More Fiberglass Repairs

All fiberglass repairs are in process. They are not complete. Some require rivet and tab removal, some require back grinding and fiberglass mat. All will receive minimal glazing compound and lots of block sanding before the first coat of primer is applied. That said, the car is really starting to come together nicely. All areas that require fiberglass have fiberglass. Ty has been religious about back grinding everything and making sure all areas are feathered properly. Both front fenders received full inserts because the openings had already been precut to that size. When the openings were cut the bonding strips on the back side were also inadvertently cut. New full length bonding strips will be installed after all the backside fiberglass work is complete.

This is a previous repair to the firewall that was soft and hastily done. When I power washed the car for the first time this soft spot turned into a sizable hole. The fiberglass was soft because hardly any resin was used. It was mostly fibers.

Using Ty's techniques the new repair is very solid and looks great.

This is another soft spot that resulted in another hole after power washing. This is located just in front of the windshield between the two fresh air vents. Access to the backside of this new repair will be very difficult and may require the tabs and rivets to be abandoned in place.

This is the cross section of a very odd repair we found on the left front inner fender well. It includes at least 20 to 30 layers of woven fiberglass mat and is about 3 inches thick. We are still puzzled as to why this repair was performed in this manner.

This is the spot where the 3 inch thick repair was located. We replaced the majority of the inner fender well. The black portion of the fender well is new.

Although we agreed the third tail light was acceptable because it was a dealer installed option, I elected to go for the standard two lights on each side. Block outs are now installed.

This is pretty amazing. This is a hole that was cut in the passenger side floor board to accommodate hydraulic lines on an automatic transmission. What is amazing is that we found the original pieces that were removed. This is a picture of the new repair using the original fiberglass pieces.

This is the transmission hump at the shifter. As above, we found original fiberglass pieces and reinstalled them. Other holes were glassed over using duct tape as backing. The duct tape will be removed and the backside will be ground and fiberglassed. All of the holes, soft spots and block outs have been addressed. The next step will be lots of block sanding. But first we will assemble the major components of the car and head for Cool Desert Nights. Pictures to follow.

How to Repair Fiberglass

All techniques come from Ty T. who spent many many hours learning the process from his father. As I understand it, Ty's father had a significant passion/hobby for working on Corvettes. The quality of the repairs made on our Corvette are wonderful. Follow along and see for yourself.
As you'll recall the rear wheel wells were really ugly. They were flared and consisted of sheet metal, bondo and a few dozen rivets.

The wheel wells were cleaned, wire brushed and ground down to bare fiberglass. The replacement inserts were trimmed in order to preserve as much of the original body fiberglass as possible. Fiberglass tabs were made and riveted to the backside of the wheel wells. The outside of the wheel wells were then feathered back with a grinder and sheets of fiberglass mat were layed down.

The rivets and tabs were then drilled out and removed. The back side of the wheel wells were feathered back at least 6 inches with a grinder for the full length of repair. Long sheets of fiberglass mat were layered in making sure all matting was fully saturated and all air bubbles removed.

The front side received more fiberglass mat and resin making sure enough was installed to fill all low spots.

Liberal amounts of resin and glass filled the rivet holes and low spots created from the feathering process.

 

Rough sanding with a long block was performed to bring the body contours back.

Viewed from inside the wheel well you can see the final results. The body and the wheel well insert are sandwiched between the new (clear) fiberglass.

After rough sanding the body lines are near perfect.

More sanding is still required but the fiberglass work is complete. Any minor imperfections that still remain will be fixed with small amounts of bondo or finishing glaze. The results are absolutely spectacular. A huge thanks to Ty for doing the majority of this work and teaching me the techniques. I'll post photos of other repairs shortly.