another rear door handle off

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Ian jones

Ian jones

Well-Known Member
Posts
1,104
Location
north east england
Hello all ,the wife has just pulled off the tailgate door handle :eek: looks as if its come off the studs that were moulded into it , can any one recommend a glue that will be strong enough to bond it back on , did a search and araldite was mentioned , but have used that on plastics in the past , and that was so so , failing that its £100 for a new one ,any tips ? regards ian
 
Had a look in the daylight , the plastic has failed holding the bolts big time , don't think glue would fix it , ones on fleabay look as good as my broken one for £50 :eek: so its off to ripon landrover for a new one !
 
Try Q Bond its great on plastics, I've used it's to repair a mounting lug on the bumper on our Td4, it also comes with two tubs of reinforcing powder, one for plastics and one metals.
 
2 stage repair, use superglue to hold the bits initially in place, but it has little strength in this application, once held in place with super glue, slather the lot in araldite, which takes a while to go off, but when it does, it's good.

don't forget to roughen the smooth surfaces before gluing
 
I did a repair on one, by getting some long bolts and cut heads off. Remove the rubber seal, latch and light you can then drill through the plastic where the old studs were, once you have drilled through fit some nut to the threads had to grind the one of the nuts to allow the thread to sit straight, then glued in with araldite. it was then easy to line up thread with holes then fit nuts from inside tailgate. one thing is to make sure the threaded bar is not to long as can foul on rear window. Been going strong for last couple of years, cost less than £5.00.
Wish I had took some pictures of each stage now.
 
Thanks for the imput , been away at the caravan , that's why I went to Ripon land Rover for a new handle , cost £80 66 , a mate got me some discount , the plastic used to make the handle is ****e , ABS plastic would have been better , as mentioned the only sound fix , would have been to drill holes right through , that would leave the bolt heads visable , at least the door now opens with one pull of the handle , and not two , one of the small return springs was missing from the micro switch handle on the old one , see how long this one lasts ;)
 

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i warmed up some stainless studs and screwed them (whilst still hot) into the plastic. :)


handle is still fastened two years on
 
This photo went adrift when I posted the others , and shows how little is left to glue ! also you can see one of the small return springs , the other one was missing ., unbeknown to me !
 

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Bottom line is the original part isn’t really up to the job! Having said that though mine lasted the best part of eight years before it failed. If the plastic moulding isn’t too badly damaged then your best option is to rebuild it with epoxy. Depending on the damage it might need to be done in two stages. I did mine a couple of months ago but it’s just gone again so you probably have to accept that whatever fix you apply is just a stop gap until you get a new one. There about £85 but if you spread that out over the life of the Freelander it’s maybe not so bad. It’s a common failing and you see lots of them around. Araldite seems to work quite well but there are other epoxy options around.
 
I pull on the spare wheel to open the door after unlatching - the weight of the spare wheel on the door doesn't help the plastic handle ;)
 
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