My brother and I began playing with fiberglass to fix the ferrings on his motorcycle. This gave me all kinds of ideas about what else i could do with fiberglass, Hood scoop maybe? Anyway the reason why i posted this was because i wnated to know 1. can I fiberglass on metal body panels. 2. any hints insights or suggestion on how to get the best results would be very greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance for youe help.

 

ya u can, depends on how u wanna do it and such, as far as a hood scope, use rivits, drill holes and pop them rivits in.

 

I know some people who like using fiberglass over bondo and stuff on metal. This one guy told me this story about something who had a van that rolled over so he used like a ton of bondo over most of the entire side of the van. Then one day he was driving around and hit a big bump and the entire slab of bondo fell off. I would have liked to see that, lol

 

I've never had any luck bonding fiberglass to steel. It looks good for about a year and then starts to crack. I've seen a lot of other cars with the same problem. Regular polyester resin will hold to steel for a while, but different expansion rates of steel and fiberglass will eventually cause it to crack loose, especially in places with cold winters. Epoxy resin is supposed to hold much better, but I've never tried it because it costs about $60 to $100 a gallon. I know one guy who has had good luck bonding fiberglass to steel. He molds his parts as loose pieces instead of bonding them to the car with resin. He fits them against the body a drills 1/8" holes every 1/2" to 3/4" around the perimeter. Next he paints the steel with epoxy primer, about 12" out from the edges of the pieces. He claims the primer adheres to steel and resin adheres to epoxy primer better than resin sticks to steel. When he's ready to attach the parts, he uses a 3m or Fusor plastic to steel adhesive of the type used to bond the SMC panels on Corvettes and Saturns, and immediately pop rivets the pieces to the body. When that hardens, he feathers the edges and lays fiberglass resin and mat over the joint about six inches on each side to assure a large bonding surface. After that he finishes it with a light swipe of bondo and normal finishing procedures. I've seen one car that he did five years ago, and it hasn't cracked yet - but he's never driven it in the winter, either.