I haven't posted in a while, but all I've been working on is sourcing brake parts and getting rid of the popups. Looks the the fittings are all girling, and I think I found someplace to get that stuff. Now I have to go to the library and see if there are any books that tell me how to make a bubble flare. One page on the internet says that its just the first step in a double flare. Well..when it comes from the internet I like to verify. Especially with brake hardware.
So I cut the holes in the front of the saabette for the BMW headlights I bought. Man that first cut was hard. I didn't like the way it looked with just a circle cut in the front...it looks like I took a dremel and cut a hole in the car...which...i did. So I fabricated some half inch tall, 5 inch diameter rings that fit around the headlight. I made them out of a couple of layers of fiberglass wrapped around a circular mold that I made out of laminated cardboard strips. Then I glued them onto the back of the holes I cut in the saab front end. To give a little more support I supported it with some globs of fiberfill.
Its almost impossible to photograph. Here is a picture of it glued in before smoothing with the fiberfill. You get the idea.
Next step is filling in the gaping holes where the popups where. First I cut some metal blanks that fit in the hole from an old metal hood that was laying around. The advantage of that is that modern car sheetmetal has all kinds of anti rust magic applied to it. I helped it along by a good cleaning and coat of paint. Somehow I neglected to ever take pictures of the blanks, but they are simply cut a little wider than I need and then the edges are folded down 90 degrees to form a box like shape. The sides of the box match the fiberglass support that hangs down inside the body. That way, I could actually bolt the metal to the fiberglass for much better structure. I used stainless steel bolts and nuts, locktite and stainless lock washers.
After bolting them down, I simply layed down a couple of layers of fiberglass mat.
I'm actually not talking about a lot of steps actually. I roughed up the edge of the opening very coarsely with a cut off wheel and sanded the area all around. I wanted to get a good bite. I also roughly bevelled the edge of the opening to give more surface area for the fiberglass mat to attach to the car. Between that and the metal support it should be good forever. Or...I'll be back in the class again repainting..at least I know how to do it now. I'll keep the old popups in a closet just in case.
You can see in the picture above that there is quite a bit of build up around the edges of the opening. That had to come off first. An aggressive 8 inch disk of 40 grit took it down quickly. Took a lot of concentration not to gouge the body though. When I was done, I could see how close I came to level with the fiberglass hood. Less than 1/8th of an inch low! Perfect!
So the last steps are easy. Glop on fiberfill to fill the low spots and sand to level. Repeat until level. Then some finish body filler which paints up smoother than the fiberfill. Repeat until perfect. 6 hours of constant sanding with an inline sander to make sure it is level, straight and smooth and I get to this. I couldn't resist an quick spray of primer to see the finished product.
