Well i thought id share what I could with everyone. As some of you mightl know, I needed a hood that would clear my turbo setup. Since i didnt have the money to buy on of the cowl hoods i wanted (which would need modding anyway) my plan was just to get the stock one he provided and cut a hold in it. A plan that was QUICKLY shot down by the local authorities. After totally destroying my original hood trying to mod it with steel i really needed a glass one so i could mold and add to it alot easier. With not much money and very little time the typical droopz thought process kicked in

... "F**k it! Ill make one myself!"

Over the past couple of weeks ive been taught essentially the 'old skool' method of creating a fiberglass product from an original, by a great old guy whos been doing it since the early 50s. Now im no expert or professional, but I think its worth sharing since its really not as hard or expensive as alot of people think.

Now technicly this isnt a 'hood' but actually a hood-skin that we've re-enforced to remove the need for the second second layer steel hood use. But it will have the hinges and saftey latch like a normal hood, with pins keeping things down at the front.

First thing you have to do is get your original as perfect as you can. This means getting is flat/straight and bloody well polished. The finish you get now is nearly what youll get on your product. Small dints arnt an issue as on the mould youll make they will become bumps, that you can sand and polish out.

For my hood it simply required 3 coats of detailing clay to polish the paint up nice



Next is the mold release wax. ALlthough we were also going to use a PVA compound as a releasing agent, the wax just makes it that little bit easier.

Waxed




PVAed

 

Unfortunatly I didnt have access to a camera for alot of the mold creation but the steps are fairly simple.

- Pour/spread the gel-coat over the hood. We waxed along the edges as well so when it came of there would be a good lip to mold to. Apart from making the final hood easier to make, a lip around the edge also provides alot of strength.

- Once the gelcoat has set, lay your first layer of fiberglass and paint it down with resin.

- The most important thing about this first layer is that there is NO AIR between it and the gel coat. So alot of care has to be taken to 'roll' the fibers and resin down with a small solid roller. (No pic sorry)

- Once that has set we put another 2 layers of fiberglass to strengthen the mold a bit. These layer still needs to be rolled down, but a little bit of air isnt going to matter.

- Once that was done and everything had set, the edges were cleaned up with a grinder nad file and gently seperated and the mold poped off without much force at all.

- Because I wanted to keep the mold to make more hoods later, we took care to make sure it was going to be strong and keep its shape so we glassed on so timber to firm it all up.

Final mold surface (negative hood)



Braced up for safe keeping

 

Now we were ready to make the final product!

The process is exactly the same.

- Clay polish x3
- Release wax x3
- PVA x1
- Gelcoat (wait to set)
- First layer of fiberglass (roll very carefully)
- Second and third layer of glass

Now this is were we kept going. Becuase this is the final product and i wanted it as strong (but light) as possible we introduced some 'Core mat'.

Core mat is a fiberous matting (looks like a thin yoga mat) and absorbes the resin and expands to about 6-7mm think and gives a large piece like this hood alot of strength.

Laying the mat.





Once the mat has been rolled down, a final layer (a bit thinker) of fiberglass went down, this time with a bit pigment and wax in the resin to give is a slightly smoother finish.



Once that has all set (overnight) we are ready to pop the new hood out.

 

Once i sat the new hood on the car i marked out where i need to cut to clear the turbo and it fit PERFECTLY.





Now the next step was to make some kind of scoop to cover everything up.

After looking around the fiberglassers shed for something to use as a mold, we found the top-half of a 1 man speed boot hull that looked like it had the shape I was after.

So a polish and a wax later;



Popped it off and some trimming;



Thats where Im at right now. A little more trimming and we'll glass it on, then its just a matter of smoothing it all down, molding the 'ridge' its sitting on into the shape of the scoop and then glassing all the heat sheilding to the bottom of the hood and scoop.

More pics tomorrow.

 

Also... so far not including labour since im doing it myself, its cost me $350 in materials for the mold and $350 for the hood. Might be a little more once i start glassing on the hinges and latches.

 

nice job, but a flat fiberglass hood is pretty cheap
http://www.up22.com/camaro82.htm

 

Not when you live in Australia they arnt. Rural Australia at that.

 

I always wanted to make a hood out of sheet aluminum similar to a NASCAR type design. My fiberglass hood is still heavier than I'd like.

I still find the occasional 82-83 factory fiberglass hoods at the auto wreckers. I've walked by so many of them. I don't need any more.

 

Well, not too much progress the last couple of days but we're getting there.

We glassed on the saftey latch and the heat shielding.

Because we dont have the bulky second skin the normal hoods have, we had to add in a small block to just the right hight for the latch to work properly. I think it looks a little weird, but its strong as and does what it ment to.



The heat shielding is ACR gear that I got at the local parts store and was honestly an after-thought. But considering the temp involved I think it is definatly worth having, just to add some protection for the paint on the other side of the hood. Again... to exactly 'prity', but its gonna do what its supposed to.



