Post by atvsunlspokane on Oct 30, 2013 15:30:02 GMT -5
Learning how to repair the plastic body on an ATV is fairly simple. Plastic cracks easily, but it also is very easy to fix. With a few simple materials, and a little bit of time, you can repair cracked or even broken plastic on an ATV's body. This can be important for those who want their all-terrain vehicles to appear and work in tip-top shape. The following tips provide some basic advice on how to repair the plastic body of an ATV.
To repair an ATV's plastic body, you will need:
Five-minute epoxy
A razor blade
A rag
Water and a spray bottle
Tape
First, buy what you will need from any supply or hardware store. These items should not be costly, and they are all fairly easy to use when repairing the ATV's plastic body.
Spray water onto the cracked plastic, and wipe it down. If a chunk of plastic is missing, spray the gap area.
Depending on if the crack or chunk is detached,you will want to support the crack back together. Starting at the beginning or the middle and drill a hole on either side of the crack and pull them together with small zip ties, just here and there just enough to hole it together. Mix some five-minute epoxy, use a pre mixing injection type for easy application. Apply the Apoxy to the cracks avoiding the zip ties. Let it dry, come back remove zip ties and appy apoxy to those areas to finish Apply it to the cracked area and wait for it to dry if the plastic is only cracked.
If a chunk of plastic has actually broken off, apply epoxy to the edges of the space where it was, lay it in place, and then place some tape over it. Epoxy dries to make a plastic-like material, so that after about five minutes it will be sturdy and have basically the same toughness that it originally had.
Once the epoxy has dried over the crack or the missing chunk, take a razor blade to the surface and scrape off the excess. Be careful, and make the surface flush, and then you will have a finally repaired your ATV's plastic body.
Learning how to repair the plastic body of an ATV is pretty easy. With a little time and effort, you can make your ATV as good as new. Be carefull using heat guns on your plastic to bring back the luster or smooth it out. Heat is plastics worst enemy. It makes it brittle and dries it out even more. I am going to also try an type of glue commonly used at Sign companies for joining plexy glass plastic. There is a thin glue and thick glue as they like to call it in the trade. The thin glue actually mends the plastic together and the thick glue gives it the backbone it needs