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I agree with dcamack. Two part Five minute epoxy is a great choice for many repairs on our corvettes. Filling oversize holes is easy and fast with epoxy. Al W.
The old fix for door panels and such is to stick the license plate kits in the wallowed out screw hole (the little square plugs with the screw holes in the center) they are not as long/deep as other screw anchors and they can be used over and over when you have to take a door panel off several times.
I cut small fiberglass discs from scrap fiberglass panels with a plug cutter and epoxy onto the back side of the hole. fill the topside of the hole with chopped glass and epoxy. On large holes cut another disc to fit the topside hole, grind a slight hollow and chopped glass with epoxy. I use west system epoxy. Good for bullet and arrow holes. Not kidding.
Posting good photos of these are would be a help...so we are not 'flying blind'.
The reason being ...depending if you are worried about it being all original...the repair will change according to that desire.
IF you do not care....they the repair method can vary greatly due to if you can get to the backside of these enlarged holes or not.
Because...simply pop riveting a small square piece of metal on the fiberglas ...if it is flat and drilling a hole in it will work..ESPECIALLY if that area is covered by something that will hide that repair.
ALSO...depending on if you want to do it....due to the hole is much larger than needed... IF the hole will allow it... I often times use a square file and square out hole and insert one of the plastic inserts that GM uses that allows the screw to thread into it and hold numerous items on the Corvette. And this plastic insert IS replaceable. BUT this also depends on where you are trying to use it...so..that is why i am asking for hood photos.
SO it depends on what you want to do and where the holes are etc.
These are what I am referring to.
This is another design that is oval and allows for a bit of adjustment...depending on what you are installing and how you file the oval into the body. That way you do not have to have the hole so PERFECT as like the other design above. BOTH pictures are of the same type of insert.
Well, heck, Dub, if you want to get fancy, I put 8-32 and 10-32 RivNuts in ALL the door panel and rocker sill plate holes AND the access panel holes on the inside of my doors, AND used RivNuts to put a large portion of my hardtop back together.
But, I had a RivNut tool laying around already, and the RivNuts them selves, are cheap.
I used Nutserts on the rear cove fender trim clips on the fenders where the originals were screwed into the fiberglass.
I am not particularity concerned with originality, though.
The screws that hold the door panels on my 57 were designed as pretty much a one time shot. All of the above "fixs" will work. The top picture that DUB posted look to be the same as I referred to that come in the license screw kits available at parts stores. I have been using them for years because the original hole is already your locator hole and these are designed to lock into a round hole and stay in place when you tighten the screw. They can be taken in an out over and over again and require no special tools to install.
I could care less about originality in this case as it is not seen unless the door panel is off to expose the poor original "no design" of the way Chevy did it originally. I certainly would not take the time to re-glass the door to create the same poor attachment.
When I did the body on my 65, I used West Marine products for all of the glass work. One of their best products is GFlex. It is a two part epoxy like adhesive and patch. Great stuff and I used it to patch and re-drill several over sized holes.
I've never been happy with filling holes with fiberglass. They all eventually strip out. Now I'm using the plastic nuts that DUB recommended and are happy with them. They're easy to install, clean looking and screws can be easily be removed and replaced. Nuts can be found in many hardware stores.
05-16-2017, 10:19 AM
