J_ME65

I've been told to boil some of the plastic parts on my truck to give them a little more flex and not be so brittle. Anybody have any suggestions or advice on doing this. I've heard of anywhere from 5 min to 3 hours, does it really matter that much on the time frame? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

jefx

I've heard the same thing. I tried it once on my a-arms on my LST. The LST1 stock a-arms tend to be a bit weak. For scientific purposes, I only boiled the arms on one side of the truck........so that I could honestly guage the difference between the boiled and non-boiled arms. The arms were boiled for approximately 15 minutes.

Well, from my experiment, the arms that had been boiled broke more easily than the non-boiled arms. In fact, I broke 3 of the 4 boiled arms before I finally broke a non-boiled arm.

I've never heard of anyone else trying to do an actual experiment to determine the effects of boiling plastic parts. From all that I've read or heard, it's just an unproven theory that has made it's way to internet rumor. Many people have tried it, and many of those people say that it works, but they have no controlled subject to compare it to.

From my experiences, boiling parts actually makes them weaker.

bentgear

Lots of things are called plastic that are not. Doubt there would be any use in boiling plastic, but it does seem to help with some nylon parts or at least it did years ago. Have not tried it in years.

Ed M.

jombo

i was always told that when you have nylon fiber airplane props to boil them to make them less brittle, and to heat metal parts in an oven on broil,to heat treat them but not boil plastic parts.