Started to modify my spare hood today, it was not all that hard to do. I will post measurements later on I am going to draw the cuts out so they are easier for someone else to do.
It got too hot out in the garage to do any more it's over 90 grrrr I am done for today tomorrow I will fill in the spots were the old headlights were.
[This message has been edited by jetsnvettes2000 (edited 07-14-2012).]
I was almost certian that these were going to look horrible, because they stretched so far back toward the windshield, but i have to admit that you have changed my mind considerably.
I am still not 100% certain they will look good until i see the proportions once the entire car is together, but i am intrigued at how surprisingly good they look so far.
Impressive progress.
You really have done an amazing job building up your car.
I was almost certian that these were going to look horrible, because they stretched so far back toward the windshield, but i have to admit that you have changed my mind considerably.
I am still not 100% certain they will look good until i see the proportions once the entire car is together, but i am intrigued at how surprisingly good they look so far.
Impressive progress.
You really have done an amazing job building up your car.
Hey thanks, its been a ton of work so far but, I knew it would have been going into it right away. Right now I am working on coming up with ways to re enforce the nose were the nose bar is cut out to fit them, After studying pics of Madcurls car and how the front is cut for his celica lights and the norms flipper front ends I really wanted to make sure the flex issue would be gone so I am going to build a new nose bar out of 1x1 thick wall steel tube to make sure its plenty safe if it ever got hit. I will prob go work on it a bit tonight again but sadly right now I am sittin in the house with a sick belly yuck!!! next step I will be figuring out how to fill in the old headlight holes.
There is a nice photoshop of it on the photoshop thread to give ya a idea what it would look like done.
Use your old headlight doors as the filler and glass them in top and bottom.
Nice progress. Mine is now fit to the front and I need to make the cuts on the hood.
I will also be bonding and glassing my fenders to the bumper to make a front clip vs a front bumper with seperate fenders.
Cool sounds like we have a little race going!! I was going to use the old headlight doors for the filler. I just have not been working on it the past few days the temps have been near 100 and over 100 in the shop plus I have some weird issue going on in my gut waiting on the doc to call me back I may have screwed up something Post some pics JIM!!!! I want to see how different yours turns out from mine!!
I am keeping mine with the buckets just bonded to the nose, I am making it so it comes off to access the projectors I am using and mounting them to brakets I am making that mount to the bottom of the old headlight area pan. that way I can aim the lights with the nose off and just pull it on or off if I ever want to get into them to clean them or try different lights in the future.
[This message has been edited by jetsnvettes2000 (edited 07-20-2012).]
Cool sounds like we have a little race going!! I was going to use the old headlight doors for the filler. I just have not been working on it the past few days the temps have been near 100 and over 100 in the shop plus I have some weird issue going on in my gut waiting on the doc to call me back I may have screwed up something Post some pics JIM!!!! I want to see how different yours turns out from mine!!
I am keeping mine with the buckets just bonded to the nose, I am making it so it comes off to access the projectors I am using and mounting them to brakets I am making that mount to the bottom of the old headlight area pan. that way I can aim the lights with the nose off and just pull it on or off if I ever want to get into them to clean them or try different lights in the future.
It's not gonna be much of a race! You will win without a doubt. I still have so much to do on my build (Project Sickness) it isn't funny. I still have to come up with around $15K just to finish buying everything I need. I have decided which lights i'm gonna use though... http://www.tlg-auto.com/JW_...ights_p/led-6045.htm
I will get some pics up this weekend.
[This message has been edited by JimmyS (edited 07-20-2012).]
It's not gonna be much of a race! You will win without a doubt. I still have so much to do on my build (Project Sickness) it isn't funny. I still have to come up with around $15K just to finish buying everything I need. I have decided which lights i'm gonna use though... http://www.tlg-auto.com/JW_...ights_p/led-6045.htm
I will get some pics up this weekend.
Oh those are really nice! cant wait to see them in!
OK just for you guys I limped my way out to the garage and did some work. First I started with gutting the headlight doors, I removed all the guts from the back side then cut the edge down to a 1/8 inch lip
Then I beveled the edges to make room for a nice channel for the fiberglass to sit in to bond it with
Then I fastened it into place with a few wood strips to hold its position and height
Here you can see were I beveled the hood edges to make the bonding surface nice and thick
Then I stuffed some shredded glass fibers into the seam for the first layer of resin/glass
Finally another thin strip of glass mat was laid over the seam and resin applied after I filled it with resin I made sure all the air bubbles were out I will let it sit over night and this is it for the first part. Tomorrow if I get time I will then grind this down creating another channel and fill that in with a few layers of fiberglass then flip the hood over and repeat this all on the back side.
May I offer a little tip for the future? Do not alter the top first. Leave the top untouched and do what you did, wood strips on top but bevel the bottom side first. Once it is securely in place on the bottom, bevel the joint on top and then glass the top. Does that make sense? LOL
May I offer a little tip for the future? Do not alter the top first. Leave the top untouched and do what you did, wood strips on top but bevel the bottom side first. Once it is securely in place on the bottom, bevel the joint on top and then glass the top. Does that make sense? LOL
Yup, but the way I glass the entire top will be getting a layer of glass over it before I air file it down, the door itself is really just a filler the way I do it, that way the entire door area is covered and no chance of a seam will come threw later on. I am also cutting into the center of the hood for a vent so the entire front third of the hood will be getting a fresh coat of glass then vacuum bagged.
Originally posted by exoticse: Am i missing something ?? Shouldn't you have cut the headlamp cover in the shape of the opening first ???
Or is the piece just being used as sort of a plug for the fiberglass and is going to be removed ?
