What's that plastic?

So I've taken apart the instrument panel of my '83 GPz 550 to do some cleaning and maintenance and discovered that the inside housing is all cracked and busted up ... I suspect the bike was dropped some time back and this must be from landing on it's nose. I'm refering to the white plastic housing that the speedo, tach and all of the lights are mounted in.

"Easy enough," I thought "simply use a bit of acetone to melt the cracks and fix it all up again." The bike, however, had other ideas. Acetone did nothing to this plastic ... neither did toluene. I even tried methylene chloride (the main ingredient in paint stripper) ... no dice! I'm testing these solvents on a small sliver of plastic, so it should dissolve pretty quickly, but in each case, after 5mins or more, it was still sitting in the liquid staring back at me unchanged.

Anyone know what type of plastic this is and maybe what solvent can be used to glue it back together?

Thanks!

I'm told that the native color of ABS is white or cream. If so here's the answer you're needing.

kzrider.com/index.php?option=com_content...iew&id=171&Itemid=11

You can diagnose the type of plastic by dropping one drop of black pipe cement onto a hidden section of the broken component. If it softens the base plastic and dries well bonded to it, the base plastic will work with my technique.

Hope this helps

Bill

Thanks for the suggestion and the article KZCSI. Unfortunately this plastic seems pretty solvent resistant. I suspect it is either polyethylene or polypropylene.

It did, however, respond well to "plastic welding". I used a simple soldering iron and 45 mins later (there were lots of cracks and I'm slow ) all of the cracks are sealed and secure. With a bit of light sanding, I think this piece will be just fine

Unfortunately there is a small (1/4" x 1/4") piece missing from it. I'm going to tape it off this evening and try fill it with dissolved Plexiglas (I dissolved a small piece of Plexiglas in methylene chloride to use as a filler/glue when fixing my windshield). Will post photo's soon.

Small outfit called GT Motorsports in Reno,NV makes a kit called Plastex.Best stuff Ive found for repairing small plastic parts,including repairing or making tabs for side covers.bj

Plastex is very similar to Plastifix ... both of which are a solvent (most likely acetone or MEK) and powdered plastic (PVC or ABS). Unfortunately, polyethylene and polypropylene are both highly resistant to most solvents, rendering these two products useless.

Plastex has another product Plastex 3000 which they recommend for polyethylene ... but it appears to simply be 2 part epoxy cement.

I have used zip ties as welding rod and an old solder iron to make repairs in the past. You may want to check out this site, www.urethanesupply.com/identify.php#!prettyPhoto/5/ as it has a table displaying plastics and how to ID and repair them. Of course they tell you to purchase their products to do so, but I found the table and other info helpful.

As promised, some photo's of the repaired part. Unfortunately no before pics, but there was cracking wherever the repaired lines go. I simply used a soldering iron to melt a groove along the crack and gently push the ridges on either side of the groove back in. It's a little messy and uneven, but not bad for a first try The repair is quite strong, was flexing it a fair bit and none of the cracks re-opened, no clicking or snapping sounds either, so no indication that the repair weakened the rest of the structure.