the 78 i purchased today to replace the totally rotted out one i have been working with is pretty much an intact car, not even a little surface rust on the frame or floors, the birdcage looks like new too. the only real structural problem is that the car was in a minor collision that cracked the front bumper cover and the top side of the left fender has come un-bonded from the cowl section and some cracking over the right side wheel arch. i am pretty new to fiberglass work with just some re-enforcing of a fiberglass race seat on my motorcycle as my experience. the frame is straight and the wheelwell seems to be ok too, just the fender has pulled away on the drivers side a bit. how hard of a thing is this to remedy? i am not even a little interested in doing a body off anytime soon, this car is getting the new brakes and bushings i got for the other 78, i'll re-do the interior and re-bond the passengers side glass to the t top frame and drive it. 86k miles from the original owners estate. the car is an L82 automatic red on red.

 

I guess w/o seeing the severity of it, it's hard to tell. In general, there are two paths you could take to remedy the problem, both of which will require bodywork and repaint of the fender at least and more likely the top of at least one fender too:

1) Remove the fender and re-bond - This would be the best approach to ensure a proper bond, but will involve more work. Basically, here you would grind down the paint to the fiberglass so you can see the bonding seam. Then you make an incision about 1/8" deep or so on the seem with a cut-off tool or a grinder or something like that. Then, ya can take a large masonary chisel (I find that the toothed chisel works best) and hammer the seam downward. It's like splitting a wide piece of wood where you work across the seam, then back again. Eventually you will hear it split from the uppper surround. The tough part is getting the inner fender loose and the part by the door w/o damaging the fender. Once you have the fender off, then you can re-bond. Then you grind down the adhesive, do your bodywork, prime and repaint. Getting the fender off is the easy part. I bet a guy that's done it before a couple times could have your fender off in less than 15 minutes.

2) Spot bond the loose parts - This is the path of less work. I would explore this and see how it goes. Here you grind away the paint in the areas where it appears to have come un-bonded. Then, open up the cracked area as much as you can with a screwdriver or something and grind away as much of the bonding agent as you can. Either re-bond it with the right stuff, or just use epoxy on the seam. Then, I'd "v" out the seam and apply Epoxy (using strand fiberglass) on the seam to build up. Do wherever it seems to have split. Then grind, sand prime/paint as needed.

I think I'd explore #2 before moving on to #1. You can buy the right stuff at Ecklers. Good luck,

Mark G

 

i appreciate the information. fortunately a repaint is in this cars future. it has the original and very badly faded paint. i will try just re-bonding the area that has come undone. i noticed immediately upon driving up to see the car a funny gap between the top of the door and the adjacent fender. it looks to be a few inches that popped loose when what appears to have been a minor collision happened. the frame is unwrinkled and everything measued out ok so there is very little if any structural damage it seems.

 

you can use heat gun to soften and release bonding strips there a video in the forum

 

Good point. I forgot to mention the heat gun trick.

 

excellent, i got a really good heat gun a while back when using a torch was recomended against for removing a rear drive seal on a shaft drive bike.

 

In that video, use the heat gun very carefully and on small areas at a time, and not too close to the surfaces.