  

This is an example of a broken piece, in this case, a sidecover. After gluing the two pieces together, I grind the back nice and rough, removing any factory applied finish.

Then it is as simple as mixing resin with hardener, cutting a few strips of fiberglass mat, and having go at it. I tend to make my resin not too hot, so it does not melt the plastic as it cures.

When it is all cured, just cut the excess cloth with a small cutoff wheel (I use a Dremmel), smooth over the edges, and drill the hole using the stock hole as a guide.

The same thing was done with this inner fender mounting tabs, except that the first step was to glue the broken parts together with ABS glue, as this was ABS plastic.