Plastic welding with a soldering iron

Ped

Club Member
I cracked my Volvo S60 wing mirror off a concrete post the other day, broke the corner into bits and snapped the motor off its mountings.

I manged to find most of the bits on the ground but that left about a half inch gap of missing plastic. I was just going to get a second hand one off ebay, but they are about £50, and as the colour coded top cover and glass were in tact I thought I would have a go sticking it back together.

I have tried using glue in the past, but its never that successful. So I had a look at DIY plastic wending on YouTube and found this (overly long) video:

25W soldering iron worked a treat. I used other scrap shards of trim (black not grey) from elsewhere to fill in the missing void on the radius. Wasn't expecting it to be so solid afterwards, but its a bit of a winner and very easy to do. :thumbs:

mirror-repair.jpg
 

Rob Gaskin

Treasurer
Staff member
Site Administrator
Have a practice on a piece of scrap trim and see how it goes. There must be people at body shops who have the professional plastic welding kit?

I've seen magazine articles on Plastic Bumper repairing so yes. The process was to drill holes either side of a split, 'cable-tie' it together, weld it, remove the ties, fill and paint.

Console repairs - what I have done is use strips of aluminium 'super-glued' to the underside of a repair to give it some strength. In the case of cracks due to choke lever use I think there is a mod to mount the lever on the tunnel.
 

Ped

Club Member
I looked at a 2 part glue product, glue + powder, in Halfords (can't remember the name of it), it was £9 similar to the Q-Bond product available on ebay. This looked like it was specifically for trim repairs. Not sure what the older type plastic trim is made of, so don't know it would work.

Anyway... if you are not bothered and just want to save a few quid, it's worth a try. Just don't do it on a rare piece of trim or you concourse show car! :EXTRAeek:
 

Mr Ex Jnr

Club Member
It is good stuff on old and new plastics worth every penny go off really quick aswell u can send it and shape it
 
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