Expert Advice: Quick and Easy Fix for John Deere Plastic Hood Crack

into buying a new or even a used john deere hood  more than likely you realize the cost is just too   expensive to justify it i mean you can spend over  a thousand dollars if you get the complete hood   I'll get you a close-up shot here so  you can see how rough I've got this;   go about oh hell two to three inches outside of it  make sure you do this on the inside where it won't   be sitting; don't do the outside all right after  you get that sanded down I like to take prep all   or prep clean as a different brand just wipe this  down the wax and grease remover for the second   surface to work on. Still, again this does clean  off all the grease turning the rag over to a   It'll literally get red hot, and then you force  that down into the plastic; once it's in the   plastic, you kind of turn this a little bit and  then let off the trigger, let it sit for a second,   and then you pull the gun off I'm going to take a  sharpie and outline this line from what I can tell   looking at the camera its kind of difficult to see  it on the video you don't have to do this I'm just   doing this so it shows up better on video that  way you guys can see right where that crack is at all right so this is what i'm gonna be using  and it fits in that little gun it's a wavy   it goes over the crack so you take this and  you spread it over the crack i'll get a couple   of them in here and then i'll do a close-up on  one of them they fit in the gun like that then   don't turn it on until you put it up against the  plastic so you want to set it down on the plastic   kind of cover it so it's about halfway across both  sides fold this up tighten up your crack turn the   handle on make sure it's flat on the plastic  get it so it's bended about halfway and let go   of the trigger and then twist it just a little  bit and turning it like that kind of locks it in   that plastic and then when the plastic hardens  again pull that out so now you've got a little   metal wire that's basically you go about halfway  through the plastic as best you can just make sure   you don't hold it so long and it goes all the way  out the other side you just want to kind of stick   it up in the middle of the plastic all right again  you're just going to set it down on the plastic   don't pull the trigger until you're ready get it  squared up set it down there once you see it start   to drop down in there just lower your pressure a  little bit let go of the trigger and twist just a   little bit that rotating just helps tighten that  crack up just a little bit more five ten seconds   that's really all there is to this and i usually  put one about every half inch we will go back and   cut these off those will not stay in there like  that we'll cut them off with those bit of dykes All right, that's about all there is to  that part of it; then you take your dikes,   and you just go through, and you snip off all  the little heads as close to the plastic as you   can. I'm going to go over these with an uh like a  fiberglass resin you can also put some fiberglass   mesh and resin across here this is where  everybody's hands come under and grab it   that's usually why this crack happens in the  first place, but that's right where you want   to put some reinforcement in it you just got to be  careful you can see here where it closes down on   the mower you don't want to build this up so much  that the hood won't lay flat against the mower. all right, what I'm going to be using  here is a fiberglass repair kit now;   you could do this alone; it's pretty strong;  this is originally how I used to fix these hoods,   but I found that the tiny wire staples on top  of these are much stronger this kit comes with   everything you need to mix it the base the  hardener full directions I've already taken   everything out of the box it usually comes with  a bit of tray too, but this bottle had leaked   you can see there and got the tray all sticky  comes with the cloth the base resin the hardener and a little spreader all right if you've ever  worked with this stuff it's pretty liquidy   box says one ounce of base material to five to six  drops of the hardener I just took a pin poked a   tiny hole in the hardener do my best to put one  two three four five six use our little mixer to   mix it up here as best we can what I will do is  take a brush I brought a little just a chip brush   and I've already cut you can see laying there  a little piece of the fiber put into this   I'll smear some resin on there,   and then we'll put the fiber in it and then brush  some more of this over the top of it this kit   you can buy it almost anywhere you can buy it at  Autozone I know Walmart sells it amazon sells it one of these kits will do all  four or five hoods unless you use   a lot of it; what I like to do hang off the edge  here; what I'll do is just take a brush here   and just like a paintbrush or a chip brush and  I'm going to do this in about three sections but I'll smear some of this on here all the way out to the edge, I'm going to  show you a trick too to keep these hoods from   breaking when they get done here on how you can  modify the latch mechanism on the mower itself   so that you don't have to pull these so hard to  get them up all right once you get that covered   there go ahead and put your cloth down I take  my sprayer and kind of force it down into there   it doesn't have to be thick you're not  trying to put this stuff on thick like   putty or something you're just trying to cover  everything up anyway once you get that really   worked down in there good take your brush again and just