My rear arm rests (standard interior) generally look pretty good, except the foam is slightly swollen and the backing plates are starting to pull away. Has anyone had success extracting the backing plate, reshaping the foam, and gluing the plate back in place?
I have. I remove some of the foam then glue the armrest back together with contact cement.
Thank you, Royce. That gives me the push I needed to give it a shot.
Same, Its not perfect but I did get acceptable results with mine as well. Make sure you have a way to hold everything together so you can let the glue setup long enough.
Contact cement is completely set up before you put the parts together. You either brush or spray it on both surfaces, let it cure for say 10 - 15 minutes, then stick the parts to each other.
Yeah I used stronger stuff then contact cement.
I am not aware of anything stronger than contact cement. I use 3M 1357 but there are many brands on the market.
I do not remember the specific adhesive, Something I would have got from work Im sure. It was good stuff but did require setup time thus having to hold things in place until it cured fully. Nothing has moved in the couple years since I fixed them. The biggest issue I had with them was how crusty the material was but end results came out good.