jpearce98

Its kind of hard to explain but the panel area where the horn attaches to on the front of my 58 has separated. Hopefully you can see from the pictures I tried to take. Here is what I think I need to do in order to fix this. Please correct me if I am wrong.

• Clean out any older panel adhesive.
• Apply Evercoat Vette Panel Adhesive/Filler between the panels
• Clamp the sections together until it cures.

I will take the hood off while doing this just so there isn't any added stress.

Here is what I am referring to:






Thanks in advance,
Jason

Factoid

Correct, but rough up the area for a good bond once you remove all the old adhesive. You can also fix that common stress crack in your picture.

jpearce98

Thanks for the reply. I am planning on fixing the panel separation first and then I will start to tackle the cracks in the fiberglass.

Thanks again.

jpearce98

I am thinking that when I go to clamp it down, I should use wooden blocks between the clamps. Wooden blocks or something to prevent the clamps from punching holes in the fiberglass.

That sound about right?

nutt

That's a good strategy. I made several wooden "bender boards" for evening the load across the panel. I used a cedar fence board cut to 1 inch wide. It gave just the right amount of stiffness but was able to bend along my full quarter panel using clamps every 6 to 10 inches or so. Blocking the panel later revealed a minimal if any variance. I kept the edge of the panel exposed so I could slide a bondo spatula across the seam to make sure the in-out distance was correct. It's really easy to over clamp and just bringing the new panel to the correct height makes sure some adhesive thickness is still between bonding strip and the panel. I used epoxy vs. vpa, and used the vpa to fill across the seam later after running a two inch grinder across the cured seam. Used a da sander with 80 grit across that, then polyester filler, then urethane high build. Overkill, but it's my way of making that seam undetectable from heat/sun cycles.

Factoid

Clamp it firmly but not so tight it warps or squeezes out the adhesive. This is one of the mistakes people make as they learn. If the clamp is so tight it cuts through the fiberglass, it is way too tight!

Dougs63

I haven't bonded panels in over 10 years, but I do recall a major headache I came across was that the repro Press Molded panels at the time varied greatly in quality and uniform thickness. Some panels were wafer thin while others were 2-3x thicker than GM original. Maintaining a "seamless" alignment between repro and original panels was a challenge. Hopefully the vendors have
​​​​​​ since corrected this.