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69AmbassFl · 03-23-2008, 09:07 AM

Hello All

I have a 69 Ambassador and started to remove the rear bath. It has been removed at least once before judgeing by the amount of rivet holes in the peices. Also whoever reinstalled it used steel rivets Pain trying to remove when rusted all up. In looking through posts it would appear that most of this is supposed to be made of fiberglass? The tub is fiberglass, but the rest appears to be made of some kind of flexable plastic material. It resembles automobile bumper material. Question is, is it made of fiberglass? If not What is best way to repair and refinish? Has anyone thought about using the new shower stalls they use in the new ones (or tried) and what the cost may be?

Thanks for any info

overlander63 · 03-23-2008, 09:23 AM

The parts are indeed plastic. Using a modern shower stall presents its own problems, as it is a kind or wierd area it would have to fit in properly. There are places that will recoat a tub, I don't know if they will recoat a plastic tub, but it's worth a shot. Be careful of the plastic, it is very brittle and may break during handling.

goransons · 03-23-2008, 10:27 AM

We repaired several cracks in the plastic surround by drilling out the end of the crack, cleaning it out and using a flexible epoxy on the face (that was later sanded smooth). The back side of the crack we used fiberglass mesh and the same epoxy, but did sand the area to rough it up before applying.

That was in July, so far plenty of freeze/thaw cycles and sitting on it, standing on it, and cracks haven't reappeared.

We then coated the whole area with Tile-Doc from Sherwin Williams with a HVLP gun including the end cap and medicine cabinet etc. It too has held up very well. The Tile-doc is expensive, we used 2 1/2 kits of the epoxy bathroom paint, at about 70 bucks a kit, but it is a very strong, nearly unscratchable, flexible coating that sticks to EVERYTHING except caulking (which is quite a project to remove every trace of 40 years worth of it.

http://www.airforums.com/forums/f446...elp-34699.html

shows what we did. Painted all the plastic trim pieces with the Krylon plastic paint and it too has worked well. Just like most projects its all about prep work. I personally wouldn't get rid of the interior parts for your bathroom, refinishing, especially if already removed (we did ours in place) would be quite easy.

69AmbassFl · 03-23-2008, 07:41 PM

Thanks Overlander,
I knew that the panel felt like they were plastic. They are pretty pliable still. The trim plastic is toast though. Hopefully I can still find that or come up with something different. I was just wondering if I took out the hang closet between bed and shower if a stall could be put there and move the closet aft. Probably just try to refinish what I have though.
Thanks Goransons,
The pics of your bath turned out great. I have worked in auto industry as a tech for 25 years and have seen what they call a plastic welder they use on plastic bumper repair. I may investigate the cost of one, there are just so many holes that rivets went through. I know what you are talking about though on the 40 years of caulk. I have a lot of repairs to do in the rear including the floor.The more I take apart the more I see wrong. I think that the end cap in the rear has been sawed in 3 places that shouldn't have been. When I get it stripped a little more I will take some pics to post. I don't really know if I want to pull it out to refiberglass it back together(looks to be a real pain in the A**) but I will if I have to. One more thing,do you know where to get the bath light lenses,yours looks to be the same as mine?

goransons · 03-23-2008, 10:45 PM

good luck on those, I happened to get them from the guy on Ebay for 80 bucks for the pair. Mine were so brittle there were holes through them. I did find a company that makes a gel kit featured on classic car restoration (on DIY) that he remade some tail lights. If you have one good one, they make a kit you can make a rtv silicone mold and the poor in the frosted plastic lense solution they make. Mold is said to be reusable and the ones on TV he made looked dead on original. That was my plan till I found 2 good ones. Sometime when I have extra money and nothing to spend it on I hope to make a couple spares to use down the road.

the company is Alumilite - Products Alumilite and you can get their starter kits for 70 bucks I think. I know the lenses have been out of production for years because I called every source I could find online with no luck.

With the price of the kit I thought about making several additional pairs to make up for the cost of the mold making, but found good ones first.

Frank's Trailer Works · 03-24-2008, 03:51 AM

I recommend you use an acrylic urethane paint. The type that is used to paint bumpers on cars for that tub surround. There are very recent photos on my blog of the products I used from PPG.
I also want to add that there are different products, with two separate functions, being discussed above.... there is epoxy and hardner, and there is fiberglass and resin. The two products are often used to repair tubs, but epoxy is not good to use on fiberglass. Epoxy is for plastic. Both products are similar, and are worked the same, but are very different products. Kind of like RC Cola and Coke...

goransons · 03-24-2008, 07:18 AM

good point overlander, the cracks I had to repair were in the plastic bench that surrounds the toilet, not the fiberglass tub. You are correct that epoxy doesn't usually work well on fiberglass

69AmbassFl · 03-24-2008, 07:47 AM

thanks again goransons and 62. yea I might have one lense that is still in one peice, the other one is toast. I have one Hole in the plastic surround that might give me an issue if the missing piece isn't down in the rear. Thanks again for the info.

goransons · 03-24-2008, 03:14 PM

I wouldn't give up on it, which surround is the part missing from? I've seen several of them come up on ebay and a good plastics company could repair it. I know locally there is a company that all they do is repair bath surrounds etc, fiberglass, acrylic and other plastics on site in place even. I'm sure for the small town here there has to be something similiar in your area.

69AmbassFl · 03-24-2008, 05:55 PM

Its on the top section just below street side edge of rear window. Its shaped like a triangle with @ 3 inch sides. If everything works out I may be able to patch underneath then fill in the top and sand smothe out the top.The end at the sink seems to still be flexible though, so there might be hope for it yet. I hopre to refurbish what I have for no other reason is to get to use the fancy avacado green shower curtain. Do you have a pic of the area at the wall on the end of tub where the tub meets the wooden closet wall. I don't know if I am missing a trim and or wall surround th. My wall has some kinda wall paper stuff there and the top edge of the tub is showing like its missing something that goes down over the edge. Once I get it all removed I will see if I can find someone in the yellow pages to refinish the plastic here, then again I might make it another project of mine. I have thought about welding up some a frames to lift the body completely off the frame and start from the ground up.

goransons · 03-24-2008, 06:04 PM

I don't have a pic of that area yet, but it was just that, wall paper. I stripped it off, it was totally dry rotted. I'm going to scribe a piece of laminate that looks like stainless to glue there. As far as where it meets the tub, all mine had was a small about 1" wide piece of brass trim, almost like a floor threshold transition strip and a whole bunch of caulking.

69AmbassFl · 03-25-2008, 07:48 PM

Thanks again Goransons

My brass peice of trim gone and no calk there. I like the stainless idea, I have an old piece of stainless sheet that was used as a parts counter at an old car dealer. I may try to shape and cut it down and glue it to that wall so it overlaps the edge of the tub.

Thanks again

John

fl airheads · 04-06-2008, 06:14 PM

We have a '69 29' Ambassador as well. We have removed all the bathroom panels, made molds of them and are making exact fiberglass replacements. We will be installing some marmoleum flooring within the next couple weeks and then will install the new fiberglass panels. We did not make a new tub but rather plan to paint the tub and are currently looking for the best type of paint.

Special thank you to the goransons; we loved the pictures! Your bathroom looks WONDERFUL!! and we love the look of the rest of your Tradewind.

goransons · 04-06-2008, 07:10 PM

thanks guys, we were really happy with the tile-doc stuff, has survived the renovation and all the tools (and tool drops). You can get it at sherwin williams stores.