What is a good glue for rubber ?
I mean a really good one. One that will seal two pieces of rubber together permanently, and stand up to road conditions, oil, heat, chemicals, etc…
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Contact adhesive, properly applied, is often used for tire plugs and patches. In fact, in case it is a special formulation, you may want to buy a tube of the stuff that comes with plug kits.
The big trick will be knowing just exactly what kind of "rubber" it is. There are so many different elastomers and many of them can look and feel the same but respond very differently to adhesives.
Please tell us what exactly you're trying to glue and we'll be able to give you more help.
The Jimmy has two shifters. One for the tranny, one for the 4WD.
Ergo, two rubber boots.
Both have holes. I plan on taking them off and either putting patches on the inside, or sealing the holes together somehow since they normally naturally occur at folds. (I say normally, because I haven't realy investigated the boots yet. Only enough to know there are holes.)
Posting at Breaktime should not be a full-contact sport.
quittintime
An automotive shift boot is most likely PVC (cheap) or some kind of santoprene (more expensive material, typically less shiny than PVC).
PVC is almost impossible to glue anything to because the plasticizers (sp?)(the stuff that makes if flexible) leach out over time and attack adhesives, making glue joints fail. There are very specialized primers for promoting good bonds to glass or steel, but not PVC x PVC, and not really available over the counter at any store.
If it is santoprene, or some other synthetic rubber, you've got a better chance, but since your bond will have to survive being flexed make sure to use the most flexible glue available, like rubber cement (contact adhesive).
Finally, any glue joint that flexes is pretty much guarenteed to fail (not glue's forte). If you're really going to go to all of the trouble of removing the boots to repair them, just buy new ones at the dealer (or find good ones at a scrap yard for 1/2 the price).
Hope this helps,
Norm
Thank you.
It is more likely the santoprene. Do you think I might have some success by gluing pieces of inner tube to it ?
Sometimes I prefer not to go the easier route. If the boots were readily available, I would probably just change them out. But I'll have to find them, then come up with the bucks for them... I'd rather just try to find a solution in what I have readily available. At this moment I am leaning toward trying the inner tube, and some "marine Goop" glue that I have.
I always wondered if rubber cement got it's name from the fact that it is rubbery, or from the fact that it was designed for gluing rubber...
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quittintime
I've heard good things about Barge Cement for 30 years. Never tried it myself.
Have you considered just wrapping a towel around each boot?
I've never heard of barge cement. I'll have to google that.
Man, you are a hoot sometimes. That is exactly what I have already done. It cut the smell to nothing, and the noise by at least 75 percent.
I'd prefer a more permanent solution, though.
I may end up going with the same solution I have used twice before.
In those cases, I found some plastic. Hard stuff. Thick. Cut out sides of a couple of anti-freeze bottles will do for this.
I took the boot and flange and all, off the shifter/floor.
I operated the shift lever and figured out a kind of square radius that the shifter arm's movements all fell inside of.
I cut three pieces of the plastic.
Two of the pieces of plastic were cut at an outside dimension of just barely smaller than the flange that held down the boot.
In those two pieces, I cut the earlier arrived at square radius hole. Oriented just right.
One of them, I cut with a hole in the middle that was just slightly smaller than the diameter of the shifter arm shaft. This was so that it would stretch tight on the shaft, when applied.
The outside dimensions of this piece were such that, when sandwiched between the other two pieces, and fastened down... When the shifter was operated, the inside piece slid around with it, and whatever position it was in, it was always at least half an inch overlap on the edge of the hole in the other two.
Sandwich all that, fasten it down, and reinstall the broken boot.
All sealed. No noise. Nothing leaking into the vehicle. And it no longer mattered that the boot had holes. Cleaned up the boot, and gave it a coat of tire black, and it looked good as, well, as good as cleaned up, used. LOL
Yeah, that is probably what I will end up doing. It will be a bit more difficult having two shifters, and they so close to each other. But probably do-able.
