Cowl repair
07-24-2003, 11:08 PM
#1
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Cowl repair
My 33% cowl has been badly damaged, I want to try and repair it.
The gelcoat is cracked in several places though and it seems to want to flake off from the underlying glass.
What's the best way to get the gel coat to stop flaking or hairline cracks turning in the bigger cracks and flaking off ?
Also any suggestions for the repair ?
Thanks,
L
The gelcoat is cracked in several places though and it seems to want to flake off from the underlying glass.
What's the best way to get the gel coat to stop flaking or hairline cracks turning in the bigger cracks and flaking off ?
Also any suggestions for the repair ?
Thanks,
L
08-09-2003, 03:15 PM
#2
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Cowl repair
I did one like that on a 30% Laser a few yrs ago. I’ll tell you how I did it. Now weather everyone agrees with my method or not it seamed to work and the cowl has held up pretty well except for a few scraps from the blacktop runway we use.
First thing I did was to carefully cut a Styrofoam plug to fit inside the cowl so I had something to work to and support the cracked and broken parts. I can’t handle the smell of Polestar glass work so I opted to use Epoxy products. This way I could do the work in the house in a well ventilated room . After fitting the plug inside the cowl I needed to get rid of the gel-coat that was coming off in small pieces and get the structure stable so I could effect some patching and filling.
Where parts of the structure were missing I cut and sanded the area so I could add fiberglass cloth back. I used Z-Poxy from Zap to do this I put down two layers of 3 oz glass cloth and a final layer or 3/4 oz in the area that was missing . I used the Z-Pozy to soak into the cracked areas of the cracked gel-coat and wrapped the cowl with plastic wrap, tight to hold everything together overnight . I didn’t care about some plastic residue hanging on. After removing the plastic wrap. I filled the bigger dents and areas where the gel-coat was missing with Auto body Bondo. By now I had a good base to start cutting away the glass cloth I had used to get my detail back. After cutting and sanding I had to think about finishing. I used auto motive white primer to see where I had missed any places on the cowl. It took a little more Bondo and sanding but I finally got it looking pretty good. Now I pulled out the Styrofoam plug as best I could and scraped the residue out from inside the cowl. The rest was pretty straight forward. I put down about 3 coats of white primmer and sanded between each coat with 400 wet and dry till I had a good surface to spray paint.
Yes it was a lot of work but I only worked on it an hour or so at a time over a few weeks.
Next time I ever have to do this I would buy a new cowl, but you wanted to know.
Good luck.
First thing I did was to carefully cut a Styrofoam plug to fit inside the cowl so I had something to work to and support the cracked and broken parts. I can’t handle the smell of Polestar glass work so I opted to use Epoxy products. This way I could do the work in the house in a well ventilated room . After fitting the plug inside the cowl I needed to get rid of the gel-coat that was coming off in small pieces and get the structure stable so I could effect some patching and filling.
Where parts of the structure were missing I cut and sanded the area so I could add fiberglass cloth back. I used Z-Poxy from Zap to do this I put down two layers of 3 oz glass cloth and a final layer or 3/4 oz in the area that was missing . I used the Z-Pozy to soak into the cracked areas of the cracked gel-coat and wrapped the cowl with plastic wrap, tight to hold everything together overnight . I didn’t care about some plastic residue hanging on. After removing the plastic wrap. I filled the bigger dents and areas where the gel-coat was missing with Auto body Bondo. By now I had a good base to start cutting away the glass cloth I had used to get my detail back. After cutting and sanding I had to think about finishing. I used auto motive white primer to see where I had missed any places on the cowl. It took a little more Bondo and sanding but I finally got it looking pretty good. Now I pulled out the Styrofoam plug as best I could and scraped the residue out from inside the cowl. The rest was pretty straight forward. I put down about 3 coats of white primmer and sanded between each coat with 400 wet and dry till I had a good surface to spray paint.
Yes it was a lot of work but I only worked on it an hour or so at a time over a few weeks.
Next time I ever have to do this I would buy a new cowl, but you wanted to know.
Good luck.
