Modern Buddy

Does anyone know where I can find a pair of the plastic plugs that cover the screws on the front of the Buddy?

This probably sounds weird, but I'm actually planning to "de-mod" a bit - I bought my Buddy with a front luggage rack, and now find that I just don't use it (plenty of room for my laptop on the back seat). I'd like to remove it, and do not have plugs that go into the resulting screw holes.

Any help?

Try asking for them at a scooter shop that sells Buddys. Maybe they've installed a rack for someone else with a Buddy in your color so the plugs would just get thrown away. Although, if I remember right, the plugs are not so much "plugs", but pop-outs that are held in place by three tabs that have to be cut in order to remove them so once cut, you can't just reinstall them without further work.

I have been thinking about this for awhile.
Genuine needs to make some little round delete's
that can just pop in your front mounting holes
if you decide you don't want a front rack anymore.
they don't have to be color matched maybe just black.
Still better then having two gapping holes in the front
of your legshield.

I think you should screw some gun barrels into the holes so she looks like a fighter scoot ^_^

Else cover them with decals? Reflective circles?

cover them with really big googly eyes! That would be awesome!

Post a ForSale/Trade with someone who wants to buy it and has the same color Buddy.

Becktastic said it !!! I did pick up 2 barrel flash supressers appx.5\8" dia.and 2" long [looks like 50 cals.] but haven't made proper bolts to thread into front rack braket mount holes...........they look pretty mean so I'am not sure I'am ready to mount them up just yet although they should fit like they were made for Buddy!! .........I get lots of thumbs up from l.o.l.s in town and not sure I'am ready to give that up yet!! Anyway you can go to local hardware store and pick up 2 black rubber stoppers[like corks,tappered] ,the make various sizes to fit ;if you want get creative and glue something,whatever, to them to cover stoppers [use silicon glue].I have an old real 8 ball [pool] that ii thought about cutting in half ,one 8 on either side,to make this work ..,,,,srould be a fun project. old an in the hay

Go to your local hardware store and get a couple hole plugs.

broke wrote:cover them with really big googly eyes! That would be awesome!

That way, you could look your Buddy in the eye, and finally know where you stand with it.

Orange Guy wrote:Go to your local hardware store and get a couple hole plugs.

You beat me to it.
I was also thinking of the metal blanks used for covering holes in commercial grade electrical junction boxes.

Okay - I need more advice on this one!

(First of all - gun barrels? Googly eyes?!? Is it so wrong to just try to return to stock, here?)

I got a couple of black plastic hole plugs from my local hardware store, took off my "WINSHIELD" (as it is labeled on the back), and popped the plugs in. BUT, when I snapped the panel back on, the bracket that the luggage rack screws into pushed the hole plugs back out. So, I tried to push them back in, but this metal bracket is so close to the panel that it prevents the plugs from staying in.

Other than gluing the pieces in, or buying a new front panel, is there any other advice? Anyone out there with a black Buddy planning to get a luggage rack (or screwing in gun barrels or googly eyes) who would like to trade panels?

Heck, for a fair price, I'll even throw in the front luggage rack! (I'll post something in FS/Trade when I get a chance).

Xie xie
-rgbwatcher

Okay, I think I came up with a nice, simple way to cover up those holes.

I went to my local hardware store, and picked up a couple of steel hole plugs for about 75 cents each. They look like these:


They're 1 inch in diameter. The holes were a little smaller than that (figures - metric, probably), so I had to file/sand the holes a bit bigger. A little odd - here I am trying to cover up the holes, and I found myself having to make them bigger!

I sanded and painted the plugs with a little gloss spraypaint I had lying around, and snapped them into place.

Here's the winsheld without the plugs:


(doesn't it look sad?)

...and here it is with the plugs:



When I tried to snap the winsheld back on the Buddy, the plugs kept falling out, because the mounting bracket for the front rack practically touches. So, I bent back the fins on the back of the steel plugs, and that worked nicely:


(see? "WINSHELD" - no "d" and no "i"!)

And, here is the Buddy with the whole shebang in place (notice I even painted up the mounting screw and a neat bevel piece I found at the hardware store)...



Oh, and if anyone is wondering, the mounting bolts for the three mounting areas need to be metric 6 - 1.0.

-rgbwatcher

Depending on the color of your bike, vinyl sheets could cover the holes easily and much smoother and cleaner. If you have a black buddy, you could get black vinyl cut in circles larger than the whole, and just peel and stick. Otherwise, it'll be harder to color match say....orange or pamplona red.