dants84vette

Hello, I recently bought my first vette. It is a 1984 and has four small areas around the center of the hood with small spiderweb like cracks. They are about four inches long. I was hoping someone could tell me if they were likely to be in the fiberglass or just the paint. It is the original paint job and is showing the wear in some areas. I tried to insert a pictue but can not figure out how to do it (most applications let you browse your files and insert a picture, when I hit insert image here it want to insert some sort of text). If they are in the fiberglass, where is a good source of information on how to fix them before I paint. My brother has painted probably 50 cars but has no experince with corvettes and is unsure of how these cracks should be delt with if they go into the fiberglass. Thanks

tm1995c4-LT1

I'm guessing that its probably the paint. Ive never seen fiberglass crack like what you described. When it is cracked you'll be able to see the actual fibers inside. I don't have any paint and body experience, but I have had to have work done on my 95 a couple of times. The first time someone backed into it (dammit mom). And then a week after I got it back from the body shop, no , it was hit by a horse and buggy . It spent about a month in the shop that tiime around.
Your problem sounds like the paint. Don't let just anyone try to paint this car. The fiberglass has a gel-coat on it, and from talking to the guys that worked on mine, you have to be extremely careful not to damage the gel-coat. Good luck with it.

65Z01

That sounds like good advice.

BTW, to post a pic here you first need to upload the pic to a web site and then paste in a link to that site here, after you click on the "insert image" icon.

sillyokio

My husband being a painter and I a master at fiberglass, we deeal with all this and the like. It's the paint. The body flexes quite a bit under normal driving conditions, and with it being an original paint job, you're going to see that alot. A new paint job will do the trick. And NOT a maaco job. You will need to shell out some bucks to fix this problem. In Texas? Look me up. We'll have you fixed in no time!

jsup

It happens in boats allot. It's called stress cracks. Typically it's just the gel coat. It's not uncommon almost every boat gets them after a while.

The older Corvettes, C3s specifically are famous for the "spider web" patterns the get behind the rear window. It's more cosmetic than anything else.

CentralCoaster

Sounds like someone coulda left a tool under the hood or sitting on the plenum, then dropped the hood shut.

That'll do it. Look for marks on the underside of the hood where the cracks are.

Rich Silvestris

You might want to check about the gel coat. Older vettes have it because they are good old fiberglass. I think the C4's and later use a different composite that does not use the gel coat. One of the paint problems with the older cars was that the gel coat would dry out under the paint, and crack. The restoration of the gel coat meant a whole lot more work for a repaint. If there is no gel coat, then it's more like normal paint work.

rws.1

Without the photos its tough to tell whether it is a surface paint issue a cracked paint issue, a gel coat issue or an impact fracture from someone dropping the hood with a tool left on the plenum.
It is possible, that the spiderwebs could be buffed out. I would ask someone in the forum to post for you and put the posting in the in the Car Care Products section within the General Corvette Topics section. There are a few professional detailers that regularly visit and they would then be able to comment whether using a Porter Cable random orbital polisher with a swirl remover would get the spiderwebs out.

Rich & Lisa_84

E-Mail me the pics you want to post and I'll host them for you.
rwestaces@adelphia.net

Rich & Lisa_84

Here is his pic.

CF6873

First of all, there is no gel coat on our Vettes. Gel coat is used on boats because most of the time what you see on the exterior of the boat is the gel coat. Our Vettes are made with SMC which is a very smooth surfaced sheet of reinforced plastic. They are then primed and painted. If these cracks were not caused by an impact from underneath chances are that they are just in the paint. They appear to be deep enough to be well into the basecoat which means the only sure way to repair them is to sand the crack until you have reached the bottom of it. Then spot prime the area and repaint the hood. You could try to carefully sand them with 1200 grit and buff them with compound but they appear to deep for that.

dants84vette

Thanks for everyone's help Sounds like it is probably in the paint and should not couse any real problems, just a little extra work during the paint prep.