How can I repair exterior rubber trim?

[Monty Howard]

I need to accomplish filling in the areas of missing or seperated rubber in a way which matches the original finish and becomes a permanantly bonded (vulcanized) repair.

I own a 2004 Chrysler Pacifica. Below the 4 side doors exterior window glass is a piece of trim comprised of rubber with a partial chrome overlay on the top. Roughly 3/8 inch of rubber is exposed on the bottom of this trim. After a number of years I have a few places where the rubber has cracked and seperated leaving tiny hair line cracks 1/32 to 1/16 inch that need repair. In a couple of places a small chunck of rubber is missing about the size of 1/10 of a dime.

I have searched all over the internet looking for a solution. Ideas like liquid rubber, black out tape, rubber putty repair media (like that used on conveyor belts and tires), even leather / vinly seat cover repair kits, and a few other ideas have surfaced. The only one which seems a good likely fit is using liquid rubber in multiple coats until the cracks are filled.

Any of these ideas should work but they each present difficulties which I fear will leave the repair noticeable, may stick to the paint creating problems later, or simply not match the black rubber being repaired. The sticking to the paint problem can be solved by doing the repair with trim removed from the vehicle.

At present the best method I can find seems to be liquid rubber spray. Liquid rubber is fairly easy to work with, excess spray can be easily pulled off vehicle paint leaving areas untouched where it is desired to remain. The only problem I see with liquid rubber is I have no way to vulcanize or stick the liquid rubber to the original rubber trim so it can not be easily pulled out when washing and during vehicle use. One plus, using liquid rubber, is all of the exposed trim rubber can be sprayed over, after the repairs are made, so all exposed rubber trim will match perfectly. Rubber to rubber bonding seems to be the only obsticle under this approach.

What are others doing in this situation when restoring older auto trim that is not available for ready purchase, too expensive, or difficult to find? I do not want to glue anything to the cars finish but I do want to fuse the old rubber togather chemically or otherwise bond it with the filler material used for the repairs.

Is there any way to weld rubber similar to the way body shops weld various plastics? I need some suggestions, surely there is a way to fix these tiny imperfections on the exterior of my Pacifica. If there is no solution then let’s collectively try to invent a process that will work for me and the thousands of others having this obsticle to overcome.

Note: A special thank you goes out to Eric, for making this forum available where we can collect information about the non mechanical parts of our vehicles. The auto body and stationary parts that comprise its makeup. This will round out “Eric The Car Guy’s” forums by covering all remaining aspects of the vehicles we drive.

Topic

[Mike]

Those you can get real cheap that places like makeitmopar.com and such.

I had to replace the 4 on my wife Durango since the heat here in Arizona warped them so bad.

Hope that helps
Mike

[Monty Howard]

I tried to go to makeitmopar.com but only got a search page of some sort. They may have vanished from the web or the name is slightly wrong.

Thanks

[budro6968]

I used to go around to used car lots and do these type of repair a lot. First clean the area well, I use a damp chamois to get the heavy crud off then either prep solvent or lacquer thinner. mask around the perimeter as tight as you can, use 3/4 or 1 inch tape then come back with 2 inch to give a cushion so if you get wild with the sand paper you don’t scratch the paint next to the repair area. Then get some super glue and some 320 sand paper and scuff the tiny crack but don’t remove the dust put a dab of glue on the crack area and sand it in using the dust to fill the cracks and the glue will harden quickly. do this a few times to get it filled then sand with 400 till it looks like it filled and smoothed out to your satisfaction. prime with what ever type primmer you have. I like 2 part epoxy for most repairs, but a spray bomb of lacquer will work. I even used water bourne primer, it takes a little longer to flash off but some times it works best. for the larger chunks missing I use a 3m product called auto mix 5895. It is a 2 part type epoxy specially made for bonding these type of material. It can be sanded fairly smooth. If the gap is huge then I take my scotch- brite pad red is really stiff or the gray, and smear the auto mix into the pad to saturate and stick it on. use masking tape to hold it in place if needed. Let it set up and work it with a grinder just like bondo. then prime and finish with sand paper till smooth, prep and paint.

[Monty Howard]

I finally caved on this topic and decided to do some auto trim modification instead.

Since the rubber was overlaid on the chrome molding (which is in very good conditiion) I got a razor knife and carefully went around the entire vehicle cutting and pealing off 1/2 inch of of the 3/4 inch rubber overlay. The part left was much thicker rubber and is securely held in place.

Our car actually looks better than the factory design for the trim now. Several who have seen the finished job commented on how much better it looks. I have to be satisfied with that for an outcome.

If I decide to replace the missing rubber I will use some spray on rubber coating after masking the area to spray and peal off any excess overspray when the tape is removed. I did a little experiment with this technique and it seemed to work very well. I could not tell the original rubber had been removed, the spray rubber blended with the thick piece of trim rubber remaining and looked like a single piece of rubber trim.

Thank you for the replies!

[Author]

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