Just one more project. LOL
Posting at Breaktime should not be a full-contact sport.
quittintime
Black 3M Gorrilla Snot...
Similar to the yellow and lasts a VERY long time... This I know....
Who ever invented work didn't know how to fish....
Ok, I used to call the stuff I had to smear around the rim of a tire when it was mounted, gorilla snot.
That stuff would not glue anything to anything. It was made to be slick, not sticky.
What are you calling gorilla snot ?
Posting at Breaktime should not be a full-contact sport.
quittintime
Weather strip adhesive.
I fixed the boot in my truck using it 4 or 5 years ago. still fixed..
Instead of an inner tube I used an old piece of weather strip on one repair. So so repair. A second method I used was to glue in several layers of mesh DW tape and filmed the the tape in several layers with the stuff. Thin layers dry pretty quick and bonds to it's self well. Put the patch together with the boot slightly stretched. That seemed to work best. You'll end up with what looks to be a reinforced tire patch.
Who ever invented work didn't know how to fish....
That is a great idea !
If I go with patching the boot, that is what I will do.
All I have ever seen is the yellow stuff though.
Posting at Breaktime should not be a full-contact sport.
quittintime
Black is half the cost of yellow..
Half dozen tubes on the way in less then a half hour.
Mesh is your problem....
Who ever invented work didn't know how to fish....
You didn't have to do that. I can find weatherstrip adhesive here.
Thank you.
Got a partial roll of fiberglass mesh tape for drywall somewhere. This will be interesting.
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quittintime
4 - 10oz tubes are on the way with some serious mesh tape. (not joint tape)
Tube says they're freeze / thaw stable....
if you need any more just hollar. there's 30 or 40 more tubes on the shelf... Gawd I love dumpster diving....
Who ever invented work didn't know how to fish....
Thank you.
10 oz ??? Isn't that like a quarter the size of a baseball bat ?
Yeah, you bet I'm going to need more.
........ in about november of 4024 !
LOL
Dumpster diving is one of the things I miss the most since I moved out here from the city. You get an occassional find out here. But there, if you simply took a walk, you'd find stuff all over the place.
Posting at Breaktime should not be a full-contact sport.
quittintime
Went and looked at the boot on my truck this morning. The repairs are still holding. Don't look as though it was ever repaired
As a note I took the boot off, turned it inside out, cleaned it with lac thinner / acetone or some such and did the repairs from the inside.
Who ever invented work didn't know how to fish....
That was my plan.
Free controversy. While you wait.
quittintime
Luka -
any place that sells Birkenstocks should carry the Barge cement. Back in my Birkenstock days, we used to coat the edges of the cork soles with Barge cement to keep them going longer. Don't know how it would work in the application you are contemplating, however.
Stuff lik Shoe Goo stick well to tennis shoe soles which flex and have abrasion, perhaps it would work for your application. The one time I used it, I was indoors and got higher than a kite from the solvent...
Thank you Casey.
I still haven't done a search on that. I am going to as soon as I catch up here.
I think shoe goo is the exact same stuff as the marine goop I have. It was already on the slate to try out.
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quittintime
What about making a new "boot" out of a inner tube and hose clamps? Find one that will stretch over the base at the hump, and accordian fold it to fit the shifter arm.
Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell'em "Certainly, I can!" Then get busy and find out how to do it. T. Roosevelt
The craftsman formerly known as elCid
That would definately work.
Part of the point though, is to keep the thing from looking too much like a kludge job. I'm tired of driving the local junker. Wanna fix this up as best I can.
If I go this route, I will make it a combination of this and Don's idea. Stitch up a new boot out of pieces of inner tube. It could work.
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quittintime
Just kill the bear that terrorizes you camp ,tan his hide and make new shifter boots. and the leftover can reupholster the seats.
Think out of the box, 'eh ?
This does open possibilities.
Posting at Breaktime should not be a full-contact sport.
quittintime