When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
look closely at the corners of the door opening. I paid a painter 7 years ago to repaint complete and repair fiberglass cracks. Later I learned the painter knew nothing of repairing fiberglass and his helper only worked on Mack trucks and fiberglass fender repairs. The car was soda blasted to bare glass and I told the painter to use an epoxy primer to cover over the old glass. Doubt that was done. Anyway the cracks came back about 3 years later, slowly and now they are more prominent that you see here. Which was probably 8 months ago. Also starting to see the fiber of the original glass showing through the paint. Thinking about taking the car to a boat dealership who work on fiberglass and have them fix the glass cracks, and then take it to a body shop for a complete paint over. Most body shops only know metal work and not always the best in glass work. What do the members think about this??? Can the cracks be stopped. Even thought about an aftermarket front end. I first painted and fixed the cracks in the same area 25 years ago and doing the old school work I used body putty, It lasted more than 7 years that my expenseve painter job lasted.
To start with, you may want to sand those areas down to at least the primer, if not to the glass to determine it the glass is in fact cracked. If there are flaws in the glass, grind them out beyond the crack and glass them in. You may be looking into a major touch up if not a repaint.
Not just around the lights as well , there's one in the corner next to your hood.
Have you got your head down under there and have a look see at just what's going on down there. It's an awkward place to get at to fix properly from underneath ,IF indeed those cracks go right through.
The ignorant painter stuck a wad of putty under the corners of the light housing so not much to see but that. The hood cracks don't seem to go through the whole glass. I had the whole car soda blasted 7 years ago, but you couldn't tell the cracks were there then, but they seem to come back. I think I will removed the head light assembly the grill etc and make it little easier for the repairs that might need to be made from underneath. I just don't want to be out another $10,000 for a paint job and years later have this same problem. I have some small stress cracks around the rear taillight also. Not like the front though.
I might even be willing to replace the front fiberglass section if I could find a trusting body shop who know corvettes, nothing around my area, I live 100 miles North of Dallas, Ft Worth.
you can fix this but you will need to repaint the front. I had the same problem with similar stress cracks above my light pockets and on the tops of my fenders ,spider web cracks from underside fender well rock hits. DUB told me to get in touch with WEST systems and I sent them pics and they told me what to do. I purchased a tube of SIX10 from them. they told me to use a straight razor and gouge out the cracks like a "V" using the tip if the razor, next fill the cracks with the six10 but dont go crazy as this stuff is like VPA it get granet hard. after sanding smooth I skimmed with VPA then sealed it all up. I hope they don't come back but at least I got the best info I could at the time. you can see in my picture how I traced (etched the cracks with a razor).
Paul
Thanks Paul, I had used the West System many years ago on a sailboat repair. Works really well. Just really don't want to do this again, and willing to have a boat fiberglass place fix it with the West System. But need to find a painter that is willing to repaint over someone else's fix.
Bondo and cat hair followed by about 30 mils of GELCOAT are not acceptable forms of Fiberglass repair...
People who perform such work should be ceremoniously shot.
This one suffered from the same fate - Head light cracks, hood corner cracks and wheel lips which were thick and without notches.
I didn't really want to shoot over someone else's mess, however I ground out what I could find then checked a few more places and repaired them as well...
BASED UPON what the customer was told by the previous body man... the lips etc were rebuilt using fiberglass... in which case it would have been easy to thin and contour them and this would have been a 30 hour job... ,... they were not fiberglass... they were bondo and cat hair.which meant grind out and start glassing... and then add another 30 hours to the entire thing...
Paul, was it hard to get the headlight assembly out. Though I would do that so the fiberglass repairman can get to he underside.
sorry for the delay on the response. no, I took the assembly out by loosening the travel collars on the pivot points,one pivot pin end and a bolt on the fron. maybe took me 10 minutes a side. then while they were out I removed and cleaned the headlight mechanism + rebuilt the springs. before I put it back in I have new hinge pivot end pieces I can install too. I just don't want to try putting it all back in with finish paint as I know I will nick or scratch something.
06-27-2019, 10:21 PM
