Repairing cracked carbon fiber air vents
#1
Burning Brakes
Thread Starter
Repairing cracked carbon fiber air vents
I've found lots of threads on the defroster strips, mine are long since missing so I do t have that issue. My vents though do have some warping and cracking from sun. I read that you can repair the CF sill protectors with some careful removal of the cracked resin and sanding and recoating. Is it the same for the vents?
here are mine for reference
here are mine for reference
#2
Intermediate
Yes. You can grind down the cracked section. Then you will need to recover the section with resin. You have have to do this multiple times with sanding between each coat as the originals would have been vacuum formed. Once it is done an even you will need to wet sand until it is fully polished. Not sure the process is worth it for those unless you just like projects to work on.
#3
Race Director
Looks like the CF itself is cracked..is that correct? If that's the case, re-clearing is not going to repair the damaged carbon fiber strands.
Sanding it down to the carbon fiber and adding another layer of CF would be the proper fix, but unless you really love the look, replacing it with a non-CF version (or covering it over with Di-noc or the vinyl product of your choice) would be much cheaper and easier.
Sanding it down to the carbon fiber and adding another layer of CF would be the proper fix, but unless you really love the look, replacing it with a non-CF version (or covering it over with Di-noc or the vinyl product of your choice) would be much cheaper and easier.
Last edited by 5CHN3LL; 10-10-2017 at 04:15 PM.
#4
Burning Brakes
Thread Starter
#5
Rennlist Member
It looks like it's just the resin/gel coat that's cracked - It's lifted off the CF cloth a little on either side of the crack (that's the light area). You can probably cut the loose resin out with a fine dremel tool and refill those areas with resin, then grind and sand till smooth again (as mentioned earlier - wet sand/polish). Definitely a lot of work, but if it comes out nice you'll have saved a bunch of $
#6
Rennlist Member
Sand all the clear off, Dremel the cracks down to the cloth (carefully) and redo a coat of sanding resin, sand then a coat of finishing resin.
#7
Be very careful when sanding. The dust from sanding CF or Kevlar have negative heath consequences when aspirated.
Be sure to wear a good quality respirator. A surgical mask is better than nothing, but not as effective as a respirator.
Be sure to wear a good quality respirator. A surgical mask is better than nothing, but not as effective as a respirator.
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#9
Rennlist Member