Hey, everyone, this is John.
Today I'll be repairing a Toyota Tacoma headlight tab.
Let's go ahead and identify the plastic.
The housing is made out of polypropylene.
I'm applying two pieces of aluminum tape to keep some stability here
so that I can weld on to it without the tape bending or it falling, collapsing down.
Since polypropylene does not come in gray, we're gonna use our gray TPO welding rod,
which is the same type of plastic as polypropylene.
So, I'm gonna begin using the -01 profile to outline my tab
and then I'm gonna come back with the -04 profile to fill it in.
At this point, I wanna make sure my plastic isn't drooping or trying to bend upwards.
So, I wanna take a look at it from a side angle and make sure that my tab is aligned properly.
And don't worry about if you fill the hole in;
you'll be able to see it on the back side and drill it out.
You can't put too much pressure on this tab while you're smoothing it, or you will collapse it.
Just kind of let the weight of the welder lay on it and just kind of float your tip across the tab.
And I actually did fill my hole in.
But again, not a problem.
When I flip it over on the back side, I'll be able to see exactly where to drill the hole.
Alright, the tab is cool, so I'm gonna go ahead and remove my tape.
Kind of brace that tab while you remove the tape; we don't wanna put any stress on it at this point.
The backside hasn't been welded yet, so it's a little weak.
As far as the back side weld, it's only necessary to lay one or two beads of welding rod
just to lock the front and the back together.
It actually has moved on us, so I'm gonna hold the tab down and blow some air on it
to kind of lock it in place.
You wanna look at your other headlight to get an idea of the exact shape and length of your tab.
I made my tab a little longer than it actually has to be so that I can grind it
and shape it to the size that it needs to be.
So we're building it up higher than it actually needs to be so that we can grind and shape.
We wanna have plenty of material to work with here.
Now I'm gonna blow some nitrogen across the whole tab to kind of help blend everything in.
And that is how you repair a broken headlight tab!