plastic repair

On more than one ocassion I have touted the effectiveness of the 'new'
super glues for plastic as well as the two-part epoxy for plastic
(both products available in the adhesives section of places like
Lowe's, Home Depot, etc.).

While replacing the original clock with the tach and changing out the
various bulbs I found a broken part- to the left of the instrument
cluster is the headlight/dash dimmer/rear fog light cluster. The
plastic face that covers these and holds the rear fog light switch has
a VERY thin area to the right of the switch. It takes a lot of stress
and it takes a deft hand to remove the switch without cracking the
plastic. Well, soemone before me was somewhat ham-fisted, and that
piece came away in two parts when I removed the panel.

With nothing to lose, I removed the switch and at the workbench I used
a dental pick to apply a small drop of the super glue to the breaks
and reassembled the part. I allowed it to cure overnight and snaped
the switch in the next morning... And yes, it has held together just
fine.

The super glue is sort of a two function adhesive- it has a solvent
that melts the plastic just a little on the surface, then the
superglue sort of penetrates and hardens when removed from the air by
pressing the parts together. The result is an amazingly strong repair.
A little scraping or sanding might be necessary to remove the "weld
bead" formed by the melting action, depending on how judicious you
were with the application of the glue.

Locktite makes it now and it comes with a second tube which is sort of
a little marker pen with a chisel felt tip that applies an "activator"
to the plastic. Apply, allow to dry for about 15-30 seconds or so,
then apply the super glue to one side and fit together. it is even
supposed to work on polyethlyene and polypropylene- something that
cannot be said for "regular" super glue for plastics.

The console in my car was cracked in at least five places. I super
glued these as described above, then sprad an amount of the plastic
epoxy on the backside of the cracks where it wouldn't show. This stuff
can even be suused to form missing areas where the plastic has broken
away and is not to be found.

If you have plastic parts in your life (and with cars, who doesn't?)
you need to have some of this stuff on hand! It really is that good!



__ __
Randy & \ \/ /alerie's
\__/olvos
'90 245 Estate - '93 965 Estate
"Shelby" & "Kate"

 

These "super" glues are also available in most hobby shops and come in
various viscosities and cure times.

 

Some are very good but some no-name brands are worse than useless.