Smoothed Truck Intakes
Bondo and reinforced bondo(filler with short strand fiberglass hairs in it) does not always stick to good with plastic. Usually you would need to grind plastic with around 24 grit or so to "key" it into the plastic for it to bite.
#1 I would use a plastic filler rod and plastic weld more material onto the intake. Grind down with 80grit and work your way up with the grit to get a smooth finish so it's all 100% nylon plastic. If needed, clean and degrease the intake good, use a adhesion promoter and try a high build primer.
You can use a old spoon or something and a torch, heat up the spoon with the torch and use it as a plastic welder to melt the plastic into the intake.
#2 could try the 2 part epoxy from urethane supply as a bondo alternative, get their plastic cleaner and plastic prep too. After sanding that you can do a real light skim coat of bondo. I believe on my epoxy tubes it says it also bonds with fiberglass and body fillers. I'll have to check to be sure. So the epoxy sticks to the plastic, and the body filler sticks to the epoxy.
I say no fiberglass and filler on the plastic, especially the intake because not only does it not bond well, I don't think it would survive the constant heat cycles. So option #1 would be my choice. Keep it all plastic.
#1 I would use a plastic filler rod and plastic weld more material onto the intake. Grind down with 80grit and work your way up with the grit to get a smooth finish so it's all 100% nylon plastic. If needed, clean and degrease the intake good, use a adhesion promoter and try a high build primer.
You can use a old spoon or something and a torch, heat up the spoon with the torch and use it as a plastic welder to melt the plastic into the intake.
#2 could try the 2 part epoxy from urethane supply as a bondo alternative, get their plastic cleaner and plastic prep too. After sanding that you can do a real light skim coat of bondo. I believe on my epoxy tubes it says it also bonds with fiberglass and body fillers. I'll have to check to be sure. So the epoxy sticks to the plastic, and the body filler sticks to the epoxy.
I say no fiberglass and filler on the plastic, especially the intake because not only does it not bond well, I don't think it would survive the constant heat cycles. So option #1 would be my choice. Keep it all plastic.
Wow the truck intakes don't look so bad with some work done to um.. Anybody got any links or a thread where they ported the gen3 intakes I've seen what gets done on the tbss an gen4 styles is it the same style of porting for the early ones 2?
That was my concern when I mentioned that I didn't think a mechanical bond would work. Even if there were some RTV or something there to try and seal it up. If it passed a leak test I would be concerned how long it would last after that.
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