How To Repair A Front Bumper Cover

How to repair plastic bumper covers.
Larn tips on how to repair and bond plastic bumpers.

I have been asked many times how to repair a plastic bumper embrace. So I made this brusque commodity and kept information technology simple without all the fancy long plastic names that manufacturers similar to use.

I had the opportunity to meet Dick Jacobs, he was the founder of Duramix, the plastic adhesive repair company which was bought out by 3M a few years dorsum.

Dick was one of us, a very simple focused man, constantly thinking about what innovation he could come upwards with for the Duramix product line and spoke in very uncomplicated terms but extremely thorough.

One day nosotros picked him upwards at the airport, we got in the car and I asked him a technical question. Nosotros drove in heavy traffic for about 45 minutes, had dinner for most 2 hours and so drove him to the hotel which was he was staying at. He got off the car and wrapped up the answer to my question about micro-spheres in SMC panels.

Everyone in the machine that 24-hour interval got a very educational crash grade about polymers, plastics, micro-spheres and SMC composition. The other lesson is never ask a technical question to an engineer unless you take a lot of time and notation pads.

I am going to prove you a simple method of repairing plastic panels and TPO bumpers.

1. At that place are only 4 types of plastic you should know about in the automotive industry.

1. TPO - Sands in chunks, melts like butter with high speed grinders, feels like wax and gets stringy when hot.
2. Thermo-Prepare - Flexible or Rigid, sands powdery, does not cook with high speed grinders and easy to repair.
3. SMC- Sail molded Chemical compound - New Corvettes have it and looks like fiberglass with white powder. We will comprehend SMC in some other article.
4. Poly propylene - RV Water Tanks, Dirt Bike Fenders - Not recommended for repairing or painting.

2. Whatever Plastic Repair system yous choose will incorporate these components.

1. A cleaning agent
2. Adhesion Promoter
3. A mixing gun applicator
4. Adhesive/Material for the structure repair
5. Mixing Tips
6. Flexible contouring plastic and backing re-enforcement textile
7. Finishing By/Putty

three. Lets talk nigh TPO Plastic. This is the most difficult plastic in the market to repair. It contains three% to 5% wax based mold release within the cloth. So that's the problem, how do we get adhesive or paint to stick to mold release? Many shop owners and technicians today will just rather not touch it and throw the bumper abroad. TPO is repairable, but yous have to accept two precautions without exception. If yous tin set up TPO bumpers, you can fix the thermo set the same fashion, if you are not sure which of the two you have on paw, care for it similar TPO. If you don't know what TPO stands for, information technology does non matter considering with my system you don't have to know. Repair it like this and you will be fine.

1. Subsequently you sand the repair surface area follow these cleaning steps, they are the key in repairing plastic bumpers successfully. Use a gray or white scuff pad and scrub the repair area of the bumper or plastic panel with the cleaning amanuensis first, a simple wipe is non going to work. Information technology may piece of work sometimes but may fail in others. Neon Bumpers may require two or three cleaning steps. The main reason bumper repairs fail is past not doing this pace thoroughly. How do you know the plastic is clean? I employ the h2o test. If the water beads up like a freshly waxed machine or simply disappears off the plastic, make clean it over again, so attempt the procedure again until the water stays there wet for a while.

   Do not use sanding paste on raw plastic. Sanding paste is not function of the plastic repair system mentioned above nor solvent based wax and grease removers. These products will contaminate the plastic. You volition accept mold release freshly activated by wax and grease remover solvents. That's non adept. Always use the cleaning agent the manufacturer recommends.

   

2. For this example I am going to use a bumper that has a 9" x 1/4" ripped pigsty shaped like a alphabetic character " Fifty "  right in the middle of the  corner. This seems to be a very common repair in the automobile torso manufacture.
   1. I utilise a small angle air grinder with a 2" 36 grit disc to sand off the rugged edges of the harm until information technology is all shine and shaped like a bowl or a river. This mode the construction adhesive has more than surface expanse to grab. The edges menstruum down at an angle for 1/2". Some people refer to it as  "bevel sand the edges" . Do non use the V groove method considering this is as well narrow for the agglutinative to grab. Moving-picture show the V groove but spread out over a skillful surface area like a basin.
   2. Optional Stride. Drill ane/8" holes in the surface area grooves about 1" apart, This will allow structural cloth to flow through the holes and make an H re-enforced repair with the holes acting as rebar fillings.
   3. Dorsum sand the front and back with eighty grit sand newspaper.
3. Clean the repair again, once the panel is clean, you take thirty minutes to utilise your materials. Do non wait longer than that because the mold release volition start to sally to the surface of the bumper. The faster you get on information technology after the cleaning the better your repair will be.
4. Use Adhesion Promoter on both sides and wait at least ten minutes or what always the manufacturer recommends.
5. Purge the 2 role cartridge earlier placing the mixing tip on. Later on placing the tip, purge almost 2 inches of material on a cardboard and make sure the material looks all one color.

6. Apply structural repair material to a backing re-enforcement piece, enough to encompass at least 1 inch around the back side of the repair. Utilise the backing material piece to the back side of the bumper and the let the cloth ooze out through the holes and groove, then gun some more material while information technology is withal wet and place a contouring plastic on the top and spread information technology out using a spreader or your mitt to match the contour of the bumper edges.

7. Wait one hr, and so sand with depression RPM speed.

8. End off with a Plastic Finishing Putty or filler.

This guide is generic in content and nosotros recommend you follow the manufacturers instructions. Each manufacturer may contain dissimilar recommendations in club for their product to perform the best.

Production Lines we behave for Plastic Repair

Source: https://www.autobodysupply.net/articles.asp?id=135

Posted by: piercevaggrosen.blogspot.com

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