Mike's PCjr Page

I have successfully restored a complete PCjr. Problem is the sidecar plastic outer panel has broken "pegs" that keep it attached to the outer sidecar (or no sidecar if you have none). Wondering if anyone had an extra? Willing to pay for it, you just don't see those kinds of things on Ebay. Thanks!

These would be a great candidate for 3-D printing by a resin printer, but I don't know if there are any that wide.

Completely intact side panels are just going to become rarer over time. There needs to be some sort of solution.

It would be nice if we could 3D-print replacements, but I don’t know that the technology is quite there yet. Aside from just the length of the panels, there are issues of matching the color and texture, getting the dimensions and elasticity of the pegs just right, etc.

I’ve been thinking of ways to repair the panels instead. Two ideas:

• Remove any remaining fingers and glue foam plugs (such as earplugs) in their place. I just checked the fit of some earplugs I have on hand, and it appears they might work. They’d need to be shortened a bit. Then, when inserting the panel, they’d need to be squeezed first to reduce their diameter (as when putting them in ears). Once inserted they’d expand to grip the holes. I haven’t tried this on a panel yet, so I don’t know if the grip would be sufficient.
• 3D-print just the pegs, then glue them to the inside of the panel.

As I think about it, the older, stiffer, cylindrical earplugs might work better for this purpose than the softer, tapered ones that are common today.

Or one could use a tapered earplug, snip off the rounded end, glue that now-flat end to the panel, and insert the wider end into the side of the PCjr.

I was checking some stuff in my shop yesterday and I think a viable solution could be to use those plastic wall anchors one uses to put screws in drywall. They are a similar shape and have ribs that hold the anchor. Perhaps CA'ing those to a broken adaptor. I plan to get back to it in the next week and will report back. One complexity might be the right glue as i find things with a nylon component (if they have that) are much harder to effectively glue.