ADVICE needed: uNDER DASH PANEL TABS broken

[booZTTed]

EDIT: I'm so stupid, I didn't finish writing the title: UNDER DASH PANEL TABS broken


Hi,



Tabs on under-dash panel are broken, does anyone have a suggestion for fixing them?

All the tabs are broken, and otherwise the piece is fine. I tried searching for similar problems/posts, but couldn't find anything on this subject, hopefully my search skills aren't as bad as I feel they are.

Any suggestions other than the most common sense of buying another part lol?

Thank you in advance for any direction...

-Ted

 

[DocL]

The car is now a salvage. Part it out.

You can probably buy a used one off of a car that has recently been totaled.

 

[Jinks]

If you still possess the tabs that broke you could use a Q bond kit which is adhesive and bonding powder. Works great on plastic. Or buy some flat abs plastic, cut to shape, then Q bond it.

 

[Old Guy]

If you have the broken off tab pieces, you can try gluing them back on. Loctite makes some adhesives especially for difficult plastics - can't remember the number off hand. I think they are in the cyano family and are notable because they typically come with a separate activator which is applied to the broken pieces before the adhesive is applied. There is also the 3M Scotchweld product for use with their AC77 instant adhesive activator / primer for use on difficult to bond (typically described as oily) plastics.

I was in a similar situation. A previous owner on my car had done some creative wiring in the vehicles doors and in the process of re assembly managed to break off or crack most of the tabs that held both the passenger and driver interior door panels onto the doors with the result that the interior panels rattled a lot. I don't know whether the plastic that Honda uses for the interior panels is acetal or one of those other difficult to bond plastics; but, I had no luck doing repairs. With the 3M activator and glue, the parts would bond together but as soon as any bending force was applied on the tab the joint would fail. The failures typically occur where the cross section is very small with the result that the any bending force on the tab results in very high stress across the repair area. That Q bond stuff might work by externally reinforcing the fracture - if the Q bond adheres to the Honda plastic. I gave up. Fortunately the NSX interior door panels have separate little panels with the tabs attached to them so I didn't have to buy complete new interior door panels - that would have been $$$.

Good luck with whatever you try.

 

[hkz286]

you can cut out aluminium tabs, rivet them (or glue them) to the plastic, and drill a hole in the aluminium for the mounting screw, effectively replicating the tabs out of aluminium. Its what I did with mine, as the tabs were inevitably broken off. This Is just a temporary thing until I get a new one.

 

[EuroBoutique]

We can rebuild the entire piece with re-inforced tabs, check out thread on the knee bolster options in our vendor section!

www.euroboutique.us

 

[kj5000]

EDIT: I'm so stupid, I didn't finish writing the title: UNDER DASH PANEL TABS broken


Hi,



Tabs on under-dash panel are broken, does anyone have a suggestion for fixing them? View attachment 148367View attachment 148368View attachment 148370View attachment 148369

All the tabs are broken, and otherwise the piece is fine. I tried searching for similar problems/posts, but couldn't find anything on this subject, hopefully my search skills aren't as bad as I feel they are.

Any suggestions other than the most common sense of buying another part lol?

Thank you in advance for any direction...

-Ted

I have used this on my dirt bikes to repair plastic mounting tabs. repair is strong but not pretty. basically it uses fiberglass cloth with superglue as the resin to reinforce the tab.

has instructions specifically for fixing tabs.

https://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/p/989/33543/Threebond-Plastic-Repair-Mini-Kit

Sent from my SM-G930T using Tapatalk

 

[kennyc]

One of my tabs broke just like that. I fixed it by applying epoxy to 2 small metal washers - one one each side of the broken tabs.

EDIT: I can do that because I have the broken off tab... not sure this will work in your case.

 

[Lude_2_NSX]

We can rebuild the entire piece with re-inforced tabs, check out thread on the knee bolster options in our vendor section!

www.euroboutique.us

Do you have a link to this thread? I looked on your website and saw the carbon fiber replacement, but did not find any mention of a rebuild?

