Cladding de-forming and "running off"

[Rednex]

Did the search (even advanced!) - didn't get suitable results apart from lot of discussion about repairing cladding scratches/color.

Here's a bit different story:
cladding is sort of falling off, if you can say so, in two particular places:
1. driver side upper corner of hood insert is sort of bending up, and
2. rear door left corner at the left rear lamp is torn off. It seems this has been started because of reckless opening of rear door - now I have to press the cladding to metal w my left hand always when I open rear door...

Any suggestions on what would b the best approach to fix these two?

I guess heating w paint blower, and sticking w something afterwards would b right steps to star with.
But - what kind of glue (or gluing material) could I use? What could b pitfalls? Is cladding material heat-fixable, so to say?

Any experiences?

Thanx in advance, folks!

[Raque Thomas]

two different issues here...the hood insert is actually fiberglass, or some other fiber reinforced plastic material. It is bolted to your hood from underneath, so you probably have a loose nut, or the stud has come unglued from the underside of the insert. Pull off the insulation material from the the inside of the hood and check for tightness of the nut. If that's not the culprit, you'll have to take the insert out to verify if the stud has come unglued. Two hints - 1) the windshield washer nozzles act as bolts holding the insert as well, so you'll have to take those off. 2) Do not overtighten the insert when you reinstall it, as you may cause it to crack and also block the drains at the front corners.

Don't know about your door cladding, other than glueing it if one of the rivets isn't missing.

[tom4bren]

I broke two of the mounting tabs on the rear fender cladding while installing a trailer hitch. I used a 2 part epoxy called PC-7 to repair the tabs and it worked like a charm. The mix is thick so you just press it into place with a disposable putty knife but it does 'flow'. It takes 24 hours to fully cure but gets tacky-firm within an hour. If you use it, remove the cladding from the vehicle so that you can orient the repair site so that gravity works for you rather than against you.

PC-7 is available at True Value hardware stores but I even saw it at Lowes once. The best part is that it is almost the same color as the cladding so if you get messy, it won't show. It seems to have a very similar coefficient of expansion as the plastic cladding so temp changes shouldn't cause it to pull loose.

They make PC-11 as well but it's white and is for marine use. I think the finished product with PC-11 is more brittle so I wouldn't recommend it for your application.

BOL

[Chopper]

The cladding will respond to heat...about 400degrees of it. If it is actually broken and/or missing a chunk, now is the time to order a new part. You may not have that option much longer.