24
My uncle told me to always use a heat gun on that plastic bumper glue before pulling
He's been doing this for like 30 years, so I figured he knew best. I was fixing a cracked bumper on a 2018 Civic last week, and I started heating up the panel bond adhesive like he said. I mean, I got it nice and warm. But when I went to pull the repair piece off, the whole bumper skin just warped and sagged right in front of me. It was a mess. Turns out, for that specific 3M panel bond, the heat actually weakens the plastic substrate way before it softens the glue enough. I had to order a whole new bumper cover for the customer. I felt so bad. Has anyone else run into this with newer plastic blends? Maybe it's just me, but I'm sticking to the plastic weld tools for pulls from now on.
3 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In3 Comments
wren_rodriguez26d ago
Didn't a buddy melt his fender doing that last year?
8
charlie_hayes5026d ago
Might have been me, actually. My old truck still has the plastic droop to prove it. Got a little too confident with the angle grinder near the fuel line. Lesson learned the hard way, and now my passenger side looks permanently sad.
7