The fender is cracked on my Bayou 250 and in need of something to repair it. It's GETTING WORSE![img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-mad.gif[/img]

 

I have a Bayou 250 and experienced a crack in the fender after hitting a fence post.

The fenders must be made of either polyethylene (PE) or polypropylene (PP) based on my experience with trying to repair the crack with glue. PE and PP cannot be glued with good success with most glues (epoxies, cyano-acrylates or superglue, Gorilla glue) due to the nature of the material. Loc-Tite and Permatex have come out with a super glue (cyano-acrylate) that is designed for PE and PP. It is a two part process. First you clean the surface with a cleaning agent that is in the packet and then apply the CA glue to the plastic. I tried that, and it did not work either...so gluing was out of the question...

So, I purchased some plumber's tape (it is a small strip of metal with holes in it...get it any hardware store, etc). I cut off a piece that was long enough to span the crack; placed the tabe across the crack and then drilled a couple of holes into the plastic (that were aligned with the holes in the tape). Used a couple of small machine screws to hold it in place and the crack was secured and is not getting any longer.

 

Alright![img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-cool.gif[/img]

 

I hit a limb that kicked up while riding down the trail. It split my fender, and I used a Super Epoxy. It has held up very well!

 

BTT for further information.

 

here is a link to my cheap geocities site i did a how to on plastic welding using a soldering iron.

 

Great idea on the welding. That is, by far, the best approach on any plastic fender. Wish I had thought of that before using my painter's tape approach. Will use the welding approach next time; found a neat website with supplies:

http://www.urethanesupply.com/

 

the way i found out it would work was on my old quadrunner the plastic around the exhaust pipe melted but as soon as it cooled it was rock hard again i had to actually use a chisel to get it off. so i figured it might work to fix a broken tab. i tried to use a blow torch first but it made it worse [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img] learned the hard way about it sagging lol

ive never seen that site before but they have almost the same instructions that i have on there. they have a neat little tool that you push the plastic welding rod through and it melts it and the base at the same time i may have to get one of those. they sell plastic rods too sweet. now i dont have to scavenge for plastic for welding rods but i prolly still will cause its free lol. well looks like there site has been around for awhile so im not the first one to think of that idea.

 

I bought a welder from the same place dgford is talking about, it worked really well. make sure if the crack is on a stress point like a curve in the fender to reinforce it with some stainless mesh.

 

Ok, I'll try it. Thanks.[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-wink.gif[/img][img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]