Scuttle (rain channel) cracks
The rain gutter in front of the windscreen is another vacuum form in plastic. Exposure to weather, and the weight of the wiper motor mounted on it take their toll, resulting in cracks. This is not a rare problem, though I can't say if later models are better in this respect. A crack isn't necessarily the end of the world, it will let water through into the engine bay, if there is noise padding like mine, it will go onto the shiny inside surface and down between it and the plastic bulkhead. It may drip onto the wiper motor and some electrics.
By the time I looked seriously into mine there was a hole and big cracks around a wiper motor bolt, and cracks around the wiper shaft extending up under the windscreen rubber trim. I think if left long enough the wiper motor would have eventually fallen out. I did find the whole job easier after removing the bonnet and the soundproofing in this area. The soundproofing was secured by self tapping screws at the top edge and could possibly be just detached there and stuffed back out of the way. There were 2 more screws down the bulkhead, only one of which I could reach, above the gearbox/belt. I pulled crudely at the other until it gave way, reasoning that it was well trapped by the engine etc at that side.
Anyway, here is what you could see of the damage before I started:
Note the long crack just peeping to the left along the bottom of the gutter. There were four button head socket screws holding the bonnet. That balldriver to the fore again! See below:
The screws go into plates under the wing. A little fiddly to refit with the wheel still in place, those with short fat arms will struggle:
I made a crude screwdriver for the horrible roofing bolts securing the wiper motor. It didn't shift them, too stiff. I loosened them with the mole grips:
You can see below the motor bolt holes and the white plug to be pulled out.
Click here and here if you want to see more pictures of the motor and gearbox.
With that out of the way I could start on the cracks. I made sure the plastic was clean and dry, and ran an abrasive between the surfaces to remove any mouldy surface deposits. The glue I used this time was a quick setting acrylic 2 part from Deluxe Materials. It is called Super Crylic and is a strong resin which bonds most plastics and also wood, metal. On this reasonably mild day outdoors it set quick enough for me to hold the parts together while it hardened enough to stay put. It can be chilled to slow it down.
Further crack repair and the plastic is now getting back into the proper shape. Note the windscreen rubber has been lifted with masking tape. The rubber does not hold the glass in, it is a trim strip slotted around the screen edge:
The closed cracks were cut into "V" grooves rather than trying to open them up and persuade glue in. I used a burr bit in a rotary tool (Dremel):
More acrylic followed, 2 coats where the grooves were deep to avoid dribbles. While the first coat set I put masking tape under the hole:
To support an infill. It may not look too strong but this material is surprisingly tough when set:
I decided to try and stiffen this area of the plastic a bit, so while the last acrylic hardened I made a paper template of the wiper motor region:
And cut out some woven glass cloth layers to match. I believe this is 200 gram cloth used in my other hobbies. It is very thin and strong and though one could use coarser cloth, or chopped strand mat (a little messy), this is what I had to hand and is quite tidy:
I did some trials with my other glues and decided none of them were compatible both with the matting and the quite large area, as well as the plastic to be stuck on. I settled on polyester resin, that's the traditional stinky fibreglassing resin. I scrubbed thoroughly under the scuttle area with abrasive paper, and then wet the glass out with resin on top of a sheet of polythene. I wet it more than usual to glue it in place and lifted the whole lot, polythene and all, under the repair area. I could rub it around to bed the resin without getting it dripping off, though I wore gloves anyway. The polyester tends to warp the polythene so it curls up, so I had more masking tape standing by and taped the edges up a little. After the resin has gone off, the polythene peels off easily. The holes were of course bridged over, but they were readily cut and filed back out:
A spray from an aerosol paint and what an improvement :o) I did mask the washer pipe outlet and screen edge first!
Refitting the motor wasn't too hard. there are sealing rubbers over all three holes. I put some steel washers under the two screw holes to spread the load a little as well. The motor and gearbox got a coat of Waxoyl. I tend to put this on any corrodable metal parts when I refit them.
An M6 stainless hex set screw replaced the naff roof bolt:
Now that's better! The repair has held for the last few weeks at least. Any further repairs or problems will find their way here in due course.
Aixam
