Help with remaking factory hood in fiberglass?

[gpchris95]

I want to remake my heavy steal hood in fiberglass. Im a little confused on doing this. Any help would be appreciated!

[A-TONE]

Hey I'v just opened my own shop doing this type of work and just finished doing a fiberglass hood for a 1996 chevy s-10 with a hood scoop now if your serious about doing this then your going to need.

-Fiberglass resin and mat (obviously) lol
-johnsons paste wax
-bondo
-high density primer
-and your color of paint

Now when you do this its going to render your original hood un-usuable so i would reccomend going to the junk yard and buying a second hood and fix the dents with the bondo first because most first attempts dont allways turn out perfect if you know what i mean. lol anway onto the work!

1-if your planning on puting a hood scoop into the fiberglass hood you need to stick your scoop to your "plug" (your orginal hood)

2- take your johnsons paste wax and coat your plug with it

3-if you have or can get a hold of a chopper/resin sprayer this is the easiest and most efficient way to fiberglass if not spread a layer of your f/g mat over the hood make sure it sits snug over the entire hood (and scoop) now mix your resin and coat your mat with it (be sure to make sure there are no bubbles in it and make sure you have a slight overhang for shrinkage (if you want the original hood mechanism in your car to work you must run the fiberglass over and under the front of your plug for the original hook to lock the hood down)

4-do this until you get the thickness you like

5- now thats dry sand the waves out of it as much as possible

6-do 1 more coat of resin on it (without the mat!!)just the resin
this is called your gel coat just to smooth things out

7-sand this down as smooth as possible

8-now your ready to pull your mold off your plug! usually if you drill a slight hole in the back of you plug (withought going through and hitting your new hood) you can put an air compressor in the hole and use the air pressure release the plug> if not put ice on the fiberglass for a few hours and this will cause it to shrink releasing it from the plug

9-spray your new hood with the high density primer, after thats dry use some black spray paint and lightly mist the entire hood with it. we do this so that when you block sand the hood it misses the black paint and you can see all your low spots.

10-now you've found all your low spots you need to use your bondo to level it all out. now repeat step 9 until the hood is perfect

11-now shave off all of the excess fiberglass aroung the edges of the hood and round your edges to tidy it up

12-get 600 grit sand paper and wet sand your primer smooth and paint!!

13-if you built the new hood to work with your original hood mechanism i reccomend you protect your hood clam with a peice of metal to avoid breaking the mold

14-or just go down to checker or autozone and buy a hood clamp kit (the easiest way to mount your new hood) (looks cool too)

And your DONE!!!

if you go through with it send me some before and after pictures! id love to see what you came up with! i started my business with exactly what your doing now lol good luck to you

[pontiackid]

I have seen a few guys simeply Wax the metal hood and then lay class onto the top of that. Then remove the outter skin. Then on the metal hood they cut off everything except the structural frame and then using a 2-part pannel bonding adhesive they bond the 2 halves together.

[jacobsk255]

your original hood will be unharmed except for a coat of removable wax.

[jacobsk255]

You need to make a mold of the original hood, which will not damage it if done correctly. the part will be an exact copy of the original.