Repairing the engine undertray

On the Ducato 230 the engine undertray is held on in three places:- a bolt on the front crossmember, a bolt on the subframe and small stud up in the wheel arch. On our bus the undertray was damaged in both main bolt areas!

I could run the bus without it, at the risk of road debris getting thrown up into the aux belt area, or ignore it, at the risk of it falling of completely and me running over it somewhere!

A complete replacement would solve it, but much cheaper is repairing it with fibreglass, you can guess which option I went for………

Fibreglass is great for quick and easy repairs to all sorts of things, especialluyy plastic items. The glass fibre itself comes a few different forms, typically flexible mats of interwoven strands. You just cut and form these to the shape you need and then apply a resin/hardener mix to soak into the mat and glue everything into place. The whole lots sets into a strong and flexible plastic material – quick and easy!

If you don’t have fibreglassing gear handy you can pick up kits that contain everything you need, I bought this comedy named set for a few quid:-

Thirty minutes work later and we have a strong repaired undertray that will hopefully last another hundred thousand miles

 

2 Comments

  1. Hi what year is this tray off? im trying to source a new one for my ducato its a 2005 model .This part you have pictured is the only part i have left .as the rest has been thrown at some point .Ebay search seems to suggest mine should be one piece .and yet this looks the same as mine . any help appreciated thanks

    • Hi Steve – this is off a 1999 Ducato, there is only this piece (the undertray only really protects the belts on the front of the engine, there is nothing under the sump, gearbox etc.)

      Hope this helps!

      Cheers, Dan

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