Heres a story for you. I have a fiberglass SS hood on my car which is a couple years old but only has a few thousand miles on it. Well, last night the top half of the hood seperated itself from the bottom half and flew off my car on the highway. I never seen or heard anything like this ever happening. It gave me no warning no nothing. Just poof and it was gone. It didnt even touch the rest of my car. The bottom half of the hood is still intact and still on my car and looks like it would if it were new and awaiting for the top half to be glued to it. I cant explain this at all. I just had it painted 3 monthes ago and Im sure the shop would have noticed and seams coming apart at the front of the hood. Im going to try to contact the manufacturer and see if there is any compensation they can do but I know its a long shot. This thing could have killed someone else driving behind me, I just cant believe this happened.

OMG bro! That could have deffinately cause some damage to other cars or a serious accident. The manufacturer needs to know about this.

Mike

There's was an article in Chevy High Performance (?) regarding a 3rd gen that was being tested at the strip. The OEM fibreglass hood delaminated at mid track just like you described. No warning. Just poof!
Gives me cause for concern with the stock 82 hood I use on my 86 IROC.

Where did you get this hood? On sale? Clearance? Used? Was work needed on the hood?

Oh and pictures of the bottom half would be nice, I want to see how it looks. Also any stress marks on the bottom half maybe indicating where it was starting to release from one another?

Not the 1st time I've heard of this happening. Last one I saw was a 3rd gen here on TGO too.

Not trying impy it is any kind of 3rd gen only thing.....Just that I've seen it before.


But yeah....Pics are a must. Kinda looks like x-ray vision huh?

yeah i was interested in getting one of the 82 hoods, but i herd that this wasn't uncommon for them to do that

its fiberglass not sheetmetal!
just about anything during construction will cause it to fail, or at least make it more likely.
does anyone know of a site where the hoods are metal?
and i dont see any hood latches on the front - that is one way to keep them down and prevent stress from air coming into the front of the car.

If it's a good fiberglass hood it should be ok.I can't believe that happend though.

Your 82 SMC hood should be just fine. GM changed the adheasive supplier in 83. There is/was a recall on the 83 SMC hoods, but the 82 hood should be fine.

I just found the top half of the hood and it is in perfect shape other then needing a new paint job. I will have pics up later on tonight. There is no stress cracks anywhere. What it looks like is that air got into the middle of the hood though the scoop opening and balloned the 2 sections of the hood and then it went to hell from there. There was no glue around the scoop opening like there is around the entire perimeter of the hood. The front edge of the hood is perfect still.

The hood was bought new 2 years ago and the only mod done to it was I cut out the cowl area to install a mesh grill to help air excape. There is a hole cut out on the hood where the scoop is that acts a s a "ram air" affect but it was like that when I bought the hood.

was it a extreme dimension hood? They shipped one like that to me

what the hell is that? Its the same hood that in my sig pic. it has the same demensions as the 4th gen SS hoods

extreme dimensions is a co. name. What co. did you get the hood from.

Im pretty positive I got it from Hawks. I cant 100% remember though since Ihave bought a LOT of stuff over thelast few years. How many other companies make that hood?

I had the stock 83 fiberglass hood do that at 35mph and I watched it through the t-tops like it was slow motion.

Sadly, not too surprising. Fiberglass hoods should have hood pins.

here is a few pics: some may not load right. Im working on fixing that

more

BOTTLEDZ28, we NEEEEED to know where this came from? I know hawks but I think he got his from ACSD. Rex the owner of ACSD passed away last year (R.I.P. Rex). He was GREAT guy to deal with IMO. I bought my hood from him almost 7 years ago now. It'd be interesting to find out from you the details of your hoods origin. I'm guessing it was an ASCD. Hopefully this was a small batch of failures and I'm glad you found yours in 1 piece. I'm not sure if you can or can't reattach it. I'm thinking you could.

FWIW, Rex's company was dissovled and his product line was pretty much sucked up by a company in a neighboring town (Titusville, FL). Not much in Titsville that I can remember but its been years since I even drove through there.

I bought it through Hawks. Do yo uthink they will help me out in replacing it if I pay the shipping charges? I dont feel comfortable reattaching it. I will always worry about this happening again for the rest of my life.

wow, that sucks!

I know its already been stated, but glass hoods should always have pins, my hood actually came with paperwork stating that fiberglass hoods can de-laminate at any speed without warning and should be pinned at least in the front. Mine came from VFN

how the heck did it seperate,fly off the car and land on the ground behind you without damaging the paint or any of the corners?

Also,I wish I would have painted this car silver!http://www.thirdgen.org/techboard/bo...onna-save.html (Gonna save it!!)

I like the silver paint!!

I have no idea. it was a one in a million shot at that happening and it did.

bottled, I can show you what and how I did my hood. I did almost a solid week of additional work and I'm 200% comfortable that my hood (I have the same one you do) will NEVER, NEVER seperate.

what made you decide to do that to your hood?

Simple, I didnt' like the way it looked unfinished around the edges and near the air inlet.

