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Old 07-16-2014, 03:51 PM   #1
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Default Repairing Fiberglass

One day I'll learn not to try and back into a very small camping spot, but until then, I have a repair job to do. Luckily, I think, the fiberglass piece that broke off, broke off pretty clean. The RV shop said they'd have to make a new piece for $500. That's a bit much for me.

My thought is maybe I could use Gorilla Glue to put it back together since it fits together like a puzzle piece. The weak spot in this is there was a screw holding the right part to the rear of the van and I can't fix that, although I could try the glue on that also

So I'm asking opinions on if this is a do-able solution or if someone has another, better solution.

I have pictures, but they're just on my computer. How do I upload them? It seems to be asking for a web address.
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Old 07-16-2014, 04:04 PM   #2
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Default Re: Repairing Fiberglass

Here are the pictures. Finally saw the Upload.
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Old 07-16-2014, 09:07 PM   #3
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Default Re: Repairing Fiberglass

Repairing fiberglass is one of the easier repairs to do at home. You can get good, high quality, glass, resin, etc at places like West Marine. A lot of the auto parts store kits are not very good.

It looks like you have room on the inside of the parts for extra thickness, so you are in good shape. The biggest mistake people make is trying to fit the parts back together as the came apart. I can almost guarantee that to be impossible because of the glass ends all over the place. You need to sand it back until you have a very small gap, near zero, between the parts. I like to take some thin aluminum strips and pop rivet them onto the loose piece and the matching piece to hold the repair together while you work on it. If you can get the strip on the back side, they can stay there forever if you want. If not you just remove them once you have it held in place with glass. The aluminum strips allow you to bend and move them around to get the right position. Fixing a bolt hole is also easy. Pop rivet a piece of aluminum on the inside and glass over it, drill out the rivets on the outside, and smooth the outside with resin or bondo, redrill the hole.

Here is a thread on another topic that shows how I repaired and altered the fiberglass ground affects on our Roadtrek. The repair would be similar to what you need, but the alterations were much more than you have to deal with on yours.

http://classbforum.com/phpBB2/viewto...t=battery+tray
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Old 07-22-2014, 01:13 PM   #4
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Default Re: Repairing Fiberglass

LOL. I think 'easy' to repair depends on your level of expertise, and you're obviously very talented. Thank you for your help. I don't think I can do this, but at least I know it can be done and I don't have to have a whole new piece made. That will make my negotiations for a repair much easier.
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