PineyPower
Well-Known Member
Figured I'd post this project as it goes for anyone hoping to do a similar fix. I've recently been given a junk front fender to practice restoring, cutting, etc. Right now it's about half way there. Here's what I started with. As you can see its faded so bad it's scaling, and someone got very creative with the rivets trying to fix several cracks.
The first task was cleaning. I started with a grey scotch Brite pad and gum cutter and scuffed/melted away the rough layer of plastic. Tough corners and grooves I hit with a copper wire brush, though I figure a stiff plastic brush might work as well.
Next I set about making my cuts. Didn't get many pictures for this but I followed the age old adage and measured twice. I used whatever fit the bill to mark out a nice radius curve on all my corners and the design of my cuts is intended to look factory. I ditched the side and front portion of the mud flaps, trimmed off the flange to hold them, trimmed back the front to be even with the nose, and bought the bottom of the flap up about 4 inches. I used one of those micro sized air powered sawzall lookin things and was able to make the cuts clean and precise in one go. You can see what got cut and the cleaned fender in picture 2.
The next step, I got rid of the rivets and did my own plastic repair. I got a cheap plastic welding kit off Amazon with the stainless steel mesh inserts. Never did this before but it holds very strong and was quite therapeutic doing it. You effectively use a small iron to melt the plastic together, then heat the mesh into it and smooth it all over. I also fused the lower mud flap to the rest of the fender this way and got rid of the factory rivets.
Somewhere along the way I used a heat gun to get the residual bend out of the damaged side of the fender and did finishing sanding followed with a pass with the blow torch to clean hp the edges.
The final step for this is going to be sanding my repairs smooth, using plastic bumper filler to skim over the repairs, and doing final sanding on that before some touch up primer, wet sanding, and a wrap. More on thay as it happens
The first task was cleaning. I started with a grey scotch Brite pad and gum cutter and scuffed/melted away the rough layer of plastic. Tough corners and grooves I hit with a copper wire brush, though I figure a stiff plastic brush might work as well.
Next I set about making my cuts. Didn't get many pictures for this but I followed the age old adage and measured twice. I used whatever fit the bill to mark out a nice radius curve on all my corners and the design of my cuts is intended to look factory. I ditched the side and front portion of the mud flaps, trimmed off the flange to hold them, trimmed back the front to be even with the nose, and bought the bottom of the flap up about 4 inches. I used one of those micro sized air powered sawzall lookin things and was able to make the cuts clean and precise in one go. You can see what got cut and the cleaned fender in picture 2.
The next step, I got rid of the rivets and did my own plastic repair. I got a cheap plastic welding kit off Amazon with the stainless steel mesh inserts. Never did this before but it holds very strong and was quite therapeutic doing it. You effectively use a small iron to melt the plastic together, then heat the mesh into it and smooth it all over. I also fused the lower mud flap to the rest of the fender this way and got rid of the factory rivets.
Somewhere along the way I used a heat gun to get the residual bend out of the damaged side of the fender and did finishing sanding followed with a pass with the blow torch to clean hp the edges.
The final step for this is going to be sanding my repairs smooth, using plastic bumper filler to skim over the repairs, and doing final sanding on that before some touch up primer, wet sanding, and a wrap. More on thay as it happens
