Plastic Welding

Daniel816
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4/22/2012
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Winnemucca, NV, USA
Daniel816
Just curious if any of you guys have tried this. I had a crash that broke a small tab on my air box and cracked my rear fender on both sides. With a kid on the way I'm being a tight wad and wanted to try to repair what I have. I watched a few YouTube videos using a soldering iron and gave it a try. Has anyone else tried this? If so did you get a bit more time out of the part or was it a failure? I didn't think to take any before pics but here is the after on the fender. It's definitely not a stack of dimes like welding metal but I'm interested to see how well it holds.

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colintrax
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Taylorsville, GA, USA
colintrax 7/4/2016 4:14pm
7/4/2016 4:14pm
They do sell plastic welding kits, works a little better than a soldering iron. Anyways your repair should last forever pending no future crash damage.
SeaClassExpert 7/4/2016 4:50pm
7/4/2016 4:50pm
You should be fine, one cool trick I learned on thumpertalk was that the Blue Recycling Bins for bottles/cans (at least in CA), is a perfect match with YZ tanks LOL
panic_rev_214 7/4/2016 4:51pm
7/4/2016 4:51pm
That might work but I can see that breaking because of the amount of flexing that a bike fender does.

I usually just do zip tie stitching on broken plastics and it hasnt failed me yet



hassbeen 7/5/2016 7:50am
7/5/2016 7:50am
I tried it on a fuel tank, held for 20min and then split again.

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r.sal923
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CA
r.sal923 7/6/2016 5:37am
7/6/2016 5:37am


Safety wire works better than zip ties. I did this 2 years a go, and with 3 kids reefing on it 10 times a day . It seams to be holding up
Eddie_E
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Framingham, MA, USA
Eddie_E 7/6/2016 7:03am
7/6/2016 7:03am
MX is probably the the hardest on a repair, but I would use a black zip tie as a filler rod and build up that area instead of leaving a valley and give it a shot. It's trash if you don't try it anyways.

I wouldn't try it in a spot on the wrong side of the air filter though. Filling a motor with dirt is always more expensive than replacing the airbox.

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