Mike Miller

I have noticed a small stress crack in the corner of the cut out for the driver side head light bucket on my 65. Is there any way of stopping it before it gets worse?

Mike

WB6HRO

Stop drill it at the end of the crack! I know you didn't want to hear that. The only other thing I can think of is to reinforce it with some mat behind the crack.

Joe

wombvette

Drilling a hole at the end of the crack, is just an old wives tale. Just makes an ugly hole and does no good. This stuff isnt like glass that continues to run.
This is a very common problem that all of these cars have sooner or later. The factory would fix these cracks on the line when the car was built. So no doubt they are common after 30+ years of temperature extreemes and stresses. I would leave it alone unless you think you just have to fix it. If so it will have to be ground out and repaired with resin and mat. The problem will be the painting. The crack repair is rather simple. :rolleyes:

3Mar67

A lot of these stress cracks don't go very deep -- sometimes just the paint.

propwash

CA glue (medium viscosity) it will be like a weld. You can pick it up from the local hobby store and talk to the clerk on how to use it, also ask him about a kicker for the glue but really are they that bad?

Detroit Vette

tell me more about this glue. I am prepping my 69 for paint, and i have alot of cracks. Is this something i can use?

propwash

Sdixon
No, this glue is a quick fix. It will dry harder than the glass or Jel coat and will sand slower than anything else around it . what this is very good at is stoping a crack from running but for body work there is no short cuts.

WB6HRO

I don't think stop drilling a crack is an old wives tale! In fact is standard practice in aircraft on aluminum before making a FAA approved repair. Now the stop drilling fiberglass was a joke, but actually does work on fairings and cowlings of aircraft too.

Joe

Mike Miller

My knees buckled when you guy were talikng about drilling :eek: The crack is only an 1/2 inch long but it wasn't there before and the car is white, so it shows up more. This is the only little spot on the car and the car is well known around my town for the shape it is end. Oh well I will get over it and leave it alone. I guess for a 36 year old car that can light up the tires when shifting into 4th gear is allowed to have a little crack and pop in it. I'm 37 and I crack and pop every morning. Thanks again for the replys and if you see my car don't look for the crack!

SWCDuke

Chances are these cracks are only in the paint, as was the case on my SWC. I
reinforced the underside of the panel at the headlight bucket corners with a couple of layers of cloth. It's undectable in NCRS
judging. You could do the reinforcement now, which will probably stop the propogation
of the crack, and repaint if you want.

I suspect your paint job is falrly old. It takes a number of years for these cracks to develop
in the paint, and I think lacquer is more suspectable to develpiing the cracks than enamel.

Duue

GaryS

Wombvette, I have spent the last 29 years in aviation and quite honestly there must be a lot of old wives repairing various parts of airplanes. ;) I have seen stop drililng done on aluminum, steel, composites, fiberglass, and who knows what else they make airplane parts from. This is on everything from props, to turbine blades, to metal skin, and fiberglass radomes, etc. BTW, we ain't talking Cessnas here, but Lockheed, Boeing, and McD/Douglass aircraft. Prior to repainting my 66, I stripped it and found lots of stress cracks. First I stop drilled them, then I ground out the old glass, and finally, I reglassed in the areas.

Why do you say that stop drilling is an old wivers tail?

Gary

wombvette

Who said any thing about airplanes? The question was about a midyear corvette. You can stop drill anything you want, but it is unnecessary on a corvette. The old wives tale is that the crack will continue to run like a crack in a windshield. The problem with drilling holes is that they shrink in and show up later. The repair of the hole is harder than repairing the crack.