Thread: Fyi bebops body

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Just got our car back from paint. We went with black. Car looks great. The guy that painted it said the body was good and straight. The only filler required was on the top with mold seams and on each side of cowl a little low. He also said the gel coat was 3/16 to 1/4 thick. He never did go through to the glass.

Saving up for the interior now.

That is good news to me. They are putting the windows in mine today, should be ready to ship on Wednesday.

[QUOTE=guilld;356431]He also said the gel coat was 3/16 to 1/4 thick. He never did go through to the glass.

QUOTE]

Gel coat is nothing more then thick paint---Don't understand how they'd make it 1/4" thick----normally gel coat thickness is measured in mils???

In the boating business overly thick gelcoat is generally considered not good, as is overly thin gelcoat. I wondered about that thickness too, as gelcoat by itself doesn't have much strength. I think the painter was being complimentary to the quality of the body and may have exaggerated a little. Nice to see it was that well made though.

Don

Haven't seen a lot of 'glass bodies that are 1/4" thick except maybe in the corners or areas that are difficult to roll out.....

Sounds great to me if you are pleased thats great . sure like to see a pic. of it

I have always been impressed with the quality of BeBops bodies. I have always liked his '29 roadster body, too, and would not hesitate using one if I was going to build another '29.

post some pics.

How long do you need to let a new glass body set before you paint it. Does it need to cure or just get to painting it Thanks

I guess the coupe body is more rigid than the Bebops '29 roadster. I am pleased with my Bebops roadster but it is not perfect. Actually I have been buying odds and ends from a restorer shop and find most all of the dimensions of the Bebops 'glass are just like the original steel on the outside. I had the doors and deck lid hung by Bebops and the doors really fit nice but the deck lid is a little uneven at the bottom and they hacked off the rain gutter for the rumble mount in an uneven way on the inside, it will probably leak in the rain so I will need a hole in the floor to let water out! As far as the thickness goes it is close to 1/4" in a lot of places and this showed up for the front fender braces. There is no way the stock fender braces will bolt inside the outer lip of the front fenders and Bebops folks told me to just cut off the ends of the braces and just use the headlight bar bolts with the braces. That is a result of the thickness of the front fenders but since the original stock steel fenders did vibrate I am glad to have a lot of meat in the front fenders. Another thing I might pass along is that while the 1" square tubing framework is really strong and very good in the cowl area, the rear quarter panels did shimmy easily until I added a 1/4" x 4" steel plate across the bottom rear of the rumble area. I really did this to protect my rumble seat gas tank in the rear but when I bolted in the steel plate it made the whole rear of the body like a ROCK! See the attached picture. Another thing is that I am using a Brookville frame and wanted bumpers, expecially in the rear to protect the gas tank, and so asked Brookville how to attach the rear bumper. The Brookville bumper mounts are held only by two puny 5/16" bolts to the rear of the frame, fragile in my view for a heavy bumper, but I found that I could cut off a stock set of stock rear fender braces (not cheap!) where they do not fit into the Brookville tube frame and bolt the inverted cut off pieces to the bumper braces and the sides of the frame with hefty 1/2" bolts through the tube frame (pictures available on request). Now the rear bumper is like a ROCK as well (I tend to overbuild!) so that my 230 pounds can get up on the bumper step plate to the fender step plate and into the rumble seat (carefully) and nothing moves but the spring suspension on the coilovers under the frame. I offered this trick to the tech guy at Brookville but he thought the puny 5/16" bolts would hold the bumper, but for how long? The uneven gap at the bottom of the closed rear deck is sufficiently noticeable that I am thinking of adding a rear luggage rack just to cover up the bottom of the rear deck and I have added a strip of door-edge plastic to reduce the gap a little relative to water running off the deck. The clear type door-edge at least allows the paint color to show through but I think a chrome/stainless luggage rack will distract the observers eyes from the deck gap. I am starting to understand the wiring so if I can just get it finished this summer maybe I can test the car in the rain. As far as outgassing goes, I let the body sit outdoors for almost a year before painting and still got some bubbles which the paint shop said they will touch up when I bring the car in to paint the wheels?

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

Our body would be 5 years old in December so I would hope it is cured.

I want to post pics but every time I do they are too large. Please advise.

I use "paint" to view the picture and then reduce it by 50% in horizontal and verticle dimensions. My pictures are from a very early digital camera which only has 2.1 Megapixels so if you use a more modern camera you may have to reduce the size more. You may have to playaround with the size until you can fit the picture into the Forum limit.

Don Shillady
Retired Scientist/teen rodder

I made this pics last night at a local cruise in. The 32 belongs to my son but he drives the Stude to high school daily. We started the 32 when he was thirteen and he is now seventeen. My son is one of these guys who wants to keep everything. The stude was bought as a go between until we got the 32 finished but now he wants to keep it also.

Guilld, quick question. How did you secure the hood? I am in the mock-up phase of a BeBops 32 3 window and am going to run a 1 piece Rootlieb hood top with no sides, just like yours. Thanks in advance for your info. By the way, your car looks really good.

Originally Posted by Deuce Don

Guilld, quick question. How did you secure the hood? I am in the mock-up phase of a BeBops 32 3 window and am going to run a 1 piece Rootlieb hood top with no sides, just like yours. Thanks in advance for your info. By the way, your car looks really good.

I took a couple of pieces of 1 inch by probably about 1/8 inch angle notched 1/2 of the angle on the front and welded a tab on to mount to the shell. At the rear I notched out half the angle bent the remainder around, welded it and drilled it to mount to the firewall. The firewall mount has to be at the same angle as the firewall. I then drilled the hood for four 1/4 inch bolts, welded them in place. I also clamped the hood and mount together and drilled holes to match. Between teh hood and mount I used two stainless washers to seperate the two slightly. It works good. It is a two person job to put the hood on and remove it. I used rubber bumpers at the firewall and the rad shell.

I think Dan Fink makes a similar mount but it is a easy fabricate.