I purchased a plastic welder from
www.urethanesupply.com and had some really good results fixing the original polyethylene front valance
Here is the process I went through which was remarkably easy. These valances are made out of polyethylene and once I figured that out, it was just boiled down to following the directions in the kit and using the right plastic welding rods. This contraption is basically a soldering iron with a special tip that you feed the polyurethane rods into.
The first step of course is cleaning the area as best as possible and the using aluminum tape to hold the cracks together. (The aluminum tape is critical as it is very thick and wont stretch like masking tape will: it holds the crack together tightly) Once that is done you use the hot tool to melt a groove in the crack halfway into the plastic. You then apply the flat face of the iron onto the crack and while melting the base material, you feed the rod material into the melted area. You do about an inch at a time and them massage it in very well. Once you get the entire length done you take a strip of stainless steel mesh and apply it onto the repair and melt that into the repair for added strength (preferably on the back side of the panel). When that is done and cooled off (apply cold water to speed things up) you can turn the valance over and remove the aluminum tape, groove the other side's crack and do the same only without the mesh. The interesting thing about the welding rods is that they have a selection of colors available in this kit due to the fact that it is used mainly to repair kayaks and ATV fenders which are molded in color. Once it is cooled you can sand it down.
The face bar portion was a little trickier since it was very hard to get into the rear part of the crack. I heated up the area quite a bit and placed the mesh and a bunch of extra polyethylene rod into the area for added strength.
The process and the tool was amazingly easy and I just saved an irreplaceable part for about $90 in material and 3 hours of work.
Here's the crack:
After taping and grooving:
Applying the welding rod and melting the stainless steel mesh in to the backside of the repair:
The front side after valance was flipped over and the procedure was repeated:
