your advice on repairing a crack on sharktooth grill

[71dustar]

So i finally received my sharktooth grill after waiting two weeks and the crack is about 3 inches long on the bottom of grill passenger side. dont have any photos to show at the moment since i'm at work but how would you recommend going about fixing it?

 

[3404speed]

This has been discussed here, maybe a search will help. I read that using a part of a donor grille for some of the plastic, and a soldering gun to fill it/ melt it back together... many others I'm sure...Acetone to melt the plastic and fill/

http://www.forabodiesonly.com/mopar/showthread.php?t=41504&highlight=plastic+grill+repair


http://www.forabodiesonly.com/mopar/showthread.php?t=42581&highlight=plastic+grill+repair

 

[71blueduster]

As you can see from the link in the last post, I just repaired some cracks in the sharktooth grille I got a couple months ago from ebay.

I tried the acetone and plastic shavings on one of my old broken standard duster grilles to see if it would work, and I didn't have good luck with it. The plastic melts down, but after I fixed a crack, the repaired crack wasn't very strong and was easily re-cracked.

I did use some regular 2 part epoxy from NAPA. I used a dremel tool to notch out both sides of the crack into a V shape to give more surface area for the epoxy to hold onto. Mix the epoxy, fill the crack, scrap off some of the extra, but leave a little extra since the epoxy will shrink a little when it cures. Sand down the excess epoxy without sanding the plastic too much, shoot some primer then paint.

Heres a pic of mine finished. Mine was cracked in 3 places. Two on the top and one on the bottom of the near side in the pic when the curve starts.

 

[dusta34065]

I have used a product called "Plastex" on 2 shark tooth grilles- one completed this summer, and am working on 2nd one literally right now -just took a break to let Plastex set up on a broken tab.

The Platex is a 2 part expoxy that works great. It produces a very strong joint and is easy to work with. You can also use to mold tabs that are broken off. It takes primer and paint very well.

It can be purchased at Eastwood - I used clear but I think they have in a number of colors now

Here is a link to product info on Eastwood:

http://eastwood.resultspage.com/search?p=Q&ts=custom&w=plastic+repair+kit

 

[3406pk]

For crack repair on plastic parts, my body shop owner did a repair of the rear interior side plastic panel crack.. There can't be any missing parts, just a crack. He used a two part product, a liquid and a black powder. He poured the powder on the crack then swirled the liquid onto the powder and worked it into the crack. It seeps into crack and supposedly makes it as strong a the original plastic. I didn't get the name of the material, but it worked well.