Today Vic 2.0 hit 176,000 miles. It is amazing how few problems this car has had in it's life. But it is now 11 years old, and is starting to show/feel it.
Many of you who own these cars are aware of a very annoying issue they have with the driver side switch panel mounting tabs breaking off and thus making the panel pop up. This has annoyed me as well, and I tried adding small pieces of Velcro to the panel and door to keep the thing down. Didn't work. The self-adhesive didn't adhesive as well as I had hoped, and the thickness of the hook & loop halves added too much thickness, so even when the panel DID stay down, there was a "padded" effect. In other words, the panel didn't sit flush like it is supposed to.
So today I was sitting in 2.0 in a parking lot, and used a screwdriver to fully remove the switch panel so I could peel off the Velcro. And what did I find inside the door? Two of the broken mounting tabs. That made me start thinking about repair options. In the past, I have used a plastic repair product that really worked well on a couple of broken Javelin grills, as well as the power/volume knob on Mystery Mechanic's Uniden scanner, which is still in 2.0.
I headed on over to a local auto parts store to see what they had in stock for plastic glue/repair products, knowing they stock some hard to find items. They didn't have anything of the proper quantity and/or price. On my way out, the boss suggested Gorilla Glue. I have never used it, and it didn't cost too much, so I said "ok, but if it doesn't work I'll be back to yell at you!".
Below are some photos I snapped during the "repair". I put that in quotes because I am skeptical, and because the glue takes 24 hours to set up. So stay tuned to see if the repair did or did not work!
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| Some of the supplies used |
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| Some of the Velcro that didn't work out. You can see where the tab has broken off. |
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| One of the broken tabs I found inside the door. |
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| Where the break and glue is. |
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| Where the other break and glue is. |
