Plastic (non-painted) bumper renewal

[Michele Pensotti]

Hi to all, just my very small contribution to the forum.

As some of you may know, some time ago I bought an old 1990 Citroen BX which I’m trying to restore, both the mechanics and the body/trim

Please note this is not my invention, I’ve only seen this suggestion on another Citroen forum and tried it on my BX with good results.

On the car the bumpers are painted and non-painted , and the non-painted part with the years and small bumps has become a little “old looking”, especially in the “bump spots” where the plastic has been subjected to deformation.

So I waited for an offer in one of the local hardware stores, and bough a cheap heat gun and tried it out on the bumper.

You start by heating the bumper with the lowest setting, not staying in the same spot but keeping moving around to make the bumper slowly heat up.
Then when it’s hot (and I mean HOT) you put in the second higher temperature setting and start hovering on the same spot until you see it “sweat”.
Yeah, it will seem to literally “sweat”!! 😆

You stay on the same spot for just a second, or the plastic will start melting and will be ruined!!

Then you move to another spot and repeat the process.

The plastic returns black, with no descolouration, and the small deformation will somehow soften and will blend , becoming less visible than before.

Don’t try to touch the plastic or you’ll leave your fingerprints on it, and also be burned by the heat!! (my gun lowest setting is 350 Celsius and the highest is 550 Celsius)

Also, if there are some other plastic surfaces (headlights or taillights for example) that are near the bumper, DO REMOVE THESE before using the heat gun, or you’ll end up melting and ruining their plastic!!

In the end , when the bumper is all black-as-new , I’ve put some bumper-shiner-renewer and it did literally stick to the “new” plastic , much better than it did on the “old” plastic surface.

Only thing to do is to wait for the plastic to cool down before spraying it, because the spray does cool by itself, and if it meets a hot surface (like the plastic) it could damage it by thermal stress, so please wait until the bumper is cold.

Of course if your bumper is painted you can use this process to soften it and re-shape it, but I don’t know if the paint itself can stand the thermal stress.

Hope this helps guys! :cheer:

Live long and prosper (and stay dirty!)

10nico

Topic

[Lord Ihcalam]

theres also a back to black product you can buy. by no means a permanant fix but makes it look good for a little while.

[Tim]

It brings the old mold release to the top. Won’t last long. If ya scuff it and shoot adhesion promoter followed with epoxy reduced as a sealer then satin urethane SS black wet on wet then you will have years and years of great results…Hope this helped

[Author]

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