Me again,
Continuing from the previous post.
Here’s the cover with the paint removed with the Dremel with a sanding wheel attached to quickly get the the plastic for inspection. I also used a stone wheel attachment to grind a channel along the obvious split to conduct a slot of plastic welding:
I actually don’t possess a plastic welding kit so have since got one on order for situations like this in the future. Being the impatient person that I can at times, I decided to continue with the plastic welding with the soldering iron with a tip that I don’t use for the retrofits I conduct. I used 2 different plastics for the this repair:
Thin line fibre composite plastic for strength
Wider, more flush line of flexible plastic
Yes it looks untidy but was persevering with what I had available this afternoon. Here’s the cover after a couple of minutes of 120 grit (wet):
It was starting to look like this repair might just work out. Next up was to find the filler that I purchased over the festive period to tidy up my factory tailgate spoiler ahead of it being sealed over into Neil’s
@nee777.a2 A2. I couldn’t find the applicator though so used a a credit card and went thick as the credit card wasn’t that good at achieving an all over smooth finish:
After a few minutes transitioning from 240 grit (wet) to 400 grit (wet) the cover started to look a lot better and the dread of having to locate another genuine Votex jacking point cover was dissolving:
Couple of pin holes in the filler which was due to me Sandi g a few minutes too early and pulled the finish. Should have waited another 10 minutes and all would have been a little better. I had self induced pressure to get the task completed in between meetings and commitments and really should have waited until the weekend when I had more time. Hindsight!
Next up was to apply a few layers of primer and sand it back with the 800 grit (wet), as shown below:
Almost out of room again on the picture count so will wrap this up by skipping the pictures of the top coat stage and just show the end result post clear coat. The top coat I used was the very same tin tha t was used for the Rear PDC sensors. Probably got a good 8 layers applied, starting them with heat in between each layer. I didn’t sand after the top coat and went straight to clear coat after heat - wait 10 minutes - heat. I used up 2/3s of a tin of clear coat which is what was left after the Rear PDC Sensor recolouring.
apologies for dragging this out as I’m sure out want to see how it looks right now:
Here is the revitalised Votex jacking point cover:
Such a difference from what I picked up from the road earlier this morning. You’ll possibly see a few imperfections which will no doubt will be removed when it’s been wet sanded with 3000 grit once the products have fully cured. Any remaining blemishes I will just live with as it’s certainly better than it looked just before lunchtime.
I’m of course over the moon with finding this item and how it’s come out so far but the morale of the story is; use silicone (or even a tether) to adhere the jacking point covers in once so they never fall out.
Kind regards,
Tom