Repair Tips

Repair Tips

All information provided on this page (as well as all other maintenance and repair information) is provided on a use at your own risk basis.

1) Noisy cooling fans often just need oil added to the bearing. Most fans has a label that can be pulled back to reveal the bearing. I use a light machine oil or WD40. Do no spray the oil onto the area of the fan's casing that the label needs to stick to or you can't restick the label. Drop the oil into the bearing using a Radio Shack (or other supplier) oiler or use the tip of a screwdriver to drop the oil into the fan.

2) Cracked plastic case pieces can be repaired using two methods.

A) Non-critical cracks can be mended with Plastruct Bondene cement. This cement dissolves ABS and Styrene plastics - so do be careful how you use it. Plastic is "welded" with the bonding action that dissolving the plastic on either side of the crack - but paint will craze and be damaged. Use on the inside surface and hold the crack together until the plastic sets up. If the paint is damaged then you will need to repaint.

b) Structual plastic pieces, such as LCD lids that crack at the hinge mounting points, can be repaired with the above cement too. I then reinforce the plastics with epoxy and fiberglass mesh. Fiberglass mesh used for screen windows is cheap and easy to obtain. Small free scraps may be available at a hardware store that repairs screen windows. Cut a piece of mesh so that it will lay flat on the surface of the inside of the lid and cut a small opening in the mesh (not a round hole) so that the mesh will provide several strands of fiberglass to reinforece the sides of any broken screw studs. Clean the inside of the plastic case with sandpaper to remove any paint or anti-static spray and apply epoxy to the area that needs reinforcing then apply the mess and work into the epoxy. Add more epoxy over the mesh as needed. I like to use long cure epoxy so that I don't need to rush the repiar and because most fast cure epoxy has poorer strength than long cure epoxy. Be sure to not fill any space that screws need to use after the repair is finished. I coat screws with cooking spray oil (PAM) and insert each screw into the metal studs that are in most hinge studs. Removal of the screws after the epoxy is cured is much easier than if the screw is completely bonded to the epoxy without the PAM.

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