The splash shield on my Accord is bent.


Can I heat this up using a heat gun and bend it back? I picked up a dual temp heat gun (1500 watt, 1112*F high, 572*F low). Is this going to be powerful enough to make the molded plastic flexible?

Seems like it would be easier to remove the shield and do this off the car, and deal with any damaged fasteners (e.g., bludgeoned by flying road debris) than to try and heat it and bend it while laying underneath the jacked up car.

 

Remove it, place it so the bend is facing up, use heat gun to slowly heat a large area from the bends "lowest" point to a point where no bending is apparent, keep heating until bend "bends" the other way, do not force it, allow it to "re-bend" itself, do not over-heat, easy to do with 1112*F.

Place a support so it will not bend past "straight" point by more then about 1", allow to cool completely before reinstalling on car. 94

 

Thanks! This will be my project after turkey.

Not sure I follow where to apply heat. If I flip the shield so the bent area is facing up, should I heat it from the side that normally faces the road (now facing up) or the side that normally faces the engine (now facing down)?

Also, I guess you're implying that the weight of the bent portion of the shield will straighten it out, and no need for me to apply any more than very gentle force?

As for the support, I figured I'd just lay the shield on the floor of my garage, and that should prevent it from bending much past straight.

Thanks again. Will post pics, assuming I don't FUBAR this. Actually, then too.

 

self tapping screw.

 

The heat can be applied to either side, both is even better, the trick is for the heat to be even over the section that the bend is actually in, [the part you want to bend].

To much heat at the "center" of the bend will result in an uneven straightening of the existing bend, kind of a bump in the road.

"no need for me to apply any more than very gentle force" exactly.

"I figured I'd just lay the shield on the floor of my garage" as long as you remember once it starts to straighten out, [bend back] from the heat, it will continue to bend untill something stops it, removing heat source will only keep the plastic from getting hotter, it will take a bet fot temp. to drop below, "bending point".

The above will depend a lot on how hot and how fast you heat the plastic, [slow and even works best.

As long a the part of the splash pan you are straightening, when sitting upside down on the floor, is no more then an inch from the floor, [when straight] then doing it that way is fine. 94

 

Thanks. It worked pretty well. Once I got underneath the car, it turned out the bent area wasn't as big as it looks from a front view (as in the pic), so I decided to try and bend it back in place rather than remove the shield. I started with the heat gun at low setting, and that was having an effect, but too slow. Jacked it up to high and that made pretty quick work of it. I supported the bent portion with a small cardboard box and increased the height of the box as the plastic softened (box edge did brown a bit, but never caught on fire). Left it to cool and it's all good. No more scraping everything I roll over.

 

94