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Bulkhead insulation help


Metalbasher
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Second of two questions this evening. Having dug the original bulkhead insulation out of storage, to get ready to refit, the various pieces aren’t in the best of condition but I think are salvageable. Has anyone refurbished these items and if so with what? Any idea what type of rubber it is, so that I can select the best glue type?

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Warm it up and it become much more pliable, it needs softening too before you go trying to reshape it back to its desired form.

 

I use the sun to warm it or a hairdryer, to soften the rubber i use standard beige waxoyl, it seems to feed it and if you wipe the excess off with a cloth it brings the colour up to almost as new.

Been using waxoyl on my rubbers on my coupe for 20+ years and its not rotted them. in fact, they are all still in good nick.

 

Contact adhesive sprayed onto the rear of the rubber when you put it on the car in position is the best thing to keep it in place, its pretty much what Opel used.

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Used tiger seal on mine, it's black. Once dried it can be cut shaped and painted over, rubberised black as mentioned above.

Small cracks can be deemed out a filled.

Granville Tigerseal, it will dry hard but is slightly Flexi, used in bodyshops for panels, bodykits or add ons. 

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We have spoken on the committee about potential remake of the bulkhead rubbers recently. 
we will taking a trip to a 3D printing company soon that specialize in car pet reporoduction to have other smaller items looked at but they also do rubber extrusions too so may be able to advise or help with this 

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On 24/09/2022 at 10:17, Paul Barrett said:

We have spoken on the committee about potential remake of the bulkhead rubbers recently. 
we will taking a trip to a 3D printing company soon that specialize in car pet reporoduction to have other smaller items looked at but they also do rubber extrusions too so may be able to advise or help with this 

I know you can use radio spectroscopy to identify what rubber it is and probably the filler material. But would there be any chance of sourcing original documentation from GM on the ratios of fibre to rubber and the stir time, cure time etc?

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3 hours ago, mepbowles said:

I know you can use radio spectroscopy to identify what rubber it is and probably the filler material. But would there be any chance of sourcing original documentation from GM on the ratios of fibre to rubber and the stir time, cure time etc?

I’d be tempted to use a better material instead of the original. The original material was an obvious poor choice as we all need to replace it! Lol

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True, it’s not the most durable and certainly in today’s world a better material exists, or maybe just quieter engines! Personally I think although the repro material needs some thought (if it gets that far), having the original designs or mould tooling drawings is a greater priority, the insulation parts are relatively complex forms.

I’ve taken the advice in the thread and gathered some repair materials. Tonight I’ve sat down and begun to repair my originals, so far ok other than stuck fingers. I’ll report back when I’ve completed the task.

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It’d be nice if GM kept the moulds but at a guess I’d say they scrapped them not long after the manta went out of production, much like all the other moulds and tooling. Once the calibra came along they had to make space! I might try a few of these techniques myself to repair the ones I’ve got. 

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