Came home and wanted to do something to the truck. I'm waiting on stuff to come in the mail, and am kind of stuck until then.
I researched ways to fix broken plastic at work today and stumbled upon a video on Youtube of a guy mixing superglue and baking soda to make a strong paste. I had never seen this before and figured that the broken air vent on the passenger side would be a good candidate to test this.
Basically the process is as follows:
- Clean the area needing repair with rubbing alcohol. I dry fitted the pieces together to make sure it was a clean break.
- Apply a generous amount of superglue to the area to be repaired. I basically ran a thick bead across the crack.
- Cover the glue completely with baking soda.
- Pat the baking soda down into the glue until it forms a solid paste.
- Repeat on the opposite side of the crack.
- Sand the excess baking soda/glue mixture off for a cleaner surface.
This worked surprisingly well. The pieces were back together with a strong bond quicker than it took to write this post. I can't find the particular video right now, but a quick search on Youtube for "baking soda and super glue" showed about 5 videos outlining the process.
Here are a few pictures of what I did:
Before:
[IMG NEEDTORESIZE]http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e29/dbroberso/88%20gmc%20k2500/IMG_20141026_202031_zpshtzz7xca.jpg~original[/IMG]
Stuck them together with a light bead of superglue:
[IMG NEEDTORESIZE]http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e29/dbroberso/88%20gmc%20k2500/IMG_20141026_202549_zpseid8vykn.jpg~original[/IMG]
After dumping baking soda on it, letting it dry for a few seconds, and dumping off the excess. I would have taken more pictures, but I didn't know how quickly it would set up. It was VERY quick.
[IMG NEEDTORESIZE]http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e29/dbroberso/88%20gmc%20k2500/IMG_20141026_203645_zpsws5w7j8m.jpg~original[/IMG]
I basically hit the excess off with a small scrap of sandpaper I had laying around in the garage after that. I'll screw it into place tomorrow morning after I let it cure for the night.
This wasn't that big of a job, but I thought it was neat.