njfl

The trunk lid on my 57 has all of the paint and primer removed on the top side. It has some light Bondo and very rough lock opening. On the underside there are a few cracks around the latch housing. I am not concerned about originality, but ultimately want it to look great. Would I be better off buying a new $499 trunk lid from CC or paying labor to get this fixed and prepped for paint.

I guess the bigger question is what needs to be done to a new press molded trunk to get it ready for paint? Just sand and epoxy primer (then many hours of wet sanding of course, for either)?

csherman

very repairable !

njfl

Thanks for the quick reply. I can even repair the light cracks myself. My main thought was that if the top surface needed a fair amount of prep compared to the finished PM new lid, I would go new.

Easy Rhino

Disclaimer: Neither a fiberglass or '57 expert.

But, that lid seems to fit pretty well. I think I would rather save $500 and fix a few cracks and smooth it that try to make another fit well.

My .02 and worth every cent you paid for it.

csherman

for some hours that lid is nice
V groove all the cracks - get all the old repair out
back tape it and lay in new glass or VPA
Reinforce the back with a layer or two of glass
The lock hole can be made by layers of glass or plate it with a new piece of glass using a hole saw then fit the lock
For 500.00 you can do a lots to that lid
Me personally - I would blink an eye at it - I would fix it

OC-1

Looks like the trunk lid of most 57s.

you do know that lower center section of the trunk reinforcement is separate piece.

Not so in later years.

njfl

Update. After reading DUB's thread and a few others AND not finding any body shops that I trust I decided to give this a shot myself. I am very pleased with the outcome. I opted for the West System 105/205 with thickener and couldn't be more pleased. Just taking my time. Even got my color match pretty close (my OCD). Thanks for all of the great info on this site.

firstgear

That west system I have used to repair many things, not just Corvette stuff!

MidShark

Nice job!

Rich

emccomas

The nice thing about fiberglass repair is that if you mess it up, just remove the improper repair and start over.

I personally am a fan of fixing the original part, assuming that time is not a critical issue. The repair effort that you faced here is labor intensive, but not particularly costly.

And just replacing major body panels instead of spending the time and effort to deal with the issues when repairing this old fiberglass is the wrong approach, IMHO.

Yes, those hundreds of little surface cracks that appear on early C1 bodys (1953 - 1958 if memory serves) are a real pain to deal with, but it is just basic fiberglass repair. I even consider them minor repairs; but there are a bunch of them, so it becomes a big effort.

I recall a historically significant 1957 FI car that had the major outer body panels replaced instead of repaired. The completed car is more reproduction than original. I think of it as almost a rebody.

I guess my "approach" to this is:

If the car is being restored to original or original like, repair the original panels wherever possible.

If the car is being modified / resto-moded or restored to an unusually high level (all panels flattened out to as smooth as possible), then quality replacement panels might make more sense.

csherman

NJFL
I see you are rebuilding door hinges
Is there a kit for those?

njfl

No, I just got new pins and bushings from CC. The rest of them are solid. I think the pins and bushings gs are even still available from GM as they were the same for quite a few years and models.

DAN70

csherman

if you notice the center section of the underside was sectioned in
Common
I have a 56 here with the exact same repair

njfl

See Post 6 above. I suspect that is what he was referring to. I guess it was like that for 56 also?

Randy G.

Don't forget to put the eyebrow back on over the key lock hole or you'll have the NCRS guys pointing and clicking their tongues.

njfl

I am finally getting back to this and would like to see some closeup pictures of the top, or "eyebrow" of the lock hole in the trunk lid. Mine looks pretty beat up and needs some reshaping. You can see the mess in the pictures below. Thanks in advance for the pictures. Note that I couldn't find any decent resolution pictures on the web.

JohnZ

[QUOTE=njfl;1597445893]I am finally getting back to this and would like to see some closeup pictures of the top, or "eyebrow" of the lock hole in the trunk lid. Mine looks pretty beat up and needs some reshaping. You can see the mess in the pictures below. Thanks in advance for the pictures. Note that I couldn't find any decent resolution pictures on the web.[\QUOTE]

Here are some '57 trunk lock "eyebrows":

njfl

Thanks JohnZ. I'll see what I can do.