DIY Sport Screen for the Tracer 900

Same screen, new look!

Back in August 2020, I finally broke down and replaced the screen on my (then 2 month old) 2019 Yamaha Tracer 900 with a PUIG Touring Screen (Dark Smoke). The stock Yamaha screen was okay for local and regional riding. However, on the highways it was murder! Considerable buffeting and poor responsiveness to wind turbulence at highway speeds whether off other vehicles or seemingly normal wind conditions.

The Puig has been an outstanding addition for long moto-touring. Here's a dimensional comparo of the Stock and Puig Touring Screens:

Here's a link to the Blue Knob Post on the installation and testing.

Puig Touring Screen for the Yamaha Tracer

My "Screen Plan" for the Tracer was to swap between the much larger Puig Touring Screen with the stock screen as I moved back and forth between touring and local/regional sport riding ... it is a sport-touring model after all. However, as time went by, I decided that a dedicated sport screen may be in order and started to look at my options.

While I concluded that the PUIG Sport Screen (15" H, 11"W, around US$95) probably best suited my needs, I decided to do something I'd never done before, which is cut the stock screen down to sport screen dimensions. Why not, I thought. If the mod failed, I would just purchase the Puig. If the mod succeeded, I'd save the cost of the sport screen.

Well, I'll spoil it right here. Cutting down the stock screen worked out and tested fine. Modified dimensions that mirrored the Puig sport screen are 15" screen-height and 12.5" wide (-4 3/8" in screen-height, -1" in width). Modified ground height is 51 1/2 in the low position and 53" in the high position. The screen is tinted dark-smoke consistent with my touring screen.

Here's a look:

Details, details...

The cut was accomplished with my BD Jigsaw using a T118A fine metal blade. Yes, there are dedicated plexiglass blades, but they seem so course for cutting glass and I had the advice from the bike-specific group that the metal blade would work fine ... which it did.

The edge shape was finalized with an 80 grit pad on my mouse and smoothed with a 400 grit sanding block.

That's it for a clear screen finish. However, I wanted it tinted, dark-smoke consistent with my touring screen. 

The tinting was created using Rust-Oleum Lens Tint. Essentially the process provided for applying the tint and then wet sanding it down to the desired tint with 1000 grit (very time consuming), followed by rubbing it out smooth with rubbing compound. A finer grit (e.g. 2500) wet sanding is probably a better option on a flat surface; however, the concave backside of the screen made sanding in a consistent fashion difficult. I went with the rubbing compound.

I found that the Lens Tint dried darker than wet coat making it hard to judge tint level. Nearly opaque before wet sanding, the screen required a lot of sanding to get the dark tint desired. A best practice with this stuff appears to be to apply "very-light" individual coats and let each dry to evaluate the tint.

I found that the rubbing compound did a good job smoothing the surface and only minimally affecting the tint level.

Lastly was two thin layers of clearcoat.

Viola...

Testing is an important step whenever aerodynamic design changes are made. Small things can cause big problems. I once installed a small sport screen on a DR650 only to experience the worst of all conditions ... death wobble.

I ran the new shorty screen through all speed levels up to 90 mph, including cutting in and out of Interstate traffic to see how the screen did wake turbulence. The screen handled all conditions well although the screen needed to be in the high position to make use of it at highway speeds. 

Overall, a very successful mod and I had everything to accomplish it except the tint ($15 at Advance Auto). In fact, I have enough tint leftover to darken up the tint on my recently purchased GIVI Handguard Extenders. Sweet!