Reversing damage to rear corner
Hi all!
After a wonderful trip up to Oban this weekend I was putting the van back into storage and I was stupidly reversing without a second pair of eyes...
Turns out that I cocked it up and I backed into a big old tank of a bus, leaving a lovely little bite mark in the rear right corner of the van.
It's not gone through to the inside, but its broken all the way through the outer skin of the van on two sides of the corner (pictures below).
I was thinking of either adding a vent or two instead of a body repair depending on how costly a repair would be. It's a Transtar Ace Award 2006.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions!
Comments
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If you want to it repaired "cheaper"than a caravan repair specialist -I personally would seek a price from either a car or boat GRP repairer.
Could be you may find it a liitle easier and quicker and more economical down this route
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Sorry to hear about your mishap, John. Whatever you decide to do, personally, I'd try and get it fixed asap. You don't want water/damp to get in - that will cause further problems. In the meantime, I'd try and cover the hole as best you can to minimise any water damage.
It's difficult to tell looking at the photo but you may have just made a hole in the 'extra trim' which many manufacturers add to vans to improve the style or look of the van. If this is the case, you may have avouded the water/damp issue. I'd still get it checked out asap, if I were you.
If it turns out to be an expensive repair, it may be worth putting it through insurance.
David
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could fill with expanding foam then fibre glass on top. rub down and then filler and keep rubbing down getting finer wet and dry each time and when lovely and smooth, spray paint. Then again like previous posts thats what insurance is for.
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Looks to me like a Plastic Padding job. It’s not huge so Plastic Padding body filler would do the job. You might want to do it in several stages to bring it up to profile. Careful wet and dry work should get it to profile and probably invisible once you have found the right paint colour. Lornalou’s suggestion of expanding foam is a fair one- just make sure the expanding foam isn’t going to interfere with any lights or such. It’ll certainly be easier to apply the PP with something backing it. Best of luck.
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We have disguised minor scrapes, though in less obvious places with a patch made from a self adhesive front number plate backing. I’m not sure how easy it is to buy these days though. The reply above which suggests using expanding foam to close the void behind the hole, then fill and sand back to the contour, sounds good to me. But we’d skip the impossible task of matching colours by using the improvised parch as described. Match it with another on the opposite to give the impression that it’s a deliberate safety feature
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Don't like the expanding foam suggestion, could do more damage than good,it expands both ways what is behind the panels.
If your going to repair it yourself, I would suggest you fibre glass the old way, with fibre matting and resin and pherhaps finish level with plastic padding type paste.
if you keep the rubbing down localised you could still use a sticker to disguise the repair instead of paint matching.
Or get a quote from a fibre glass repairer.
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