4 Ways to Fix a Crack in Your UTV’s Floorboard

If you want to know four ways to fix a crack in your floorboard (and one way to prevent it in the first place), keep reading.

It can happen so easily: You’re riding down an easy trail, you hit the gas while you’re rolling over some loose rocks from a washout, and WHAM! You’ve got a brand new crack in the floorboard right by your feet.

The problem with cracks in your floor is that the floor pan is just one big ol’ piece of plastic—you can’t just replace it. You’re gonna have to fix it.

So let’s get to it.

We’ll give you one piece of advice right up front: If you can’t fix a crack right away, drill a hole at either end of the crack to keep it from spreading anymore.

Now on to the fixes!

Table of Contents

• Fab an Aluminum Plate
• Use Zip Tie Stitches
• Weld It with a Soldering Iron
• Use a Plastic Welder Staple Kit
• Prevent Cracks with a Skid Plate

1. Fab an Aluminum Plate

If you have the means to do it, fabbing up an aluminum plate as a heavy-duty Band-Aid is a good way to fix a crack.

Just cut an aluminum plate big enough to cover the crack and fasten it down with some screws or nuts and bolts.

The big advantage of a repair like this is that it not only covers the crack but also increases the protection of the affected area and covers any holes where plastic is missing. Plus, you don’t need to worry about corrosion on aluminum.

The only problem is that it might make getting into and out of your cab more slippery if it’s in a spot you need to put your foot on. You can mitigate that with some grip tape or by using diamond plated aluminum, but these are things to consider before you go with this repair.

2. Use Zip Tie Stitches

Zip tie stitches are a classic go-to repair for cracks in big pieces of plastic. It’s go-to for a reason:

• It’s cheap
• It’s easy
• It’s strong
• You probably already have everything you need to do it

It’s also ugly, so keep that in mind before you go through with this one.

The tools you need are simple:

1. A drill
2. Zip ties

The steps are simple too:

1. Drill holes in pairs on either side of the crack for the entire length of the crack.
2. Run zip ties through the holes on either side of the crack in X-patterns and zip them up!
3. You’re done!

The tricky part is getting your hand to the backside of the plastic to feed the zip ties through, but if a rock could hit it, surely your hand can reach it too.

Also, it’s more pleasing to the eye if you hide the zip part of the zip tie under the floor pan instead of in the cab, so keep that in mind.

Overall, this fix will get you going faster than any other. You might need a trip to the hardware store for some zip ties, but that’s it.

For quick and easy, nothing beats zip tie stitches.

3. Weld It with a Soldering Iron

For a more professional-looking repair, you can use a soldering iron to weld the plastic back together. This fix can be as strong as OEM and look just as nice, but it is a little tricky. And any time you heat something up in your machine, you want to make sure you have a fire extinguisher nearby (you should have one on your cab just for riding anyway).

The basic idea is simple: you use a soldering iron to heat up the edges of the crack and fuse the melted plastic together.

Here are the steps to get it done:

1. Clean the plastic around the crack.
2. Push the crack together as best you can and spot weld it in a few spots so it can hold itself together. If you’re worried about the look of a weld seam on the floor of your cab, you can jack up your machine and do all the welding on the bottom side.
3. With the crack stabilized, work your way down the crack, heating both sides and mixing the melted plastic together over the crack.
4. Repeat on both sides of the floor pan for a stronger weld
5. For a sturdier fix, use scrap plastic to melt over the crack on the bottom side of your floor pan (where you won’t see it).
6. Sand the weld for looks, and you’re done!

4. Use a Plastic Welder Staple Kit

A plastic welder staple kit is the most robust solution here. It lets you repair the crack and reinforce it with metal staples in the plastic.

These staple kits are purpose-built just for mending cracks in plastic, and they make it easy. You can pick one up for anywhere between $40 and $140. If you’ve got a lot of plastic to fix, consider spending a little more.

Here’s how you use them:

1. Clean the area around the crack.
2. Select your staple based on the location of the crack. If it’s on the flat part of your floor pan, use the standard S-wave staples. You’ll need to use a corner staple if it’s on a corner.
3. Using the staple gun, heat the staple and embed it into the plastic. Repeat until you have staples over the entire crack. Snip the ends of the staples once they’re cool.
4. Heat the material around the staples to smooth the plastic over. Most kits come with a special tool for this.
5. Finally, you can use filler plastic to finish the repair and give it long-lasting strength.

When you’re done, you should have a solid repair that’s as strong or stronger than the original floor pan.

[A plastic welder staple kit is purpose-built just to repair cracks in plastic. That makes it easy and effective to get the job done. Photo by Allturn]

Bonus: Prevent Cracks With a Skid Plate

They say prevention is the best medicine. That goes for busting your floor pan too.

That’s why we highly recommend buying an aftermarket skid plate before you go wild again.

An aftermarket skid plate, like our UHMW skid plates, gives you way better protection against sticks and rocks than your stock skid plate gives you. That’s because we use 1/2” thick UHMW to make them.

UHMW is pretty dang cool stuff, and it makes the perfect skid plate material for couple reasons:

• Whatever put a crack in your floor pan isn’t getting through UHMW. Seriously, it’s really, really tough. And we give you 1/2” to make it virtually unstoppable.
• It’s super slick and abrasion resistant. That means when you get hung up on a rock or log, it’s super easy to slide right over it and keep going. And it won’t get gouged up on the way.

We take this awesome UHMW material to make kickass skid plates that are way better than stock.

Our design covers more of your undercarriage than stock on many models. And our patented interlocking design keeps them securely mounted to your machine for ride after ride.

Check out our UHMW skid plates and make sure you don’t have to repair your floor pan ever again.