Knock-off TRD louvers! Simple process for modifying them

[soundman98]

I absolutely loved the original TRD concept louvers that were on the Tokyo Auto Salon TRD-86 concept car, seen here at speedhunters
http://www.speedhunters.com/2013/01/...he-80s-trd-86/



The final production louvers made some reality-based compromises that I wasn't happy with. Specifically, the width and thickness of the blades(not possible without using aluminum, and then no one would pay TRD prices for it), as well as the gaping hole they needed to leave for the OEM third brake light location. I understand the reasoning, but for those of us willing to relocate the brake light, it's a big useless ugly hole.

I might still do an aluminum louver design at a later time, but made some adjustments to the cheap ebay trd-style, ABS-plastic louvers that improved at least the brake light location aesthetics--because my brake light no longer exists in that spot.

It started by looking into ABS bonding methods, where I found this video:

For those that don't want to watch the video, he says and demonstrates to use MEK(Methyl Ethyl Ketone), and it basically melts the 2 pieces of ABS together.

I sourced 2 knockoff louvers off ebay, which come out to be cheap enough to hack up contrasted to the cost of a genuine TRD variant of similar appearance.

Now, I know a lot of people must have these, as every ebay listing shows many hundreds being sold, but there's never any threads about them. so I'm making this thread because i must be less embarrassed than everyone else to do what I want with my car!

After making some cutoffs on a soon-to-be scrap louver, I verified that the bonding method would work on a few pieces, with and without any prep work.


The result is determining that the outside final finished surface is a painted finish that the MEK does not bond to without sanding, but the underside is raw ABS, that the MEK reacts with and will create an almost instant bond.

Through some trial and error, I had to run for some glass tube eye droppers from the drug store to dispense the MEK, as it would evaporate too fast using brushes, or popsicle sticks to transfer it from the jug to the work piece.

with the eye droppers, it became a simple task of cutting the piece to the right size, and gluing it all together with some support material from the back:





After that, I had to add some filler material to the now-visible seam, I used some JB-Weld Plastic Bond, in black:



And the end result looked like this:


i've still got some sanding to do, as well as a final re-paint, but it's a good start to the project.


but before I go crazy with repainting it, this louver has one more major modification upcoming. The next step is cutting in and supporting this 98-01 toyota corolla third brake light into the top section for a much more visible and sleek brake light option

[beltax90]

not bad

[conehead]

Nice work.


I would have paid the money for those TRD louvers, I want them bad. They look so good, and keep the AZ sun from baking the interior.

[YamahaR86]

Any thoughts on using a sealer to keep the louver from fading?

[dragoontwo]

Looks pretty good. Can't wait to see the final product.

[soundman98]

Originally Posted by YamahaR86

Any thoughts on using a sealer to keep the louver from fading?

it is just paint. i would recommend a clearcoat instead to perform that task.

[soundman98]

it took just a few days to modify it, paint has been the major holdup lately. haven't been able to get a consistent finish on it, need to keep sanding down one part or another.

[soundman98]

COMPLETE!! paint sucked.. first tried a few cans of this rustoleum stuff



never got it to lay right. by the time it was coated as per the directions, it would start getting runny and drip everywhere. and then the 2nd can i tried to use went gloss on me. so i had a drippy, half glossed louver.. took a few days, but wet-sanded the entire louver down to a smooth finish.

then, per eastwoods salesperson, i tried using eastwoods paint pre-prep cleaner.

it was like pre-waxing the louvers. the first pass with new paint, it streaked and dripped like i had coated everything in wd-40.

so i had to wet-sand off that first pass, and then wet-sand then entire louver AGAIN to remove the new contaminates i introduced(scrubbing could have been an option, but i already had all the wet-sanding stuff out.

finally, after re-sanding it all down, i managed to get a few coats of this on



the finish turned out a touch shinier than i wanted, but it's close enough at this point, and it looks like the entire thing came this way, which was the original intent.





i might still try to do a matte clearcoat on that third brake light to get it to blend better with the louvers aesthetically, but for now, this project is done!