A lot of the bodywork has been fixing holes. With changes of ideas and directions over the years I'm having to go back and fix a lot of my previous work/stuff ups. There's a heap of bolt holes and cable holes in the firewall, foot boxes and tunnel that need repairing.
I had the coils mounted in the ends of the foot boxes with leads running through holes. Now the coils are down on the chassis.
The repair required work on both sides of the panel. To start with I ground down through the gelcoat and gradually tapered the area leading into the holes. Then a few layers of chop strand mat and vinyl ester resin over the areas. When cured sand the whole thing down till it's smooth again.
Because the repair is not as strong as the parent material I add some reinforcement on the back. A smear of the microsphere resin paste to fill any small pinholes and voids and then a layer of chop strand mat over that.
Some repairs are a bit easier. Since the handbrake is now mounted on the top of the gearbox I needed to fix the hole where it originally mounted on the side of the tunnel. For this one I roughened the surface of the fiberglass and gradually tapered and ground the edges of the holes. Several layers of chop strand mat and resin and the hole is fixed.
On the inside of the tunnel I cut a piece of ice cream container and taped it in place to act as a backing for the repair. A small amount of resin from the repair leaks into the gap between but it won't bond to the ice cream container plastic or the gelcoat so it just peels off.
The inside of the tunnel will be sprayed with stone guard so no need to do anything more here.
Cheers
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