The New Project: Part Deux!

[njsteve]

It deserves a repaint. It is 30 year old enamel and has contaminants from the original application (tiny bumps from water in the air lines), chips, scratches and the entire lower 8 inches of the car including front and rear valances are coated in that darn gravel guard crap that everyone loved to apply back in the 1980s.

I also need to fix a couple cracks in the fiberglass hood near the scoops from incorrect hood closing procedures. These hoods should never be slammed down in the center. They should be gently prssed closed with two hands, one on each scoop. If not done this way, you get a crack alongside each scoop on the centerline of the hood. This hood has those cracks.

[njsteve]

Spent a couple hours at my buddy's garage this morning. We filled up the A/C system with R12 and man does it blow cold. 37 degrees at idle! Ready for summer cruising. I finally used the R12 that a fellow Yenko.net member gave me a year or so ago. Thanks again!

[njsteve]

Another evening at the votech body shop class. I forgot to take any before shots but here are a couple after shots. I had to weld up several 1/2" Ziebart rust proofing holes in the doors. The one on the driver's side was right in the middle of where the conformance decal is supposed to be. The original rustproofers must have drilled right through the decal. DUMB! There were also a couple extra 1/4" size holes where they must have tried to install a non-original replacement, power door lock solenoid. The large hex-head screws are the retaining bolts for the power door lock solenoids.


Anyway, here is the result after I reinstalled the door panels and made sure everything still worked:

[njsteve]

I bought an NOS Formula hood from PerformanceYears site member "The Boss," (chris) today. Definitely a great guy with some really nice cars! I went out and picked it up this morning. This will be the next project - it needs some (hopefully minor) repair work. It has been sitting in his shed for several years and before that in someone else's parts stash. Its a very nice hood, other than it being the victim of bad storage practices, most likely when it was new. Someone way back when, stood it on the windshield end and both of the fragile fiberglass corners were broken off. Ugh!

I decided to go for this NOS hood, as mine is heavily bowed up in front of the hood hinge area (a common problem with Formula hoods), some of the defroster grills are cracked, and there are stress cracks in my hood that look like they were badly repaired at the scoop bases in the front. Probably from someone closing the hood way too hard, a few hundred times.

Now I can devote less repair effort on a nicer, flatter hood. The hood is made of the same white molded glass material as the spare shaker scoop that I repaired a couple years ago. That shaker coincidentally had a similar sized section of its corner broken off. I used the bondo fiberglass filler gel and it came out really nice.

https://www.yenko.net/ubbthreads/ubbt...pics/99416/113



Driver's side corner:





Passenger side corner:

[njsteve]

I brought the hood to the Tuesday evening Votech class and had some fun. I used the Bondo Fiberglass Resin Gel repair compound which is a fiberglass resin mixed with fiberglass powder in it.

I made a tracing of my good hood on the car, locating the template at the last molded alignment bumper about 5 inches from the back of the hood. This way I could align the tracing with the damaged hood in the same spot.

The repair compound works great. I ground down the leading edge of the break by an inch or so so there would be a longer mating seam for the compound. I taped some cardboard underneath to hold the goop and applied it "liberally." I also used a small piece of fiberglass mat and mushed it into the mixture for added strength.





I then did like Michelangelo did with his sculpture of David: When asked how he could sculpt something so realistic, he said &quot;I simply remove everything that isn't my subject.&quot; So I followed his guidance and I carved away everything that wasn't the hood. [img]<<GRAEMLIN_URL>>/grin.gif[/img]

Here's is the preliminary view with the stencil underneath. Still have a ways to go.





After getting to this stage I then used a Dremel tool and ground grooves across the seam area and reapplied the firberglass gel. I will also do this from the top as well so it gives two sepearate layers of &quot;finger joints&quot; above and below the seam, strengthening the bond so it is not just a flat surface to surface bond, but a sandwich of several bonds overlaying each other.

[njsteve]

I can definitely say the repair is pretty strong. I enlisted one of my kids to help me move the hood out of my truck this morning. As I was getting inside the truck, facing the &quot;pointy end&quot; of the hood, when the hood shifted forward. One of newly constucted tips slashed me across the bicep, cutting right through my shirt and leaving one helluva welt across my arm. So I guess it passed the &quot;Slash Test&quot;. [img]<<GRAEMLIN_URL>>/biggthumpup.gif[/img]

[Xplantdad]

Looking good Steve!