I will leave it in but the shape is cut out after but yup for the most part it is just filler rather than laying up a ton of fresh glass I am using it to thicken what i am about to do, the bottom of the hood will be all re shaped so it doesn't look all hacked up I will be filling the ends of all the cut up structure and flattening out the areas that the doors used to reside in so it looks factory. I don't want a hacked up look to it so I will be taking the time to make it all blend in plus this gives me a chance to play with the industrial vacuum machine I got from work. tomorrow I will cut it to shape so you can see were i am going with it.
[This message has been edited by jetsnvettes2000 (edited 01-04-2013).]
OK Car-Lo kinda got me off my rump and I went out and braved the heat doing a bit more work tonight well, till I ran out of resin grrrr. I have the top of the hood roughed in and now I am starting to pretty up the bottom, this will take a long time I am going to change stuff around in layers so i keep a nice stock looking edge around were the hood cut out was.
First rough layer of glass this is just filler no need to be pretty.
One more pic, time to switch hats and work on that Corvette front end in the pic, ugh... repair work never ends....
Got a little farther today, but sadly ran out of sand paper grrr!! here is some pics for ya starting to take shape!
Ok here you can see I have made the filled in area as thick as the rest of the original hood, I am re producing the thickness so it looks stock.
Once I have the basic shape were I want it I will then add more support structure to keep it nice and solid. Guess that will have to wait till Monday, car show tomorrow Also I decided to not vacuum bag it since most people don't have access to one. SO, I will be doing this the slow hard way but that's ok I like sanding!
[This message has been edited by jetsnvettes2000 (edited 08-08-2012).]
Got a little farther today, the basic shape is there now I just need to fine tune things a bit and paint the bottom, I am on the fence cutting in a hood scoop I don't want to over power the look what do you think?
OK, so tonight on the way home from work I got a call from Jimmy, turns out he noticed something with his front end that I missed.... the trunk seal! So the corners of the front trunk will need to be modified bringing the corner profile of the trunk seal lip to match the new headlight. I played with it a bit tonight and think I found the solution and its pretty simple, In the pic you can see a tape line, thats were the seal will sit, I just need to cut this area and then re lay it down evening it out between the side hood and front hood transition for the seal. Tomorrow I will make the cuts ran out of light tonight. Here you can see why the seal has to be moved
[This message has been edited by jetsnvettes2000 (edited 08-08-2012).]
Did some more work tonight and figured out some things about sealing the trunk, its not all that bad as it seemed! so on with the pics! Ok here you can see the hood sits nice close and flush with the headlight bucket and because of this I can run a nice thin foam tape type of seal on the lip of the bucket or hood if I want to keep air and water out from going under it I remind you the plexi of the lenz will also sit flush with the hood so it will also be sealed in the bucket Ok here you can see the seal lip without the seal on it, I think I dont need to cut anymore of the hood here I can just move over the seal lip and fill in the gap with some sheet metal so no biggie I am happy no more cuts to the hood to make it seal! there is a big gap at the front of the hood no worries thats cause the bumper is not screwed to anything at the moment I will wait till its on the car to do that bit but when held up it sits flush with the hood Not sure if this is trunk seal but I had it and for sake of trying it out I used it to see were a seal would sit I have concluded no more cuts of the hood are needed its just a matter of moving the seal lip over a bit.
So today I got 2 of the 4 new custom made headlight rings I had machined at work. the large ones will be a few more days yet they are a bit more complicated. here are some pics and the last pic is of the original plastic next to the new solid aluminum one. I think I will get back to working on it Monday, I need to do family stuff all weekend so its on hold.
None yet, had to take a break from it for a few weeks to wrap up the other front end I am building for the parents wrecked 82 Corvette. I am also still waiting on the machine shop to finish up the other 2 headlight rings that go around the main lights. I am kinda stalling a bit here for a few more weeks so I can go to a few more car shows and club things with the guys. I think in 2 weeks I will finally pull the plug on driving the car for the year and start surgery, the front end is ready to go on the car now I just need to do it!
Here is the Corvette nose I had to toss together, its a mess but I was given a pretty rough shell to start with. No big deal it just looks fugly its in great shape otherwise and with new wheel wells its all ready to go in the car.
[This message has been edited by jetsnvettes2000 (edited 09-06-2012).]
Well after waiting for a few months now I finally got the headlight main ring prototype done!! here it is!! I will post pics of it in the bucket later on.
Little better light no flash, the ring fits perfect unlike the first mockup one I got from bone yard.
Now that I have these made and all the bugs figured out I can make them for anyone, the cost will be 60 bucks a piece and you need to supply a 6 inch by 1 inch x 2 billet of round aluminum stock.
I have extra left over if you want make me offer, its 6 bucks a inch off the remaining billet I have. The ring will have 22 oled' s in it I will run the amber during driving conditions and at shows have a little lighting effects thingy going on.
[This message has been edited by jetsnvettes2000 (edited 10-30-2012).]
LOl yup I look at it every day and say should I??? Once I make that cut there is no going back!!! but first Johns car needs to be finished up before I get back to this. I am still undecided on the headlights and how I am mounting them in there. I want to make them sealed yet able to get to them if something happens so its been a bit of a headache figuring that out. Also, I need to modify the buckets a bit as the upper light hole is not quite round and I want my machined rings to fit perfect so I will be cutting it up a bit to make it all fit right.
Post some pics JIM!!!! I want to see how different yours turns out from mine!! 
Also I decided to not vacuum bag it since most people don't have access to one. SO, I will be doing this the slow hard way but that's ok I like sanding!
