Thread: Project $ 3 K Is Underway

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Thanks Brick. I'm certainly no fiberglass expert, but it doesn't take too much practice before you can get pretty good at it. After you do it a while you realize how forgiving of a product it is. If you screw up, you grind it out and start over again.

Today when I was working at the shop I thought of a funny story about fiberglass. I worked at one time for West Marine, and a customer came in all irate. He had bought a gallon of resin with hardner and started to do a job with it. So he mixed up the whole gallon with ALL the hardner in one batch.

Now, fiberglass resin cures by heat. When you mix the hardner into the resin, heat is produced. If you mix up the whole gallon and all the hardner LOTS OF HEAT IS PRODUCED.

The container got so hot he couldn't hold it, so he threw it into a garbage can, which promptly caught fire. It was hard for me to keep a straight face as I said " tell me you didn't mix up the whole gallon?" He somehow felt we were responsible for NOT TELLING HIM to not mix it all together at one time. We gave him a new free gallon and this time told him to mix small batches only at one time. I guess that is why they put warning labels on plastic bags "DO NOT USE AS A TOY." You have to idiotproof everything.

I did get some work done today, but not the grinding I thought I would. I realized that once I glass in the floor my dash roll bar will never ever come out again, so I had better make sure everything is done in that area before I seal it up. So what I did was paint truck bed liner onto the entire upper dash section before I put the roll bar back in. I did this for two reasons: !) I am going to use bed liner on the entire interior surface of the car and under the floorboards for sound deadening and also to make the body less prone to have shadows through the paint. and 2) I wanted a smoother and more finished surface up under the dash than the raw fiberglass. I figure it will look better and be kinder on my knuckles when I install the wiring and gauges. I also rounded off the transmission bellhousing hole to give me a little more clearance around it. I figured a little more room now is better than interference later on.

Fiberglass bodies have a tendency to let shadows show through them, especially cheaper bodies like mine........they are thinner than the more expensive ones like Wescotts. The gold/ orange color I am going to paint it won't do much to hide these shadows either, so the black inner liner should become a good barrier to light.

Anyway, here are some pictures of what I did in that area. I better sign off this post before my stupid computer freezes up again.

Don