What is the best way to repair a cracked fender? Can i weld it?.......

 

Yes it can be welded. But it can be time consuming if there's a lot of cracks (and you're paying shop time). If you have a welder yourself, I use the polyethylene rod.

 

Stock plastic is cheap.

 

It seems like the newer fenders are cheaper. If you go looking for some of the older stuff, they can be surprisingly expensive. If there's just a crack or two, it makes welding a reasonable alternative in some cases.

 

Where do you get those polyethylene rods?

 

It depends on what you ride, on a sport quad just buy new fenders. On a Utility do the frankenstien method, it looks tough, like a scar.

 

duckt tap

 

Dirt

 

Believe it or not but you can use a soldering iron to heat up the plastic and melt it back together. I used to be a mechanic and an exp. tech showed me this. He owned a plastic welder and said that melting it back together with the soldering iron works better than his plastic welder ever did. After doing this I would use apoxy, JB weld, etc. to fill it in and make it stonger. When you melt it bech together it is hard to get it smooth and even in all places.

 

The welder I use is like a soldering iron with an end that looks like a shoe, and has a hole to insert the rod. The heat range is adjustable for different plastics. It comes with different types of plastic rod. It really works pretty slick but takes a little practice to make it look nice. You can build up the thickness of the weld so it's actually stronger at the crack than around it. You can also finish off your weld with a dye grinder, etc, you can tell it's been welded but it actually looks pretty nice. A regular soldering iron isn't the way to go. Duct tape, JB weld, fiberglass look like crap IMO, of those type fixes, I prefer the zip tie stitching LOL. I think the whole welder kit is a little over 100$ (not sure anymore, ours is a few years old), and you CAN buy the plastic rod separately if you want to mess with a different heat source. I will check at work today and see if I can come up with company information.