 

[EuroBoutique]

here you go:

http://www.nsxprime.com/forum/showt...-Driver-s-Side-Knee-Bolster-Panel-replacement


The link does not mention specifically a repair since each one is unique what needs to be done but we can do the work on a case by case basis and get it re-covered at the same time.

 

[silver2002]

I'm not proud of how I fix the occasional broken tab, but this works.

Cut a strip of self stick velcro the width of the tab, and in this case probably about 1 1/2" long,
apply on one side of tab, fold it back on itself so the sticky side covers the other side too. Then, pre-drill
the hold in the velcro. I think these tabs break due to over tightening or just with age.

 

[Lude_2_NSX]

here you go:

http://www.nsxprime.com/forum/showt...-Driver-s-Side-Knee-Bolster-Panel-replacement


The link does not mention specifically a repair since each one is unique what needs to be done but we can do the work on a case by case basis and get it re-covered at the same time.

Wonderful, I'm all about this. I'm also in Palo Alto, so it's easy for me to get over there. Do you guys have a store front and accept walk-ins?

 

[EuroBoutique]

Wonderful, I'm all about this. I'm also in Palo Alto, so it's easy for me to get over there. Do you guys have a store front and accept walk-ins?

Absolutely we have a store in Fremont and will be happy to show you our full line of NSX products. We always have at least a few NSX's in here getting various amounts of work.

Our website:

www.euroboutique.us


thanks!

 

[MotorMouth93]

The plastic is ABS which can be easily solvent welded with plumbing products you can buy at Home Depot, Lowes, etc. I bought a 12"x12"x1/8" piece of ABS stock on Amazon for a few dollars and I've been making replacement tabs out of it. Then I grind off the broken tab and attach the new one with the solvent, let it cure for a few days, and reattach it. So far this has worked on the door panel tabs as well as the speaker box tabs.

 

[Stephen@NCAutoUSA]

The plastic is ABS which can be easily solvent welded with plumbing products you can buy at Home Depot, Lowes, etc. I bought a 12"x12"x1/8" piece of ABS stock on Amazon for a few dollars and I've been making replacement tabs out of it. Then I grind off the broken tab and attach the new one with the solvent, let it cure for a few days, and reattach it. So far this has worked on the door panel tabs as well as the speaker box tabs.

If this works it’s the best solution other then buying new.

Some plastics can only be set once and can not be reground or bonded too after injection molded. This is why it’s hard to get good strength when bonding to plastic. However you can solvent weld certain ones, I just forget which.

If this doesn’t work I would suggest buying new. Plastic weakens as it ages. It becomes more brittle and is more prone to cracking. Even if repaired I would be careful. I think when I bought a new one it was $300. If you’re paying more then $100 for a repair I would just buy an entire new one and have it last, but that’s just me. Mine was I believe unrepairable.

 

[Old Guy]

The plastic is ABS which can be easily solvent welded with plumbing products you can buy at Home Depot, Lowes, etc. I bought a 12"x12"x1/8" piece of ABS stock on Amazon for a few dollars and I've been making replacement tabs out of it. Then I grind off the broken tab and attach the new one with the solvent, let it cure for a few days, and reattach it. So far this has worked on the door panel tabs as well as the speaker box tabs.

The solvent welding sounds like an interesting proposition particularly since I also have 4 of the attachment panels from the interior door panels with broken tabs. I have 4 new attachment panels to replace them (at a cost of around $700 !!!); but, I am coming to the conclusion that with NSX parts you should never throw the old parts away. In a few years, as new interior parts become scarce, somebody is likely to be interested in a refurbished part.

Do you remember which solvent you used? When I initially tried to repair the tabs, I did a solvent test on the panels with acetone and MEK which I had read were effective solvents for ABS. I did not get material softening in the ABS which led me to believe that I was working with something other than ABS even though the parts were stamped ABS.

While looking for suitable repair materials, I came across this stuff, 3M's Duramix 04247.

https://www.autobodytoolmart.com/pdf/3M-04247-INSTRUCTIONS.pdf

One of the applications described is fabricating / repairing mounting tabs. The stuff is a bit expensive and sets up wickedly fast. Has any body given it a try for doing this type of repair?