69schemers

My dad bought my car and several boxes of parts back in 1983 . The guy that owned it had striped the paint off using chemicals. I can tell the way the marker lights have been melted. After he stripped it he found the front end had fiberglass damage and the windshield header was rusted out. The car sat for years (since 1983) with no paint or primer. I ended up buying the car from my dad. I took the body off and dipped the frame and suspension parts to remove all the rust. Power train is done and the body is back on except for the front clip. Being this car came in a box, I am planning on assembling the car to make sure everything fits. Then bond the nose on.
Do to the bare fiberglass being exposed for so long, I was told that I should put the car in a booth and bake at 180 def F to get all the oils and chemicals out of the fiberglass. Then put a light coat of primer on and bake again at 170 to see if any problems come to the surface. If none, then to lay on several coats of primer and start blocking.
I am just not sure what 180 deg will do to the fiberglass and the rest of the plastic parts.


Any advise would be appreciated

Sully1882

clean it all up and get it stripped all the way to bare glass then fix all the cracks and bad spots. Once the body work is done you can wash it really good and then wipe it down.. Get it all perfect and spray it with an epoxy primer/ sealer. Block it out and then you are ready for color and clear.

I am a super novice with this stuff but that's what I understand will work and from memory of just painting mine that's what was done with it.

I am sure someone with better wording and experience will chime in shortly.

Sully

Alan 71

Hi 69s,
It sounds like you have an interesting but daunting task in front of you! (Is it a 69?)
The bodies were baked at least 3 times during production in St.Louis. The last time was at 280 degrees.
Now remember these were COMPLETLY empty bodies, but primed and painted.
I'd think you'd have no problem baking a bare body at 180 degrees if your painter recommends that.
Good Luck!
Regards,
Alan

Mark G

WAIT
If it is bare fiberglass as you say, DO NOT put any paint degreaser on it. The degreaser will be wicked into the fiberglass strands and you won't be able to get it out and you'll have an absolute mess on your hands. It doesn't just evaporate like thinner. Don't even go there!

Here's what I would advise:
1) Determine the conditions the car was stored at: Dry environment or Humid environment.
2) If a regular garage and it was mostly dry and covered with dust like most of these garage projects, you may not need to do anything other than sand it down and blow or vacuum it off. Do the necessary fiberglass repairs. Bear in mind that some of the panels are probably SMC (Sheet Molded Coumpond) and therefore will require an EPOXY based fiberglass product. Using a regular polyester-based fiberglass product will literally lift off like a dry scab down the road, so you want to stick with the epoxy products (see Ecklers catalog).
3) I see no need to bake the body. I've seen and worked on numerous barn finds way back in the 80's and 90's when it was easy to find barn finds. A lot of these projects were just like yours where they sat as parts in boxes in someone's garage for a dozen years. We never baked anything and they all looked great for years.
4) If you felt it was a humid environment, like a leaky roof, you could let it sit outside in the sun for an afternoon on each side of the car. The sun will heat up the fiberglass enough to bake it out sufficiently. But even that's overkill.
5) Once you get your basic fiberglass work completed to fix the cracks and what not, then prime it with a good 3 coats of Epoxy urethane 2k primer (this is the high-build stuff). Let it sit for several days. Here's where putting it out in the sun on the 2nd day will help 'bake' the primer.
6) Sand the car down like you would for normal bodywork to work out the imperfections. DO YOUR BODYWORK AND BODY FILLER ON TOP OF THE PRIMER. Of course you need to sand the bodywork areas with 100 or 80 grit so it has something to 'bite' to. But now we're getting into the basics of bodywork. I'm assuming you have the basics down. There is tons of info on this.
7) After the bodywork is done and the car has been block sanded a couple times and is pretty much where you want it, apply another couple coats of primer. At this point, you will be doing your final sanding with, say, 320, then 400 grit paper, maybe 600 grit on the top surfaces like the hood and top of the fenders.

8) Then you are ready for sealer/base/clear

Good luck!

cb.bums

fibreglass has a gelcoat covering the raw fibers that cannot be replaced with primer. gelcoat is polyester resin, no fillers. if fibers are exposed, they must be resined over, sanded then primed. primer might bury the fibers for a while, but they will be back without the resin barrier. hard work but absolutely necessary for a good final product. good luck, had to do it on mine.

