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Welcome to FordPinto.com, The home of the PCCA => Parts Resources, Here is where you can find this or that. => Topic started by: JoeBob on September 24, 2013, 10:00:21 PM

Title: repair rubber hatch mat
Post by: JoeBob on September 24, 2013, 10:00:21 PM
   My hatch mat was torn in many places, it also had small pieces missing. I decided to see if I could fix it in some way. Here is what I did.
    At Lowes and Home Depot you can buy a product called Plasti Dip. It is made for coating the handles of tools like pliers. It is a liquid plastic product just dip the tool into the plastic and let dry. You now have plastic coated handles.
    This product, if you buy the black color, is a perfect match to my Bobcat's mat. It does not match when wet, but looks good when dry. I used drywall tape, to hold the seams together. The tape that is self adhesive nylon. Before I started using the tape, the repair just tore again.  I stuck this over the holes and splits. Next I applied a thin coating of the rubber over the tape. This did not bond so I tried adhesion promoter spray, as a base coat. You can get this at any auto parts store. This will make your mat glossy. Be sure to mask off areas that you are not repairing. This promoter made the rubber bond well. Next apply the tape and coat with rubber. After I spread the second coat I took a wad of plastic shopping bag and dipped it in the rubber. I tapped it up and down in the wet rubber. The bag is the white ball in the photo. This made a texture that looked similar to the original. It was hard to hide the tape, so I tried some mesh fabric. This was thinner and hid under the rubber easier. The fabric was not sticky, so I had to hold it down with bricks. I put some of the plastic bag over the liquid rubber so the brick did not stick. The plastic pealed off of the rubber when it dried, with out a problem. I fixed tears and filled in gaps. The areas of the mat that have ridges, I was not able to duplicate. Because the color is good, they and not very noticeable.  Because I had over spray from the adhesion promoter I used plastic dip spray to coat the entire mat. It made the mat look like new. The texture is not such a good match. It does look better than the photos portray. I am going to use the disk sander to smooth them out and try other ways to make the texture. This if not perfect, but I now have a solid usable mat.
   If anyone has better ideas I would love to hear them.
http://s831.photobucket.com/user/deut7nine/library/?sort=6&page=1 (http://s831.photobucket.com/user/deut7nine/library/?sort=6&page=1)
I hope this helps someone.
Bill
I forgot to mention. I did the same procedure on the back side to make it stronger.
Title: Re: repair rubber hatch mat
Post by: dga57 on September 25, 2013, 08:14:18 AM
Bill,
I've always heard that necessity is the mother of invention!  I'd say you have created a perfectly good method of repairing rubber mats.  Thanks for sharing!
Dwayne :)