On this episode of Performance Car Refurb,
we take a look at various plastic repair methods
required in the refurbishment of a car of this age.
In performance car refurb,
we follow two fourth year apprentices
as they learn collision repair tips
as they refurbish a Nissan R32 Skyline GTR -
A hero and modern classic of the performance car world.
This R32 will soon have the show to match its go.
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I think when you strip any car like this,
you're going to have a lot of
would you say flimsy bits like smaller little components,
whether it be a grill or a little air intake on the bumper bar
or mudflap side skirts,
predominantly being plastics.
We've had to adapt and go through
each repair method with the apprentices
so that they know how to repair these plastic components.
Yeah, so once again,
highlighting the differences between the insurance sector
and what we're doing here today.
A lot of those plastic parts
in say a 20-25 year old vehicle
are really hard to source.
Sometimes they are extremely expensive
and you don't know what condition they're going to come in.
On outside in the insurance,
a lot of that can be replaced really quickly
because it's at a low price point,
easy to be attained.
But here we had to be a little bit more careful
and think about how we could repair that.
I was a bit worried at the start.
I thought, you know,
when I see broken plastic
I normally think, oh, we'll get a new one,
but here we really had to preserve what we had.
The boys showed me some of the repair materials
and it was really easy -
they made that super easy.
and so I actually was able to see
how that can become a profitable exercise
by preserving what you've got
and using materials like there's
to get that plastic back in its original shape.
So the under parts of the plastic components,
say the mud flaps or the bumper bars,
had very aggressive stone chips in them.
So we had to work on those
with a very aggressive abrasive.
So we went at them with an 80 grit with a flat back sander -
no soft pad.
And we worked through the grades from 180 up to 240
and then we put quite a few coats of highfill on top of that,
wizzed it back and if there are any remaining stone chips,
we just fill them in.
I feel they learned a great deal from that
as opposed to getting a new bumper bar
where you might give it a quick red scotchie,
wet on wet, and then paint it.
And it's a bit time consuming
but the reward is there at the end of the job.
From a plastic repair aspect,
probably the main thing on there was the cracking
one of the sill panels,
which actually turns out it's made of PUR,
which is a thermoset type of a plastic
that doesn't lend itself to plastic welding at all.
So the best way of repairing that
was with some of our adhesives
and we use adhesion promoters.
Top notch adhesives that we apply to those.
If you do that right and you prepare the surface correctly,
you get a good result every time
and you don't have to worry about what sort of plastic it is.
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A common problem with cars of this era is broken tabs.
A 3M plastic tab repair can save a part
and avoid costly replacement,
due to just having damaged or missing tabs.
The first thing to do is draw the tab
onto the plastic contour sheet.
The area needs to be cleaned and sanded back first.
This helps give the adhesive something to stick to.
You then drill holes into the area around or behind the tab
which gives the adhesive another place to grab to,
and adds strength.
Next you need some adhesion promoter on the plastic.
You then use an applicator
to correctly mix and apply the adhesive
to the plastic contour sheet,
and allow it to cure for five minutes.
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Once set, you can then roughly shape the tab
and drill the hole.
Before finishing up with the final sand,
using the appropriate sander and Cubitron™ II products,
depending on the shape of the tab.
From here, it's prep and paint as per normal.
In our next episode of Performance Car Refurb,
we look at how to preserve body lines.
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