Dude what a bummer. If you can't reach an agreement with the manufacturer, you can reattach that hood to the bottom without using glue. Glass it back together. Fiberglass resin is so hard I can't even scrape it off my garage floor. Hell they make bass boats out of it and have you seen these guys sweating the strength of fiberglass at 90mph across a rough lake. I would scrape that old glue, use resin to reattach it, install some hood pins and never bat an eye. I fiberglassed a streetbike fin on some idiots bike once, he layed it down again doing like 90 and the only thing that didn't break was that one fin. lol.

damn I just orderd the same hood from bodykits.net. Its a extreme Dimensions SS hood. Should be here next week. I dont care for the look of hood pins but I guess after spending over 500 bucks on the damn thing I better put on some hood pins. Sorry that happend but I would do what nub383 said. You can pick up a fiberglass kit from walmart for less than 15 bucks and it should have all you need.

wow, i thought i had some bad luck with hoods. time for some hood pins bottledz.

i used to have a 82 fiberglass hood, the entire passenger side lifted mid race, cause my front hood pin failed. i slowed down fast enough to save it, but it was still embarrasing to smoke a guy then hammer the brakes before your hood flys off. oh btw dont rely on the locking hood pins by them self, thats my own fault for half assing and ignoring the warning on the package.

you were unlucky that this happened.... yes
but you are lucky it did trash your window and cause you or anyone else to wreck...

I have a 3in fiberglass hood.... now ya'll got me nervous, maybe I can zip tie it or bungy cord it down like everything else when i try to pass NHRA inspection lol.

ive had a few f/g hoods. harwood cowl, ramair,and the ss from E/d. the ss seperated before it even got to me. heres thelink...



http://www.thirdgen.org/techboard/bo...g-ss-hood.html (looking at this SS hood)

Hmm. Looks like Im buying hood pins. Anyone have some good directions with pictures and dimensions for wher the pins should go exactl. I can figure it out but if someones already done the work then hey why not.

Sorry to hear about this. I know of a fourth gen that had the same thing happen with his aftermarket hood. He uses Ls1tech and twincityoutlaws.com

Just an FYI / FWIW / IMO. ALWAYS!!! Use hood pins with a fiberglass hood. ALWAYS. Atleast 2 in the front.

Seriously, get all that glue off, and fiberglass it. I am disappointed that "quality hoods" are freakin caulked together. What a joke. Apply a liberal amount of resin where that glue was and put something heavy on the top that won't scratch your paint.

Wow, that's really something. Never heard of any ASCD product seperating. I would def ask for a replacement through ASCD since they are the company that produces the hood..(hawks is just a distributor). So far, I haven't had any problems with mine....but it makes me want to go out to the garage and apply some panel bonding adhesive to it to reinforce it more.

Is this only on mass produced hoods? mine was a custom ordered 3in, can't say I've seen any my exact style so it makes me think maybe it's a mass produced flaw.

I dunno just hoping i guess.

What is custom about your hood? I've seen several Camaros with 3" cowl hoods before.

I will have to try and check who made it,
I've had it for 5years, at the time i don't remember seeing any like it.
i believe it was apoxied, and sealed.
like i said, just gonna have to check it out, it may have just been one of the early makes of many.....

I'm sure the hood was constructed of the two pieces in a two piece mold. You can' t make a one piece part in a mold for fiberglass (that I know of) unless the piece has an opening (by design) big enough to get inside the mold and glass it.

I presume that using an adhesive to hold the two halves of the hood together are more cost effective than glassing every hood together because it can be done 100X quicker.

Have you completely ruled out the possibility that something got to the adhesive that broke it down? Maybe some kind of car cleaning agent, or something?

I suppose it's also possible that there was a faulty seal on your particular hood and something got in through the crack.

Honestly though I'm kinda skeptical about that last deal... I would think that any body work involved in that fresh paint job you have in the pic above would have involved bondo filling any of those cracks.

Hell, for that matter, the body shop that did your paint job could have shaved some of the adhesive away near the edge during the sanding process, beginning the separation.

I vote too many unknown variables to solve the equation.

Mathius

I did all the hood fitting onmy car prior to having it painted. There was no sanding done that would have comprimised the glue. Plus the bottom half of the hood is larger then the bottom and therefore the edges are not where the gluse is applied. The top half of the hood is where the actual edges and lip is, not the bottom.
Also there was no cleaning agent intoduced into this hood that would have broke down the glue. I have been doing body work for over 10 years and my methods have no changed. This is just a case of a bad glue design. Maybe the ratio wasnt mixed right and the glue never reached full strength. I dont know at thispoint but I am just frustrated because I dont have a hood anymore and I have a lot of money into this thing and its basically new.

<shrug> Like I said, too many variables. Could have been the wrong mixture for the adhesive, could have been a faulty adhesive due to that particular batch having been left out or something. Could have been poor surface prep before bonding. Could have been the part's needed clamped during the adhesion and the clamping wasn't applied properly.

You said the two pieces separated cleanly, did the top half get damaged? You could glass it back on properly.

You could go after the company, but can there be a law suit or a settlement when nobody got hurt? Or they offer you a refund or a new hood. Do you want another hood? That would mean excepting that you got a 1 in a million faulty hood that slipped by QC, assuming that the adhesion is something that can be tested by QC.

Mathius

FWIW, ASCD is no more. After Rex (RIP) the owner passed his business was sold off (product line) to a company in Titusville, FL. I don't even know if they are around still. If they are, you're going to have ONE HELLUVA time getting them to stand behind a product before they actually owned the product.

I want to save up the money for a nice 3-4" fiberglass cowl hood for my Camaro one of these days. When I do, I will do some extra bonding with WEST SYSTEM epoxy and glue made out of this epoxy and glueing powders.
WEST stuff is mostly known in the boating industry but it has many uses. WEST is epoxy, not polyester resin which is what most boat hulls are made of due to cost. WEST is of much higher quality, much more water proof and is more expensive than your average auto parts store fiberglass resin and is specifically brewed to do things like laminating, but you don't have to buy a huge amount of it. They sell it in quart kits and have pamphlets showing what powder to use and how to mix the powder to do different jobs.

One of the big advantages to this type of system is that you can "wet out" (paint the epoxy on) the parts first for a good absorption on the bare part, and then add more glue powder- mixed epoxy before the wetted coating sets up. They even sell syringes and other stuff at the WEST MARINE boating stores, found in almost any town or city fairly close to water, and online. You can wet out and "inject" glue mix up into areas under the hood where portions of the hood come close together or touch. You could even glue segments together and then "block off" the area around the scoop if you needed too.
You can make parts and moldings using WEST and wax paper for a release medium. One thing about WEST though, is that it has amino blush after it sets up and needs to be washed thoroughly before painting or coating.

The WEST kits are made to be used in a 5 to 1 mixture, and they sell special pumps to match the cans in the kit that mix it automatically by doing one pump each for the resin and the hardener, very easy to use.

Regular polyester resin is a good cost effective material, but if you need good strength or water resistance, a product like WEST is the way to go. And there are other products out there besides WEST that are also better quality epoxies than you find in the usual parts stores. But if you live near a WEST MARINE store it is waaayyy convenient.

Knowing what I know now, if I was going to do body work using Bondo like I have in the past, I'd use WEST instead. They have a special fairing filler powder to make a mix that is vastly superior to Bondo and much finer than the automotive fiberglass filler found in parts stores. It can be worked with a body rasp/file/grater before it's fully cured just like Bondo. It is more expensive though.

Bottled, I don't remember if fiberglass expands but if it doesn't then CERTAINLY have at it and glass the halves back together. After that you can work on repairing any cosmetic issues or issues incurred from the split / crash (of the hood). In reading all of this I was very suprised to hear they used glue or epoxy or whatever to bring the two halves together instead of glassing them. Ugh...makes my skin crawl when I think of some of the shortcuts aftermarket companies might take. Good luck in getting it all back together and squared away.

Sorry to hear about this, but glad to hear no one was hurt and you can possibly re-attach the outer section if you wish. Thanks for posting! I have a Hawk's SS hood as well and hood pins here we come!!!

glad to hear no one got hurt. It could have been much worse...ask me how I know...
http://www.scfbaonline.com/forums/vi...php?f=20&t=756

Man that sucks! Hopefully you can attach those 2 halves easily. I also have a Hawk's SS hood waiting to be painted. Already have hood pins on the way. Let us know how it goes.

Again I am so glad you posted this but I am sorry this happened to you. I have been thinking what could have caused this and I was looking at my SS hood last night (I bought one from Hawk's/ASCD as well) and I noticed the fake air scoop will allow air to flow into the hood with no exit.......So, what happens is an extreme pressure build up causes lift on the outer or top section of the hood and eventual failure occurs.....as you said POOOOF it's gone! I think these hoods should have a relief or a hole cut on the underside to allow the air to flow in the engine compartment or at least out from the hood. I believe there is a Ram-Air effect occuring which isn't favorable for the hood. If you think about our cars they have a relatively aerodynamic front end and if the hood is latched well (which yours clearly was) the hood should stay down due to the flow of air over it.

I have always intended to make my SS a functional hood, but we will see if I can make that happen. I will however, cut a hole on the underside probably right behind the inlet and not drive it in the rain. But I am sure some type of baffling system can be worked in to drain water away from the engine and also vent the hood. Just my 2 cents.

Also, I have been looking at hood pins and here's the company I will buy them from if you are interested http://www.hoodpins.net/

I finally found some old digi cam pics. NOTE: The attached pics were taken about 6 years ago. I bought the hood direct from ASCD in FL. Hood arrived in perfect condition. I did alot of post process work to my hood and its lasted this long. Any sort of resin I used wish fiber re-inforced (tiger hair) fiberglass. I did use some bondo but VERY little around the scoop. The edges or "moat" as I liked to call it is solid tiger hair fiberglass.
Also, the pics show the finished product dirty as hell. Nows a good time for me to go get some new pics because my hood is off and clean while I build my new motor.

I have been looking for a set of pins for my hood. Any recommendations??