Crazy Eddie

Hi Guys
Can anyone recommend a glue to use in these two cracked parts ?
The front grill and the black plastic air duct
These are plastics that don't easily glue back together ..
So I need a glue expert ( hey z3bra ) Brian are you out there ??
Thanks in advance
Ed

KuHL 951

If the parts are ABS or urethane your best OEM repair is heat and a flame drip patch like fixing skis when they get dings. You will need to heat up the base material with a heat gun prior to the drip to get a good bond though. You can always try a backup plate with metal and not worry about making it structural with a plastic patch. I've never been into concours and have repaired tabs I know will fail again using larger washers. I know it might seem cheeseball but the repair works. Anyone looking that closely at your car should be shot anyway!

cag4

Speaking of glue questions...

What has worked for glueing the wing mirror glass back into the side mirrors? Looks like there is a thin mettallic veneer that the mirror glass needs to adhere to?

Thanks in advance,
cag4

ehall

I cant resist lol


"Speaking of glue questions..." How much are you sniffin Ed? NO ONE WILL SEE IT!
Now back to our regularly scheduled therapy session. Dude you are NUTTY! lol

z3bra

Not sure what that plastic is but the top contenders would be Polyurethane, Nylon, Polypropylene, or Polyethylene. It could be ABS too like Kuhl suggested. I would say either the melted weld like Kuhl suggested or metal backing plates with rivets would be the best bet and don't even bother trying to bond them back together. Trying to glue plastic pieces that weren't made to be joined that way just doesn't work very good usually.

**edit** Thought about it some more, the bumper cover is definitely urethane and my guess on the duct pieces is that it's most likely polyethylene or polypropylene. Those are all right bastards to deal with when it comes to adhesives so the rivet/plate approach is probably going to be your best bet. I did a rivet/backing plate setup to fix my batwing using some 1/8" or so aluminum sheeting and some decent pop rivets I got from an auto body place that have black colored heads that are about 1/2" in diameter but they're only 1/8" or 3/16" shanks on the rivets. It's at least as strong as it was in the first place. i did the same thing on the other side just to prevent it from breaking. It's not pretty but unless you're right under it looking you'd never know. Actually the bottom/visible side installed looks pretty decent and I could always paint the other side black if I decided I cared.

z3bra

That's a pretty lightweight application there, something like a good quality epoxy (as in a 3M industrial oriented epoxy) should work. Just make sure you clean both mating surfaces really well first and then follow it up with acetone to get rid of any oily residues. A thin even coat ought to do it and keep it clamped while it cures if you can (or stack books on it or something to put pressure on the whole piece of glass as evenly as possible. To be sure though I'd suggest calling a glass or mirror supply place and see what they'd recommend. Epoxy should be ok, but I haven't bonded glass to anything before so I'm not 100% sure.

KuHL 951

I think you might find that any hard brittle type adhesive like epoxy will transmit vibrations and cause the mirror to vibrate, I found this out on the 83 replacing a mirror glass. The best thing I've found is black windshield sealant/adhesive, it has a low durometer value and absorbs most of the road rattle before it's transmitted to the glass. In my case I should have replaced the motor mounts in the first place and eliminated the vibration at the source...nah...too much work!

Crazy Eddie

Thanks Guys
ehall I cant resist lol
"Speaking of glue questions..." How much are you sniffin Ed? NO ONE WILL SEE IT!
Now back to our regularly scheduled therapy session. Dude you are NUTTY! lol
You are killing me !! They call me Crazy for nothin'
**************
KuHL 951 If the parts are ABS or urethane your best OEM repair is heat and a flame drip patch like fixing skis when they get dings. You will need to heat up the base material with a heat gun prior to the drip to get a good bond though. You can always try a backup plate with metal and not worry about making it structural with a plastic patch. I've never been into concours and have repaired tabs I know will fail again using larger washers. I know it might seem cheeseball but the repair works. Anyone looking that closely at your car should be shot anyway!

*****************
z3bra
**edit** Thought about it some more, the bumper cover is definitely urethane and my guess on the duct pieces is that it's most likely polyethylene or polypropylene. Those are all right bastards to deal with when it comes to adhesives so the rivet/plate approach is probably going to be your best bet. I did a rivet/backing plate setup to fix my batwing using some 1/8" or so aluminum sheeting and some decent pop rivets I got from an auto body place that have black colored heads that are about 1/2" in diameter but they're only 1/8" or 3/16" shanks on the rivets. It's at least as strong as it was in the first place. i did the same thing on the other side just to prevent it from breaking. It's not pretty but unless you're right under it looking you'd never know. Actually the bottom/visible side installed looks pretty decent and I could always paint the other side black if I decided I cared.
Thanks Brian
I will try it ... Any shot that the urethane glue ( call Gorilla glue ) might that wk on the front bumper grill ?
Thanks again
regards
Ed

Crazy Eddie

The best thing to use is silcone or the RTV black stuff
That will wk like nothing else
Regards
Ed

ps Steve where does one get hot drip or do I use some sacrificial piece ??
Or do I use the ski stuff ?
Thanks
Ed

pstickne

I use epoxy for almost anything involving plastic (there are dozens of different kinds of different applications) these days. Just prep (eg: scar) the surfaces well, use a backing (much more surface area than an end-end join), apply liberally and clamp well. Anything with similar expansion characteristics should suffice.

