i just put a new carb on my engine and was out test driving it and one the crappy v-belt came flying off at around 6200 rpm's. messed the hood up pretty good...the painter has 10 days to get it fixed for a car show.

im sure my painter has experience in fiberglass, but whats the best way to repair the gel coat over the fiberglass? whas the best way to reinforce the fiberglass?

 

...

 

ouch, that sucks, glad ur gettin it fixed right away, nice car by the way, first time i have seen it, i must be blind lol

 

Crap man, that blows... note to self: get serpentine belt ASAP.

I've never messed around with gel coating composites but I'm sure you just sand it down and put some more resin over it... as for reinforcing it lay down a couple layers of fiberglass mat.. maybe rivet a piece of sheetmetal under it.

 

yeah im pretty mad about it right now...i wish i could afford a serpentine setup. im hoping that a new layer of glass will be strong enough.

does the whole hood need to be re-gel coated? or just the cracked area?

 

Just the cracked area I suppose, I think gel coat is just a fancy special name for fiberglass resin

 

what engine you running? I see in your pic.. on the side, it's not regular, lol.. how much power & what size? just curious...

 

my buddy did that in his 70 Chevelle after having the whole car stripped and repainted, it looked beautiful until that damn belt got it. He ended up having to repaint the WHOLE car because no one could remix the custom color he had made for it!!!

 

One of the first things I did when I got my car was switch to a serpentine setup.

Costs around 200 bucks, and I felt it was well worth it.

 

There's nothing wrong with a v-belt setup if everything is aligned properly. I've spun my car past 6k plenty of times and never once thrown a belt.

 

anyone care to explain how a belt hits the outside of the hood?

 

it hit the inside of the hood, it just hit that hard to break the outside gel coat

the v-belt set up is ok, but not nearly as good as a serpetine setup for reliabilty. mine is aligned extremly well, and had belts with less then 4k miles on them, and all tensioned properly, they just dont seem to like 6200+ rpms.

my engine is nothing special, just a well built top end, excellent exhaust, and a nice cam

my painter still has extra paint that was mixed up at the time he painted the car 6 months ago....i just hope the metallic and pearl will look the same after he is done

 

at least it wasn't a fan blade! On my 73 Nova one of the stock flex flan blades broke off at about 5 grand and went thru the steel hood! Now that made one hell of a bang. Luckily it was going to redo the paint the following year!

 

my friend tossed a blade off his 10,000 rpm Flex-a-lite fan that was on his 150hp smogger 79 305 turning 1,800 rpm on the thruway. I like electric fans.

 

people still use crank driven fans?

 

Unfortunately, yes they do ..

Its sad.. I know.

 

That damage is nothing hehe. Friend of mine was racing his car and broke a blower belt. Not one of those small ones either, one of the 3 inch wide suckers. It ripped the front part of his added on cowl apart when it let go

 

well, the hood is at the body shop since last night, he says it will be good as new when its done in a few days. i am really pissed that it happened right now, since i jsut did a crap load of modifications and cant even drive the car yet. plus its a $400 hood, and brand new paint almost ruined.

im just happy that he can fix it in such a short notice

 

Wish I had a body man who was that fast!

 

its not done yet but i have confidence in him

 

I ripped the belt off my serp. setup be4 and it hit my hood for sure, but i have the stock formula hood so no damage. So why woudl serp. be so much better?

 

It isn't, they have the same chance of letting go as a PROPERLY installed and aligned V belt. I've had my V belt equipped engine over 6k a few times, never lost a belt.

 

it's just harder to perfectly align a v belt setup than a serpentine as the serpentine setup is fairly idiot proofed

 

vbelts are easy to line up if you know what your doing.

i think of it like this,if a serp belt lets loose ,your pretty much screwed unless you carry a spare in the trunk.

a vbelt lets loose,yo ucan still make it home without the battery going dead,or overheating.

 

my engine started to heat up right after the belt broke, would of overheated if i would of kept driving. a v-belt still drives the water pump and alt. just like a serpentine belt.

 

Yes, but each belt drives the water pump, not just 1.

 

on some engines, mine only has one belt driving the water pump and alt

 

On the stock TPI V belt set up there are 2- 3 belts driving the water pump (depending on accessories), anice bit of falisafe insurance.

 

i dont have tpi