I got this goodline hood a while back from a good buddy. Unfortunately it got a little too close to a tree.
This was my mistake #1. Did not line the driver edge to match the OEM curve to the hood. Just went and had it straight lmao.
The template. Nothing like using a little cousin's car for my fiberglassing needs.
Passes the 10footer wide angle test. But see the fender peeking over the hood a bit? That's what I get for not doing the curve the hood follows. I'll probably redo it again down the line.
I started off using what my local TAP Plastics had. Then as I just needed more random product (and cared less about end result because…) then I just got whatever resin, activators, fabric from wherever I can find them. Sometimes homedepot has stuff I need, then there. Maybe amazon. Etc.
I don’t have any photos or the time to make a post, but Moonlight Runners have good tips and tricks they post frequently if anyone needs some guidance.
I've done a lot of repairs over the years and modded a few things. No real wisdom to share as I think my work is still pretty shitty. It's prettty fun to make thinkgs that don't exist though.
I wanted Car Modify Wonder GT overfenders for my coupe, but they don't exist, so I made my own using Origin fenders as my base. I should have made the Origin overs perfect before I started modifying them, but I didn't think that far in advanced. They've never lined up quite right, but probably very few people other than me notice haha
This year I tried my hand at molding my own hood vent. I always wanted a nice big drop vent, but no one makes one off the shelf that went anywhere near as deep as I wanted. I started off with an Origin type 2 (quality is much better than the overs thankfully) and cut a nice fat hole in it, boxed in an area where I wated the vent to be, filled it with expanding foam, and spent 40+ hours shaping it. Where I went wrong is I made the positive mold and laid my glass over that. If I were to do it over again, I would have then made a negative mold instead and laid the glass in it. Also, I should have budgeted 3x as much time as I thought I needed. I was trying to make it to Final Bout SSNW and majorly rushed the final steps. I still need to go back and clean it up in a lot of spots.
Worked in the fibreglass industry for a few years making motorcycle fairings & molds.
Biggest thing tips wise I’d say is grinding down surrounding areas & V’ing out cracks for a stronger bond so you’re not just filling over cracks when repairing & a metal roller for getting out air bubbles.
Friend had a Vertex cresta rear bar cut into 4 pieces for shipping also filled the custom dual exhaust cut outs. Came out ok considering we only plated it back together on the car and the glass work was done off car.
Not the OP, but I personally roll out air bubbles each layer I put down. A little bit of resin first, set the fiberglass, and add resin to adequately wet out the fiberglass, repeat until just before the resin starts to kick off.
Regarding the layers of fiberglass, my first layer just slightly bigger than the repair. The following layers incrementally increase in size up to maybe an inch, depending where the repair is and where the strength needs to be.
Yeah v the joint like you said. Roll once you've dabbed the resin into the fibreglass matting completely so the matting has adsorbed the resin, rolling further pushes resin thru the fibreglass to the original part to form a strong bond and pushes the air bubbles out of the wet resin and fibreglass for a stronger repair.
I'm an FRP noob, what is the general approach when you get fiberglass that fits poorly? I'm going to assume heat gun will be worthless. I don't want exposed fasteners, and I feel double sided tape would likely fail.
Image below is not mine, but is of the same lip I have (Ondorishop G-Grow). I don't really see which direction of sanding will be effective. Halp.
Also depends what part of the piece you need to fit. In my experience, I just cut things up and refiberglass parts into new positions or recreate them entirely
For a simple example, this rep bumper wouldn't mount at all until I cut off the parts that wrap around into the fender.
Other than the part I cut off, I think fitment like this would be considered "fixable" with a heat gun ( but I've never used a heat gun on fiberglass)
I'll have to get back to you with more detailed information since you seem like you harbor useful experience. Of what you shared, it would be closest to the first photo of the teal bumper. As well as a gap in the pic I shared at the top edge of the FRP where it runs horizontally above the exhaust.
I have not taken an afternoon to work on the car in quite some time, I can take pics soon enough once I dig back into it. Thank you thus far.
I’ll start!
I got this goodline hood a while back from a good buddy. Unfortunately it got a little too close to a tree.
This was my mistake #1. Did not line the driver edge to match the OEM curve to the hood. Just went and had it straight lmao.
The template. Nothing like using a little cousin's car for my fiberglassing needs.
Passes the 10footer wide angle test. But see the fender peeking over the hood a bit? That's what I get for not doing the curve the hood follows. I'll probably redo it again down the line.
But hey, free goodline hood!
For your actual materials, where is the best place to get them?
I don’t have any photos or the time to make a post, but Moonlight Runners have good tips and tricks they post frequently if anyone needs some guidance.
I've done a lot of repairs over the years and modded a few things. No real wisdom to share as I think my work is still pretty shitty. It's prettty fun to make thinkgs that don't exist though.
I wanted Car Modify Wonder GT overfenders for my coupe, but they don't exist, so I made my own using Origin fenders as my base. I should have made the Origin overs perfect before I started modifying them, but I didn't think that far in advanced. They've never lined up quite right, but probably very few people other than me notice haha
This year I tried my hand at molding my own hood vent. I always wanted a nice big drop vent, but no one makes one off the shelf that went anywhere near as deep as I wanted. I started off with an Origin type 2 (quality is much better than the overs thankfully) and cut a nice fat hole in it, boxed in an area where I wated the vent to be, filled it with expanding foam, and spent 40+ hours shaping it. Where I went wrong is I made the positive mold and laid my glass over that. If I were to do it over again, I would have then made a negative mold instead and laid the glass in it. Also, I should have budgeted 3x as much time as I thought I needed. I was trying to make it to Final Bout SSNW and majorly rushed the final steps. I still need to go back and clean it up in a lot of spots.
Got some projects lined up for next year:
Finishing up my G-Grow
Fitting my Dmax roof wing
Making some Corolla spoiler fit the coupe
Already did some work on the G-Grow like slimming down the side contour to better fit my wide body silhouette and moving the exhaust cut out:
Worked in the fibreglass industry for a few years making motorcycle fairings & molds.
Biggest thing tips wise I’d say is grinding down surrounding areas & V’ing out cracks for a stronger bond so you’re not just filling over cracks when repairing & a metal roller for getting out air bubbles.
Friend had a Vertex cresta rear bar cut into 4 pieces for shipping also filled the custom dual exhaust cut outs. Came out ok considering we only plated it back together on the car and the glass work was done off car.
here for this thread. Love seeing this stuff.
After moving the exhaust cutout, I fine tuned some gaps I still had:
Then locked down all the fiberglass repairs with epoxy primer
Before:
After:
Hard part is over; just skim coats and primer left before paint
I'm an FRP noob, what is the general approach when you get fiberglass that fits poorly? I'm going to assume heat gun will be worthless. I don't want exposed fasteners, and I feel double sided tape would likely fail.
Image below is not mine, but is of the same lip I have (Ondorishop G-Grow). I don't really see which direction of sanding will be effective. Halp.
"Poor" as in this kind of fitment:
Or "poor" as in absolute TRASH fitment:
Also depends what part of the piece you need to fit. In my experience, I just cut things up and refiberglass parts into new positions or recreate them entirely
For a simple example, this rep bumper wouldn't mount at all until I cut off the parts that wrap around into the fender.
Other than the part I cut off, I think fitment like this would be considered "fixable" with a heat gun ( but I've never used a heat gun on fiberglass)
But I was able to salvage that piece like so: