Humpty-Dumpty back together

[Tom King]

When the ground was hard frozen, I decided it would be a good morning to check on an old house.  Worked good, until a 90 degree turn became a slow motion 270.  An empty dually is the worst for rear wheel traction, even in 4wd.  Plastic fender exploded with contact of small Pine tree.

The 20 year old truck is not worth spending money on, so I decided to glue the fender back together.  There had been one small split held together with 3M DP100 for 10 years, so I ordered three new tubes.

That old repair held together fine setting up with no help, but creeped out of perfect surface alignment as the 10 minute adhesive kicked.  This time, I decided to get some clean release double sided tape, and use mixing sticks across the joint to hold the surfaces correctly.  It doesn't take much, but I don't have enough hands to do more than a short crack.  I ordered three different types of double sided tape, not knowing what would work, and only one did what I wanted it to.  Here's the kind that worked:  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07CNWXG5X/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1   I ordered some more to have on hand for other such uses.

The tape came off right before the adhesive completely kicked, and I shaved it off the surface with a sharp (really sharp) chisel.

Pictures should tell the story.  I laid one layer of 6 oz. fiberglass cloth on the inside, with West Systems epoxy.  That is still too flexible for me to feel like the joints won't crack, so I ordered some more mat, cloth, and another gallon kit.  I'll build up the inside, to stiffen it up, before using the flexible body filler, and painting it.

I still have three more tiny pieces, but a few flew off out of picking up range.  I'll just fill the holes that are left.

 

[Tom King]

Mods,   Sorry I put this in the wrong forum.  I thought I was putting it in Off Topic.  Must have been the epoxy fumes up under that fender.

[..Kev]

1 hour ago, Tom King said:

Mods,   Sorry I put this in the wrong forum.  I thought I was putting it in Off Topic.  Must have been the epoxy fumes up under that fender.

Moved..  

Deep breaths!  Get some air....

 

[RichardA]

1 hour ago, Tom King said:

When the ground was hard frozen, I decided it would be a good morning to check on an old house.  Worked good, until a 90 degree turn became a slow motion 270.  An empty dually is the worst for rear wheel traction, even in 4wd.  Plastic fender exploded with contact of small Pine tree.

The 20 year old truck is not worth spending money on, so I decided to glue the fender back together.  There had been one small split held together with 3M DP100 for 10 years, so I ordered three new tubes.

That old repair held together fine setting up with no help, but creeped out of perfect surface alignment as the 10 minute adhesive kicked.  This time, I decided to get some clean release double sided tape, and use mixing sticks across the joint to hold the surfaces correctly.  It doesn't take much, but I don't have enough hands to do more than a short crack.  I ordered three different types of double sided tape, not knowing what would work, and only one did what I wanted it to.  Here's the kind that worked:  https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07CNWXG5X/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1   I ordered some more to have on hand for other such uses.

The tape came off right before the adhesive completely kicked, and I shaved it off the surface with a sharp (really sharp) chisel.

Pictures should tell the story.  I laid one layer of 6 oz. fiberglass cloth on the inside, with West Systems epoxy.  That is still too flexible for me to feel like the joints won't crack, so I ordered some more mat, cloth, and another gallon kit.  I'll build up the inside, to stiffen it up, before using the flexible body filler, and painting it.

I still have three more tiny pieces, but a few flew off out of picking up range.  I'll just fill the holes that are left.

 

The mother of invention.  Well done.    I was going to phrase it another way, but it's politically incorrect, and I've been chewed out for it before.  No need to push my luck

[Tom King]

I took that last picture between glove changes. The double sided tape has a paper cover on it.  That paper, as you can see in that last picture, comes off, and the mixing sticks stuck across the joint.  I forgot to take any more pictures after that.

That low crack right behind the clearance light was the 10 year old one.  It was still holding, even after the impact, and it had no reinforcement behind it.

The worst part of the job was cleaning the inside of the fender, to get the fiberglass to bond.  The broken off pieces were easy to clean, so that was a big help.

[Tom King]

I hadn't realized how long it had been since I did this.  It was right in pollen season, so I didn't do any painting.  Finally, this morning I sprayed it with primer.  

It had been like the first picture since I first worked on it.  I was worried about UV having a bad effect on the exposed plastic, so I sprayed it with epoxy primer.  There are still a few imperfections to hit with filler, but at least it's protected from the Sun.

I didn't use any polyester in this job.  Every step is done with some sort of epoxy.  

 

[Tom King]

I used this for body filler.  It's a flexible epoxy, designed for plastic autobody parts like bumper covers.  It looks just like JB Weld, coming in two tubes, and the way you mix it.  I really wasn't expecting it to work very well, but it really is flexible, and you can still sand it.  It doesn't sand as easily as all the Bondo variants, but it's really not too bad.  I say they did a really good job engineering it.

It's the gray that you see in the pre-primered picture.  The yellow is the bare plastic.

 

[wtnhighlander]

Tom, I bet you are good a jigsaw puzzles!

[Mark J]

I don't know about the power train, but that fender looks like it's good for another 250,000 miles.