Technical Bumper rejuvenation

[pandamonius_maximus]

Well I had a bit of a play this weekend and stumbled across a easy cheap way of bringing your bumpers back to life.

I was removing some silver stripes from the Marbella Bumper using a hot air gun and noticed how the plastic was going all shiney and black. It turns out that by melting the very surface layer it comes back to life as if you were air brushing it with black paint. I will wait to see how long it lasts but based on my experience of the products I've tried in the past it doesn't have to last for very long to better And this is free (well minus electricity )

A picture of the front bumper before (from a little while ago):

A picture after this productive weekend:

Here is a video I found when checking if this was ok to do:


Will see how it goes and post up another picture in a month or so...fingers crossed :devil:

Additionally I used this method on the door mirrors and had similar positivities!

Cheers,
Si

 

[JamieK]

Looks great! And you did it without melting the indicators or grill, or cracking the headlight must be a job best done when its slightly warmer outside.
The rear wheel arch protectors on pandas really suffer badly from fading, you tried doing this to them at all?

 

[panda panda]

The rear wheel arch protectors on pandas really suffer badly from fading, you tried doing this to them at all?

DO NOT USE A HEAT GUN ON THIS AREA

It will distort the plastic as it is quite thin and ruin them.

I found out the hard way,

A wipe of autoglym (or similar) gel or spray will restore colour safely

I will post a picture of my incident later.

 

[4WDPandamonium]

I had a go at this to good effect, it brings it up brilliantly from faded grey plastic.

I have to say it did begin to fade and i did it again probably about a year later, i'm not too sure if it was my lack of effort the second time or it just didn't work as well, but it looked better the first time, i think you can only melt the plastic once before it doesn't like it. Anyhow yours looks brilliant now, i was chuffed with my results!
Michael

 

[pandamonius_maximus]

Well if it lasts a year I'll be happy. But will keep the car stored undercover anyway so should get limited sun attack. I was surprised the plastic melted ok in the first place as it's a thermosetting plastic but could well be that you only get one shot at it

If it turns out you can just keep doing this though, I'll be kicking myself for painting the mk1's bumpers black....and then re-painting them every few years when the paint flakes off

I guess a concern is if this over time causes irreparable damage to the plastic but if that is the case I think I'll go down the colour coded bumper route.

Will try to post up a report later on (maybe a year if I can remember to ). Perhaps hang fire on the hot air guns for the time being

 

[panda1408]

It is something to do with the oils in the plastic, the heat brings it back to the surface, keep rubbing on linseed oil and they should stay like that.

 

[james2609]

I use a gel and back to black to keep mine looking good, I wouldn't use a heat gun. I thought the heat gun would ruin the textures on the bumpers as they are not completely smooth...?

 

[panda1408]

You don't get it that hot! If you don't want to use a heat gun I've found linseed oil to be the best, lasts much longer than any of the proper stuff.

 

[firecolour]

I'd recommend Autoglym Bumper Gel. It works really well on the trim beneath the petrol filler that gets faded with spilled petrol.

Alternatively, a whole new (rear) bumper was only £37 inc delivery from "crashrepairparts" on Ebay although I see despite feedback of over 34,000 he's no longer a registered seller

 

[Palio]

I'd recommend Autoglym Bumper Gel. It works really well on the trim beneath the petrol filler that gets faded with spilled petrol.

Alternatively, a whole new (rear) bumper was only £37 inc delivery from "crashrepairparts" on Ebay although I see despite feedback of over 34,000 he's no longer a registered seller

Yes that's the one I use and it's usually great. It didn't do its magic on the white 45CL though for some reason, so I might have to get someone to do the heat thing - in a Sybil calling Basil sort of voice " VERNON" Sometimes you just know that using a heat gun is not your area of expertise......... :doh: