The fiberglass hood on my car broke at the rear drivers' side corner. I think it's from the hood shocks being for a metal hood and therefore kept pushing up on the back edge of the fiberglass. Well sure enough it split as I just said by the drivers' side door and bends every time I try to open/close it. I'm going to refiberglass it this weekend. Does anybody have any suggestions. I'm new to this stuff and would appreciate the help.

 

your not supposed to use your stock hood shocks. . . .

 

What do you think I should do? I mean, since the hood is very delicate at this point after I re-glass it I'm just gunna take the hood shocks off completly i think. Honestly how much can a fiberglass hood weigh? I will just paint up a piece of wood to hold up the hood. It's fricking embarassing man when I have to open the hood and close it. When I open it I have to pull the latch in the car then go around to the drivers side and hold the back piece together and lift the front with my left hand, While still standing on the drivers side fender. Basically the same to close it.

 

a fiberglass hood should weight 45 pounds. you could always put the stock hood on or take the fiberglass hood off if your that embarrsed

 

It's not that I'm embarrased. I just don't want the hood to break anymore to the point that it completly splits in half or the top layer splits from the underside part that looks like a web

 

I will try to get a pic up tomarrow to show u what I mean. Also the part in the center where the flaps open fell broke off too.

 

Well if the hood falls apart while you are driving it'll be really embarrassing and maybe dangerous. I would get it off my car personally.

 

seeing as how it's an 83 with cross fire injection, it already IS the stock hood and unless you changed the hood struts, or a previous owner did, they should not be struts from a steel hood. If they are, obviously a switch to fiberglass hood struts would be necessary after you fix the hood. I'd imagine steel hood struts would put lots of undo stress on your hood, but you shouldn't have those unless your car came with a steel hood. Depending on the severity of the crack, I'd have a body shop look at it and determine the best method to fix the hood. If you're on a budget, like most these days, I'd just remove the hood struts, like you said, and see how the hood functions when trying to lift the hood by hand, and work from there. That sucks that the flaps broke off. Those are really cool hoods when they're functional.

 

are there any other struts for fiberglass hoods out there. i have a fiberglass hood and original struts on it theyve been one for about 9 months now and nothing wrong but would like to avoid that

 

check e-bay for "camaro hood struts" and you should be able to find 'em easily. They specify "with fiberglass hood" on the sale posts. I think you could also specify 82-84 Z28 when looking for hood struts as all those Z28's had fiberglass hoods. (I think)