Depending on which kind you get, you may be able to enjoy a nice bannanna-mixed-with-sunscreen-and-sugar aroma.

z3bra

Yeah I was thinking that might be an issue. That urethane adhesive for windshields is pretty damn impressive stuff. That would do the job. Another option for a more elastomeric adhesive would be something like aircraft "Pro-seal" aka Thiokol aka Integral fuel tank sealant. (I think it's Mil-s-8812 but I'm going from memory there). The Pro-Seal is very sticky stuff and cures to the consistency of a harder RTV or so. It adheres to bare metal very well as anyone that's ever had to scrape the old stuff off can attest. It's not the cheapest stuff out there, one of the sem-kit applicator mixer tubes is around $25 from most aircraft supply type places. The quart can with hardener is usually around $70 for comparison's sake. It's a Polysulfide based sealant, and once it dries it's basically impervious to any chemicals you find on a car except battery acid (and that's only because I just don't know for sure with regard to it's acid resistance). Anything petroleum based is absolutely not a problem as is water/coolant. Not sure about brake fluid either but it's probably ok with that too.

z3bra

Honestly, I'm not sure, I've never used Gorilla Glue (I've seen it at the store but haven't ever bought any), you might try calling their customer service line or check their website to see what it works on.

Because of the type of pieces we're dealing with, I think you'll get the best overall repair by using some metal and rivets. Something like some 18 gauge or so 6061-T6 aluminum would work great (I suggest the aluminum because most steels that would be easy to work with would be a little on the soft side whereas the 6061 will be fairly rigid). Get some decent aluminum rivets in either 1/8", 5/32" or 3/16" diameter. You might need to stick with the 1/8" ones if the clearance is tight around where the rivet heads end up needing to go. You can use the Arrow brand ones Home Depot sells or you can get them in boxes of 500 at Harbor Freight for about 5 bucks if you don't care who made them or where they were made. For something like this, I certainly wouldn't care where they were from or who made them.

Figure out how thick the plastic and backing plates will be total and get some pop rivets that are a bit longer than that so that they can expand enough to grab but don't have a bunch of extra shank protruding allowing the plates to flop around along the axis of the rivet shafts.

If you need a pop rivet gun, while you're at Harbor Freight to get the rivets, they have a decent rivet tool with a swivelling nosepiece for I think $10.00. The Home Depot equivalent while a smidge nicer is $20.00+. If you're not using it all the time, I'd stick with the cheap one or if you are using it all the time, get an air powered one instead.

If you want to pay a lot in exchange for a nice warm fuzzy feeling you could probably source some nice Cherry-Max aircraft pop-rivets. They're really nice but aside from being overkill they're about $1 each.

Another nice thing about using rivets is that if it breaks again (which it most likely won't), you'll just need to replace the plate (and go with one a bit thicker if needed) and pop the rivets again. Several glue applications starts to become a messy pain in the ***. Best of all, you don't have to wait for rivets to cure/dry which means you can test the repair you just made without waiting a day (especially nice if you think you need to make some minor adjustments).

Crazy Eddie

Honestly, I'm not sure, I've never used Gorilla Glue (I've seen it at the store but haven't ever bought any), you might try calling their customer service line or check their website to see what it works on.

Because of the type of pieces we're dealing with, I think you'll get the best overall repair by using some metal and rivets. Something like some 18 gauge or so 6061-T6 aluminum would work great (I suggest the aluminum because most steels that would be easy to work with would be a little on the soft side whereas the 6061 will be fairly rigid). Get some decent aluminum rivets in either 1/8", 5/32" or 3/16" diameter. You might need to stick with the 1/8" ones if the clearance is tight around where the rivet heads end up needing to go. You can use the Arrow brand ones Home Depot sells or you can get them in boxes of 500 at Harbor Freight for about 5 bucks if you don't care who made them or where they were made. For something like this, I certainly wouldn't care where they were from or who made them.

Figure out how thick the plastic and backing plates will be total and get some pop rivets that are a bit longer than that so that they can expand enough to grab but don't have a bunch of extra shank protruding allowing the plates to flop around along the axis of the rivet shafts.

If you need a pop rivet gun, while you're at Harbor Freight to get the rivets, they have a decent rivet tool with a swivelling nosepiece for I think $10.00. The Home Depot equivalent while a smidge nicer is $20.00+. If you're not using it all the time, I'd stick with the cheap one or if you are using it all the time, get an air powered one instead.
I saw one at HD the other day it was 20 buck looked nice but it was only the rivet I guess the ones at HFT are pretty
crapy ? I want to get one anyway but on that is versatile with lots of diff size rivets and that can do those blind rivets...
What model # is the one at HFT. They have like 10 of them !!


If you want to pay a lot in exchange for a nice warm fuzzy feeling you could probably source some nice Cherry-Max aircraft pop-rivets. They're really nice but aside from being overkill they're about $1 each.

Another nice thing about using rivets is that if it breaks again (which it most likely won't), you'll just need to replace the plate (and go with one a bit thicker if needed) and pop the rivets again. Several glue applications starts to become a messy pain in the ***. Best of all, you don't have to wait for rivets to cure/dry which means you can test the repair you just made without waiting a day (especially nice if you think you need to make some minor adjustments).
Thanks Brian
best regards
Ed