paint this on over the top of this, but  this right here will pretty much prevent this   hood from ever cracking again now, you can take  an extra piece of this fiber, too, if you got a   little excess resin left over when you get to the  last part this should be pretty well set up by   then you can take another slice of fiberglass, and  you see where the hood closes down you can see the   black line there, but you can run a thin piece of  fiberglass and the resin all the way across here,   and that just helps strengthen that even more  but that's pretty much what we're going to do   like I said I'll probably do two more maybe  three patches depending on how it lays in there   cut your cloth before you mix up your resin  have everything ready to go here that sets   it anyway is not very likely but now i already got  the paint just make it look a little bit better   but guys that's pretty much it for the repair  the uh hot staples and the fiberglass repair   like i said in the beginning of video you  could do one or the other you don't have to   do both i've used the staples exclusively now  generally i would only do that like on a side   panel repair because this is a functional area  where people are reaching in here to pick it up   you're more likely that it's going to crack  again if you don't put the extra steps into   it go ahead and get the center panel put back in  here once it dries we'll get it back on the mower all right now for the big reveal, and  when I put this back on the mower,   I will wet sand this whole thing  kind of blend that cracks together   and polish this thing out get it looking  nice and brand new shiny, but that is a massive improvement on that crack  never going to get rid of it totally but that's a hell of a lot better than it was  all right guys what i'm going to do now is shift   gears a little bit i am going to go ahead and  wet sand this hood start out with some 600 grit   sandpaper i'll finish it up with some 1 1200  then i'm gonna take a polisher some heavy cut   this how it's gonna look it's gonna look brand new  compared to buying one brand new for a thousand   bucks or used for three four five hundred dollars  it's cost me i already had the kits and stuff for   a lot of this stuff but i mean you could do this  if you just did the fiberglass for 20 30 bucks   you don't have to polish it you don't do any of  that stuff but you'll be impressed here let me get started all right, this is after wet sanding with  600 grit, finished it off with 1200 grit,   and going back over it with an aggressive  polish and a pretty aggressive polishing wheel even though we only fixed the crack on the  top i did obviously polish the entire hood   all right as promised here i'm going to show  you a way to prevent these hoods from being   damaged in the first place from somebody  reaching underneath here grab them and they   jerk them up because they're pretty tight  they have these little clips on the side   and what those clips do are catch underneath  the hood on a little tab underneath the hood   take those off or take one of them off preferably  the one on this side of the mower with the chute   because nine times out of ten you're  gonna get off of the mower on that side   you're gonna reach under there and you're gonna  grab the hood and if this latch is still on there   you can still grab it on that side and  disconnect it but i'll show you what this   is it's just a little plastic catch and generally  it's on the mower with this point sticking out   and this point catches on the hood and you  have to force the hood past that to get it   open so if you take this off turn around put it  back on so it's facing the inside of the mower   it keeps that hood from latching on both  sides it'll only latch onto one side   now for cutting the grass driving around your  property pulling trailers one latch is more   than enough to hold this hood down now the only  thing i would say is if you're going to put this   mower in the back of a truck or on a trailer  i would turn these around or put something to   hold the hood down because if you load this onto a  trailer or truck air can catch underneath it it'll   flip that hood forward it'll break it off so if  you're transporting it i would have something to   latch the hood down but if you're just everyday  using it to cut the grass or around your property   it's not going to hurt a thing just turn this  around put it back on you could take it off   but if you put it back on that way it's there  for the next guy if he ever wants to turn it   around the way it's supposed to be just a simple  allen wrench it's got one bolt one on each side   but then when you got the hood back on you've  still got this one over here that latches it   and when you get off the mower you can catch  it here you can catch it here i'm not a big   fan of just grabbing this and picking it up  here that's more than likely what caused this   crack to happen on this one but anyway we'll  get this hood back on here and go from there

Channel: Baldeagle242

Views: 567,605

Keywords: Agri-Fab, Al-Ko, Alpina, Briggs & Stratton, Deere, Honda, John Deere, Lawn Mowers, Plastic Patches, Plastic Welding, Polycarbonate, Troy-Bilt, X300, fiberglass repair, hot stapler plastic repair, how to fix broken plastic, how to fix cracked plastic, how to fix plastic crack, how to repair plastic, hydrostatic, john deere hood repair, john deere repair, john deere restoration, john deere x300, kawaski, lawn mower restoration, mower, mower restoration, plastic repair, tractor, x500, x700

Id: 4JReBPJF9WM

Length: 13min 20sec (800 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 19 2021