fiber glass hood

[collegekid01]

any one ever considered making a fiber glass hood? I don't know anything about fiberglass, but I think my hood is simple enough that it could be done. Anyone know how hard this would be?

[GasSavers_RoadWarrior]

The hard part is making one that's lighter than the steel one....


There's some drag shops do fiberglass hoods and front ends for some cars... gonna go see if I can find one...

[collegekid01]

really? I would've thought fiber glass would be lighter by far? then again I guess there's a reason they usually sell carbon fiber hoods not fiber glass ones. Those things are REALLY light. You can lift em with one hand. but they're freakin expensive.

[GasSavers_RoadWarrior]

I think rigidity is the problem, you have to design the bracing right or you end up just adding more and more layers on the ribs. The same thing can happen to people homebrewing carbon fiber too.

[GasSavers_mikemoss]

If you made one you would probably have to use hood pins to keep it down without having all of the bracing.

I guess you could just remove all of the bracing and use hood pins to hold just the skin on. I think that it could be difficult to make a hood that would weigh less then just the stock hood skin.

To make a fiberglass hood right you would have to use the original hood to make a reverse impression of the hood and then lay your fiberglass in the mold so that you end up with an exact replica of the original hood. Im sure there are writeups somewhere on the internet on how to do this. I have never made anything this way but it would do it right.

http://www.hotrodder.com/32Blowpar/page8.html

[Jay2TheRescue]

Many cars have fiberglass hoods available. I know the parts are readily available for all of my cars, but I guess I have popular American models. Its available for my Regal because all the fiberglass aftermarket parts for the Grand National will fit, and then my 2 trucks are popular hot rod vehicles as they can be purchased cheaply, especially the 86 Chevy. I even remember seeing fiberglass bumpers (not street legal) for the Grand National, replacing the heavy steel one.

-Jay

EDIT:

I was just thinking... a lot of cars don't have steel hoods, I remember my great Aunt's 88 Town Car had a HUGE aluminum hood so it could be supported by 1 tiny little gas shock instead of huge springs. If your hood is already aluminum, you may not save anything switching to fiberglass.

[DRW]

My weekend car has most of the bracing cut away from the bottom of the hood. I kept the bracing that goes around the perimeter and the bracing for the latch. I think it saved about ten pounds. It's still rigid enough so it doesn't flap in the wind, but I can't lean on it anymore or else it'll collapse.

[collegekid01]

my hood is def not aluminum. It has two large spring hinges on either side of it to hold it up. I was just thinking I would make a fiberglass skin and then mount the original hood latch hardware back to it (maybe even the insulation) and add hood pins. I guess it could still be a little "flappy" on the highway though...

[fowljesse]

I saw a site a little while ago where a guy just put mold release on his hood, layed down 4 layers of FiberGlass, and cut the shape. Then he made underside bracing by laying lines of "Great Stuff", and Fiberglassing over them.
I plan to make a Fiberglass hood for my car, and having hood pins in the usual places, and 2 more into my strut brace. I'm also going to have the edges conform to the shape of the fenders, and bumper, and seal against them to inhibit more flex. It will be lighter than the conventional FiberGlass hood.

[VetteOwner]

yea fiberglass is heavy, sicne its pretyty much a reenforced layer of glue/epoxy