Dometic Vent Repair

A few months back I took some photos of the ABS vent for my Dometic refrigerator. The vibration cause by the bad axles had caused the vent plastic to crack everyplace a rivet had been placed. Old age was a factor also!

One of the PO's had also drilled a 1 1/2 " hole in the front of it. I assume it was there to help dish towels to dry. My vent is enclosed in a cabinet and there is a towel rack inside the cabinet. Of course, this also allowed combustion fumes into the living space which is really stupid!!

I have outlined the repair in previous posts so I will just give a quick summary here. I placed clear shipping tape over the edges to hold the broken pieces in place during removal.
I then removed the vent and opened up the cracks with a Dremel tool.


I had spare window screen left over from replacing the screen in the trailer and the house. For the trailer I used aluminum. For the house I used the dark grey fiberglass.
I found the aluminum a little better as I could cut a 1 inch wide strip, fold it in half and slip it over the edge and it would stay.

Then I applied ABS cement from the big box store. I let it dry over night then reapplied a second coat where needed. The cement hardened up to the same as the original plastic.

I finished up by spraying it with a coat of Krylon Fusion paint for plastic.

It will not be seen when installed but I didn't like the black glue on the off white vent. I think this method works very well and I would not hesitate to use it for any other ABS repairs. If it were to be visible I would apply a thin coat of Bondo, sand then paint.

In summary, would I recommend this?

Absolutely! A well known vendor sells a replacement vent for almost $400.00 plus shipping. My cost was some some scrap window screen, $3.69 for a bottle of glue and half a can of paint I already had. Oh yeah, I have to figured about four bottles of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.