Has Anyone Else Had Their Rear Fender Melt?

Hello All:
I'm new to the forum and recently purchased a 1999 VFR with low miles (<10k miles). I removed the rear fender to treat a rusted cross bar beneath the battery when I noticed that the forward edge of the fender was melted on the right side closest to exhaust pipes. That corner of the fender was curled downward like a stalactite. My bike has a slip on muffler but the exhaust manifold appears stock. I've found a few 5th Gen fenders for sale on eBay but none appear melted. So, I'm thinking this could be a problem unique to my bike. The previous owner installed a Power Commander III and said he had the bike dynoed. Don't know if the PC3 could have the engine running too lean and creating excess heat in exhaust. I hesitate to replace the fender without knowing whether the replacement will melt as well. Please let me know if anyone has had a similar experience.
Thank!

 

One of my two 5th gens has a melted fender exactly as you describe. Looks like a plastic stalctite dripping down just behind the rear shock upper mount. Judging by how bad the rest of the bike looked cosmetically, I am not surprised this happened. BTW this bike was totaled and I bought it at auction with a salvage title. My clean title just has a little warpage in the front part of the fender. I imagine it must be pretty common because the rear headers are only a couple inches away from the fender.

 

I was gonna say, I would guess it's been tuned to run a bit hot. I'd start there.

I had a 99' ridden and setup as a tour bike - sold it to my cousin, and missed it so much I bought a low mile '98. No PC, but it was treated more as a sport/light track bike and see evidences of much higher wear. I'm actually going through right now and showing it much needed TLC.

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Here is photo:

 

Ha, here's what mine looks like:

Rear-fender-drip-small by comradeQuestion posted Aug 28, 2020 at 10:36 AM

 

ComraadeQuestion: Is your bike stock? Still curious if my PC3 is running the bike too lean and creating excess heat in the exhaust. I'm thinking of cutting out the melted portion and attaching a small piece of aluminum sheet metal with pop rivets. Don't know if that would just transfer the heat and melt the rest of the leading edge. Perhaps just trimming the melted portion and leaving the gap is best? Knowing that engineers don't add things for fun and that reducing weight is a design consideration (admittedly that portion of fender weights a few grams) I feel uncomfortable just leaving that gap.

 

If u decide your don't want the PC III let me know. I'd like to buy it.

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The judges had a lot of difficulty with their decision. You win!

 

The bike came to me without a Power Commander unit, however I suspect that it had one in the past because the ECU cubby was missing the plastic clips and the bike had a two brothers exhaust on it. Again, I got this bike at a salvage auction and am still rebuilding it so I haven't ridden the bike yet.

Mello, the spot that is dripping is here:

Parts-fiche-rear-fender-emphasis by comradeQuestion posted Aug 29, 2020 at 10:43 AM

When its on the bike that part of the fender is directly behind the upper shock mount and only inches away from the rear headers. The only reason I was able to get that picture is because I removed the rear brake proportioning valve. You can see the mounting holes for it in the foreground.

 

Just a thought but the original poster on this thread mentioned that his bike has and aftermarket exhaust installed. If there's any leakage at the crush-gaskets where the headers meet the rear cylinder head the tempera

 

The bike has the original exhaust manifold. The prior owner installed a slip on muffler. However, I suppose it could still be leaking there. Is there any why to check other than looking for exhaust residue around where the pipe mates with the cylinder head?

 

Sorry my post got cut off by accident, I was in a restaurant trying to post it quickly. In the part that got cut off I was saying that it's not uncommon for a motorcycle owner (who might not be experienced in wrenching and maintenance issues) to remove the headers for one reason or another and then reinstall them without replacing the crush-gaskets, just reusing the old ones (not realizing that they're supposed to be a one-time-use item). Just a tiny little leak around/through one of these crush-gaskets could raise the temperature behind your bike's rear cylinder head to the point where the plastic would melt.

But remember, I'm just offering a "what if" here. The problem with purchasing an older motorcycle is not knowing what's been done to it during its lifetime. I'm the guy who can't bear not knowing, so in the past when I've purchased a used motorcycle I always give it a pretty thorough going over.