Expert: Gary - 9/9/2008

Question
can an endura bumber be repaired? mine is in great shape it just has a lot of cracks. There are no reproductions out there. mine is a 47,000 mile barn find car and i want it repaired best possible way.

Answer
Hi Lark,

It sounds like it may be beginning to deteriorate. From what I remember about the endura bumper they are very flexible and that in turn makes very harder to paint (More steps to go through). I have seen a couple websites that deal with painting endura bumpers.

Take a look at this link: http://www.goatsgarage.com/bumplft.html

Now I would note that many of the products that they are recommending have been discontinued. Here are some of my recommend replacement products:

1) I would recommend 3M 05895 for filling the cracks and 3M 8101 for structural repairs. You can find them at http://www.repaintsupply.com/

2) I would then recommend using PPG's One Choice Plastic Prep System. It's the best system I have seen for paint prepping all types of plastic materials. Here are some PPG part #'s SU4901, SU4902, SUA4903.

3) I would recommend using a flexible primer or a primer that will accept a flexibilizer additive to fill for sand-ability. In the PPG line I recommend K36 with DX814.

4) I recommend final sanding the primer with 600 grit wet or dry paper used wet.

5) You can then apply your primer sealer or base-coat color. With PPG unless you paint black you can go straight to base-color. I recommend using Deltron DBC or Global BC.

6) Use a clear with a flexibilizer additive. There are many clears to choose from. My favorite in the Deltron line is DCU2021 with DX814. In Global I would use D894 with D814.

Good luck with it!