Working on the fenders is going to be my next step and all of my turn signals are fine except the plastic lenses have these tiny cracks through them. I was wondering if anyone has come up with a way to strengthen or weld together these lenses?
You can't do much about the cracks, but you have two options. (at least :-)
1) Polish them with one of several products such as jeweler's rouge or auto compound (fine) or polish. 2) Sand with wet 1000 & clear with urethane. This *may* melt into some *fine* cracks & eliminate them. HTH, ~ Paul aka "Tha Driver"America - made in China! :-(
The problem is that the compound might accentuate the cracks. I'll try both methods though (eventually - next is fixing the rear bumper).
That's pretty much what I figured on doing. I've got a smashed taillight in the garage that I'll be testing techniques out on first. Actually I was thinking of trying out that liquid cement that welds together plastic if they still make it. I recall using it to good effect when building some plexiglass tanks for a test at a TXU plant a few years ago.
Anyhow, thanks. I figured someone might have tried fixing these before instead of just buying new parts.
Might want to try using a heat gun and seeing if the stuff melts together, considering you've got a test dummy. Could also stick it in the oven on relatively low heat. Probably a bad idea, but you could make this into a shootout of crack mending methods! Maybe try to take some of the clear two part epoxy and spread it into the cracks as if you were applying body filler to a scratch. That might work well as it heats up when you mix it. You could get a bunch of (micro)cracked tail lenses of similar material to what we have on our vehicles, then try a number of different ideas on them (assuming you've got time or interest to do this). Post the results and some pictures of before and after of each method on the internet. Maybe once I get to the cosmetic stuff on my car I'll try doing that myself, if you dont end up doing it. Best of luck!
-Kevin
Well, I'll let you know how it goes. As I said this wasn't the next item on the agenda - I was thinking ahead a bit.
Interesting. Thanks!
*********** Sheesh: that's what I said except I didn't think you needed me to tell you to remove the lenses with a phillips screwdriver, & if you sand with wet 1000 (which I suggested & they didn't do) you'll get less cracks & better adhesion. Also, if you use urethane as I suggested it will be more durable & scratch resistant. ~ Paul aka "Tha Driver"
America - made in China! :-(
But that article had pictures! :)
*********** LOL! ~ Paul aka "Tha Driver"
If guns cause crime, all of mine are defective.
Sorry for kind of upstaging you. I just had seen the article and thought to post it.
-Kevin
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