Mark G

The cars were baked at the factory for other reasons: to cure the primers and paints for production purposes. They would have cured anyway, but you can't produce a complete car every 5 minutes if the workers are sitting around watching the paint to dry.

Also, on a lot of cars, they go through a heat tunnel to 're-flow' the paint, to make it re-flow and level out better and also cure it. But again, this is for production purposes, mostlikely so they can maintain consistancy of the final product appearance ....and I don't know that they did that on fiberglass bodied cars (they may have, dunno). The car companies can do this because they have made the investment of millions of $$ to have a very controlled system and have engineering talent to ensure the process is safe and beneficial. Raising the temp too much on the production line (or even now) might weaken the bonds of the different panels. You can remove a fender nicely using heat gun. FWIW, Car companies use different paints too like water-based that require a very precise application methodology.

so basically the fact that they were baked at the factory has little to no bearing on why you would need to bake it today. But if you feel there is real moisture in the fiberglass, letting it sit out in a strong sun for a few afternoons will raise the fiberglass temp to 130-150 degrees -- enough to drive out moisture. If you have access to a large oven and you wanted to REALLY wash it down, yeah, you could give it a really nice wash with soapy water and a good rince, then bake. A black car in the Arizona sun wlll get pretty darn hot. But I think you're talking big time overkill.

Where I used to work, we washed off bare fiberglass corvettes on dry summer days. We dried them off right away and put them in the sun to dry for a few days. But we only did that on rare occasions, like if we felt there was grease or oils that needed to be washed off.

markids77

"Epoxy urethane 2K primer"??? Who makes that?

There are no gelcoated panels in a factory C3 body of any vintage PERIOD. Ever as in never even once.

If I were worried about oil soak I would wash the body twice a day for a week using Dawn dish soap and a clear water rinse before I touched anything else. Look at the car on final rinse after the last wash... a "clean" body will sheet the water off evenly; no beads left behind, and no rainbow sheen seen where water stands. My personal rough block sanding preference before sealing the surface with an epoxy sealer is 120 grit wet... some will argue 80 grit, some 220... YMMV. Then wash it again and set in the sun for 24-48 hours and seal. Then repair as required. Try and get all your materials from a single manufacturer to ensure chemical compatibility and maintain the manufacturer's warranty on the paint.

AGVI

advice

Mark G

All the major manufacturers and a bunch of 2nd tier companies. Usually called 2K primer surfacer, or epoxy primer. I just used a 'catch-all' for it.

markids77

Sorry Mark but no go. They are neither chemically similar, nor "interchangeable" from a terminology standpoint. Both are (mostly) "2K" as the good ones require adding an activator to the base material. Both can be used as either sealers or build primers (at least somewhat). However they are separate and distinctly different products which happen to have somewhat overlapping uses.

Roco71

Pretty close to the way I did my car. In the sun during the day washed with dawn and rised (really well) before putting it back in the garage in the evening. Then repeated it everyday for about two weeks.

pws69

There is no Gelcoat.

Easy Mike

Correct. Primer coats, color coats, and blackout paint were all baked at the factory.

There was no gelcoat used on factory fiberglass.

69schemers

Thanks to everyone for the advise. The baking was more in an effert to get all the oils out of the car. The car sat outside covered up for years. Moisture is not my main concern. It is more of the grease and oils from being touched over the years while working on the car. I am also worried about the chemical striper that may have soaked into the fiberglass. The car has had no paint or primer on it for the past 30 years. I have painted some cars in the past and have been through some GM advanced painting classes. I just don't want to have problems two years down the road.

69schemers

And yes, it is a 69 convertible with air. That and it had a perfect frame except for the window frame area, is why my dad bought the car originally.

Easy Mike

Worth keeping fur shur.

Ecklers Vette Tech

Good afternoon,

Sounds like you have a project on your hands! Yes, with any SMC fiberglass you must use Epoxy.

This kit we have below comes with the adhesive and the hardener.

http://www.ecklerscorvette.com/epoxy...esive-kit.html

If you have any further questions, please feel free to ask, sounds like these guys already have you steered in the right direction!

Thank you, Eckler's Family of Automotive parts.

69schemers

I bought a new front end from you (Ecklers). Do you recommend using the epoxy to bond to the car?

As far as repairs go, I have been using the West System epoxy.