Hey Ron,

I'm no expert, but, a few years back I ran over some black ice over a bridge and layed the big girl down.

No funds for tupperware replacement, wife talking about "scrapping her out", so thisi s what I used.

Loctite makes an epoxy (I think I got from Lowes Hardware) just for plastic. I used it on tabs and cracks.

I jsut stripped her down recently and some of the tabs broke agin, but, some didn't. also most of the cracks were fine, still a bit ugly, but fine.

I didn't use fiberglass mat (although I think it is superior) and used metal wire and fiber straps to bridge the cracks and reinforce the tabs.

It seems to work well, but, YMMV

joe

 

We use an industrial sized version of Devcon Plastic Welder to glue the seams in large ABS cell tower cover tubes. You can buy the stuff at home stores and hardware stores. Small tubes like 5minute epoxy. The material bonds very well and flexes about the same as the ABS Tupperware plastic.

 

Ok, so now my LT is 14 and showing some signs of aging. The dash around the instrument cluster is needing some attention. Haven't had much luck using epoxy on other plastic type materials and was wondering if anyone has done repairs to their tupperware. Right now my plan is to use epoxy with some fiberglass mat on the back side. Gonna get the area clean and scuff it up for better adhesion. Also the speaker grill foam has deteriorated and will need replacing. I think there are about four other areas that need some epoxy also. I noticed some old repairs had been made using some yellow epoxy that lasted but don't know what kind was used.

I have not done a repair as extensive as what you are doing, but I did have to repair one of my mirror mounts a couple of years ago and the repair has held thus far. Once I found that the plastic was ABS (not sure if this is true for the part you need to fix), I bought a sheet of 1/8" ABS online and used that with normal plumber's ABS cleaner and cement.

I prefer to use a solvent weld approach rather than epoxy as epoxy just adheres to the surface rather than becoming part of the part. It is a little like comparing soldering to welding of metal. So, I would get some ABS sheet and use ABS cement (use the cleaner first to remove any surface contamination) to weld a patch over the crack. If the crack is along a curved surface, you can use a heat gun to soften (carefully!) the patch to conform to the surface before cementing things together.

 

I'm assuming that you just want to reinforce the crack? I just repaired a fender on my grandson's dirt bike and a fender on my wife's quad. After removing the pieces, I took some stainless steel wire mesh, as fine as you can get, cut a piece to overlap the cracks, then used a soldering iron to heat small sections of the mesh and pushed it into the ABS. Obviously this was done from the back side. I used a large flat tip afterwards to smooth out the ABS. It's very functional, but would need to be filled and painted to look new.
To repair the holes I drug into the lower fairings on the LT, I filled from the back side with epoxy, then used a quality bondo type product, sanded, primed and painted. Looked great.
Then again, I may not be understanding exactly what you're trying to accomplish, and this made no sense at all!

 

this stuff is supposed to be really good check out it out on utube. Rapid fix

 

That's really an amazing product!! Seems like that would get the job done quit nicely. Pretty expensive for such a small amount though.

I'm thinking that ABS Cleaner and ABS Adhesive may be a more viable method if the Tupperware is in fact made from ABS Plastic. I've used plumbing adhesives a lot and didn't even think about it until "fmlt" mentioned it. Maybe I'll give that a try before going more expensive products.

 

I do collision work for a living. I do believe it is a loctite product, I use a product called "Plastic Welder" (think its loctite) I get it at the local napa store. It is 5 to 6 bucks a tube, and as mentioned above it gets right into the plastic instead of laying on top. you HAVE to sand all the paint off the area you are repairing or it wont work. The other stuff I use can be found at a hobby shop..its called "Plastizap" get the abs version. It also gets right into the plastic and can be used to fill minute cracks. Ive used this on my quarterscale racecars and also on customer cars

 

NOTW!!! do NOT play with the parts without letting them sit overnight! If the stuff gets the right amount of time to bond it will work.... EVERY bonding "glue" needs a lot of time to work correctly

 

ABS repair with ABS cement and ABS cleaner.

Buy some cheap acid brushes to apply the cleaner or it WILL run and the purple dye will not come off when it wicks through the crack and runs down the paint. I've had it happen when repairing Star Wars armor so use it sparingly.

Sand the back with 600 grit paper and overlap the crack by at least one inch all around with a backing piece of ABS plastic. Good tip earlier to heat your backing piece with a heat gun and mold it to fit, use rags and gloves to prevent burns.

Any cement that pushes through the crack let harden before removing with a razor blade.

 

...I've had it happen when repairing Star Wars armor so use it sparingly...

This might need some additional explaining and possibly pictures.

 

Ron, I am no expert at these types of repairs. I tried to repair my cracked dash and it just continued to crack. I bought a used dash just a couple weeks ago from beemer boneyard. Less than 90 shipped and it is in great shape. So you might be able to score a used dash and be back in business that way.

 

After counting the small breaks, mostly bolt holes, and cracks there is at least 12 and so I quit counting. I just went ahead and ordered a new dashboard on line for $190 delivered. The old one would just keep breaking and cracking do to age and continued UV damage. I pulled the speaker screens off cause the new one won't come with them. Gotta put some speaker foam on the screens as well.

 

Looky what was left at my front door today! Now if I can only remember how to put it all back together. It was actually a night mare removing everything to get at the brake lines.

 

After procrastinating 6 weeks I finally finished her up. Took me 5 hours and a lot of cursing but I got everything back together and she runs good. The new dash looks great. I had buy some window unit air-conditioning screen/foam, or whatever you call it, to replace behind the speaker grills. The UV ate the old ones up.

 

There's a product out there that works amazingly well on abs repair, big or small, never failed or separated on any repair I've made. I put a full Pichler fairing on an R090/6 years ago that tended to rub on the asphalt while cornering. It got shredded one day after a couple hundred miles of canyon riding and I had to tie pieces of plastic on the back seat so as not to lose them altogether.

After a few failed repair attempts, someone told me about a product used to repair boat hulls called Marine tex. Using marine Tex with fiberglass fabric on the back, the repairs quickly became permanent. Since then, I've used marine Tex for any and all ABS repairs, big or small, with and without fiberglass and never had a single repair fail.

Marine Tex is a 2 part epoxy that when mixed, forms a putty type of consistency making easy to work without having to worry about running. It can be pressed into cracks and fiberglass mesh easily enough and when dried remains a bit flexible which is what makes it so perfect for fairing repairs. It sands beautifully, can be readily drilled and cut, and takes paint with no problems.

It has successfully repaired the fairings on wrecked bikes when the plastics were nearly shattered. I have even used it to fill holes and shape contours when the original plastic was too damaged to do so.

Plastic tabs are by far the hardest to fix and hold. Marine tex, when built up around the repair area to form a bit of a gusset, will hold.

No, I'm not affiliated in any way with Marine Tex and don't sell it. But I do keep some in my garage. And, in case you are wondering, swear by it.