And finally the scoop is almost finished. The ridge i mentioned earlier is molded in and looks great. Makes the whole thing blend into the hood better. Its hard to see because of all the different colours but it looks good. All that left on the scoop to do is decide if I want to trim it straight, curved in, or curved out.






Those pics were taken yesterday, we had layed the first layer of resin-glue down to fix the hinges to the hood where they needed to be. Today once its cured, ill glass the hinges on and start sorting out the front pins.

Glee.

 

The hood skin looks good… I’m not sure about the scoop yet… I probably would have made it more of a power bulge type thing…

I’m wondering what this thing will look like long term. Even my OEM, 4th gen WS6 hood shows dips in the paint where the inside structure is bonded to the skin and where the lift struts attach, I’d be very surprised if you didn’t get the same where your hood latch and hinges are attached.

What are you using to bond the blocks to the ‘glass? Did I read correctly that you’re manually mixing wax in to the resin to control surface finish (normal resin has wax in it to give you a shiny outside surface, but if you’re going to do a multi stage layup that you want the best bond between layers you use waxless resin so the surface sets tacky…)?

 

Nice job

 

Yeah the wax was only mixed into the the final layer so we didnt end up with a course finish on the underside of the hood. Where we then needed to to add something on (hinges etc) we ground the top layer back and fiberglassed them onto the previous layer.

We'll see. If the whole thing goes pair shaped in a month then ill be upset, but if i can get a year out of it ill be happy to just make another one. Even just fitting it on now, ive realised i want to fiberglass some rope acros the bottom for more strength (the rope create a F'glass channel that add rigidity) and go even thicker around the pin-holes.

 

They actually make a pre formed channel just for that, as well as some foam strips. Around here you can get the stuff at some boat repair/supply places.

Or you can folow chevy's lead, they sandwitch balsa into the floor of the corvettes to give it shape/rigidity...

 

Well its finally done. After the red dryed i noticed a few little 'warps' alonf the edges obviously from where we've been picking it up and such but im totaly happy with it. Especailly compared to the old black one. (LOL)

Ill take it in today and fiberglass some channels in to make it stronger and then that it. I can get back into making it go harder.

 

Wow, impressive! That looks really good for a home-made fiberglass hood. I'm thinking of taking on some fiberglassing projects of my own and yours came out really nicely, good work!

 

wow....that is really nice! did it really only take you about a week to make the mold and hood? or did you get a head start before you posted on here?? i want to do one for my car, now!

 

Yeah i had a bit of a head start. All up it took me about 2 weeks but that was only working a couple of hours a day and a bit longer on weekends. If i had a week off i could have done it in less than 7 days.

 

Nice job, it looks amazing.

Im not trying to hijack the thread or anything, but I noticed your steering wheel is on the right side of the car. Do your pedals still go in the order of clutch, brake, gas, or is it the other way around also. Sorry ive just always been wondering that

 

whoa! i hadn't noticed that. i don't think i've ever seen a right-hand drive third gen...

 

haha.. what an awsome question!

Nah mate. Ours are still the same order. We just have to shift with our left hand.

 

Looks like it turned out really good in the pics... still don't really like the scoop, but that's just me...

do you have the hinges/latch working or is strictly pin on?

Did you add more reinforcing underneath?

 

Its hindged at the back via the stock setup and it have the saftey latch up front. But the normal hood release latch has been replaced by pins.

Havnt had a chance to do re-enforce it yet. Will probly do it on saturday. Just run some 20mm x 40mm foam strips up the sides of it and glass them in. It doesnt need much.

 

got any pics of the underside of the hood? kinda curious what that looks like.

 

Only this one from earlier in the thread. It just has the stock hinges glassed onto them now. And this weekend ill be fiber glassing 2 strips of foam from front to back to give it more stregth for when i open and close it.

 

oh my bad i thought you put them on already by the looks of the shop you do alot of fiberglassing ever think of building and selling parts?

 

HOW MUCH DID YOUR HOOD COST FOR COMPLETION?

 

That scoop is kinda strange looking IMO, but still an awesome job!

 

For the mold and the hood together, it cost me $700AUD.

As for making parts, that isn't my workshop. Ive offered to make a couple of hood skin for some mates in my car club, but apart from that my remotness and the rareness of these cars means its not reall worth it.

 

Different but look good. 700AUD is almost 515USD.
When we live abroad and we need parts like hood that are heavy we then need to do it by ourselves.
I was interestd in one of the cowl induction type hood for my IROC-Z so asked a friend of mine to make it for me. At the end it cost more or less 350USD.

If I consider the the import duties plus shipping charges (to Panama) I think I saved 200USD.

Here are some pictures of how it looks,

Regards,

 

Here another angle.