bonding a steel cowl to a fiberglass body?

I might be getting a 27 ford cowl, and was wondering if theres any way to bond that to a fibergl*** body. I was thinking like a MAS Racing '23 t with the cowl cut off, for a cheep lakester body. is there any way to do this, or am I nuts?

Thanks!
Jordan

 

There is a line of products called Fusor that you should find at your auto body supply house. They have several series of products for different applications, one of which should do what you want.

 

Thanks Jim! anyone else out there want to suggest something?

Jordan

 

Sure, just use the 23-25 T body as is for your lakester! Is there a rule that all lakesters must be 26-27s?

 

Just sandblast the metal and use Fibergl*** resin and Matte...its worked for 50 years before Fusor and the like were dreamed up.

 

Some call it " vette glue", I have found it at our local auto paint supply. Sure seems to work!

 

I want to use the '27 cowl because of the extra leg room, and the extra space for the clutch pedal. thanks for the input guys. i might be doing some expermentation to see which one I want to use.

Jordan

 

I think it's "Vettebond". There's lots of body adhesives out there for lots of applications, but as was pointed out already, the resin will stick to metal.

Flatman

 

MT-13™ is our premium epoxy adhesive for applications calling for extreme holding power and water resistance. The toughness of this adhesive was demonstrated recently to engineers at the Brookhaven National Laboratory during construction of an ion collider. MT-13 successfully withstood temperatures as low as four degrees Kelvin, just degrees above Absolute Zero (-459° F / -237.6° C), and was the singular material suitable for the job. NASA has also used MT-13 for a variety of applications. MT-13 bonds porous and non-porous surfaces and provides optimum adhesion in a wide-range of industrial applications, developing handling strength in 16 hours.

MT-13 Applications
Bond screen to frame for screen printing.
Secure and insulate antenna mast to mounting fixture.
Fabricate silverware.
Fasten traffic markers or outdoor signs
Bond metal to fibergl***.
***emble ceramic and gl*** decorative ware.

has anybody used this stuff from Smooth On?

Jordan

 

At school we bonded fibergl*** panels to our tube ch***is for our formula SAE car using Hysol by loc***e. Worked great. Easy to use.

We did several tests to validate it and it should work just fine for your application.

 

I've been using SEM #39337 SMC adhesive...it's a dual-tube setup & requires a special applicator gun..My supplier "gave"me the gun when I purchased a 6 tube case ( adhesive is around $35 each!!)... as with all SEM products I've used ,it's kinda pricey , but it works great...If you need a longer work time, use SEM #39347

BTW, just my $0.02 worth , as I understand it , any place you bond metal to 'glas theres a chance of seeing the spot after the sun hits it ,because of different material expansion rates

Nuther thought..the premise that glas bodies are cheaper ain't exactly 100% true....after you reinforce with metal, bond it to the structure,and all the other things to make a flimsy shell structurally solid...with the price of f/glas adhesives,fabric,mat,resins etc,...it's not much ,if any cheaper than steel

so, there's $0.04 worth of experience....Back to the couch!!! Stan

 

Im going to look at that SMC and loc***e stuff. theres so many choices! anyone else want to muddy the waters. The reason I was thinking gl*** is availability, and its getting hard to find complete bodys around here for anything less than a grand. with this I would only be out $400 before buying the stuff to re-enforce it and bond it to the cowl. I thank you guys all for your input. as much as I would love a all steel body, I dont think my budget will be to friendly to that. oh well.!

Jordan

 

It's funny how close the measurements are. I measured a '26 cowl and my MAS body. At the front edge of the "doors", the '23 MAS and the 26 back of cowl were almost exactly the same measurement. Even the height is almost dead on. I was seriously contemplating the exact same thing, but I couldn't bring myself to cut my driving car up.

Karl

 

wouldn't it just be easier to go metal to metal? i fail to find the logic behind mixing the two? eventually itll give way. and youll have to do it over again. but maybe im bias because i hate fibergl*** bodys.

 

yes, It would be easyer to just put a metal tub behind it, but I dont have a metal T nor do I have the money for a steel body. the Mas racing body is only like $370 or somthing like that, and I might be picking this cowl up for $30. thats cheeper than any steel body I have ever seen. not to mention, it wont need to have a ton of patch work done in addition. so this is the best next thing I think. Im thinking about gl***n' the floor in and having that act as a support for the cowl, so that the adhesive, gl***, what ever I end up using, isnt as structural and dosent have as much stress as it would if it was held on by the adhesive, gl***, etc... alone.

Jordan

 

I know that this is going to sound crazy and stupid on my part, but... How well do you think JB Weld would hold up?

Jordan

 

You will gain a good bit of room in the cowl if you graft it to the 23-25 bucket at the cowl line, more, in fact, than a stock 26-27 roadster. You see, the 26-27 cars were more a visual revamping of the 23-25 than anything else.
The ch***is remained the same at a 100" wheelbase, the firewall position was fixed by the engine so what to do? Raise the quarters a bit to flatten the top line of the body, lean the steering column back slightly, widen and extend the cowl back over the p***enger compartment, enlarge and move the door back for better access and add a driver's door, raise the turtle deck to the rear body lip and widen it a bit for better storage capacity. So a big gain was made in "visual" proportions even though the "real" measurements didn't chnge much at all.

 

that is good to know! I have thought about going out to colorado on a road trip with one of my friends and a teardrop trailer.

Jordan

 

anyone else want to put their pennies in the hat?

Jordan

 

SEM or 3M epoxy adhesive with Countersunk CherryMax Rivets...

 

I like the cherryMax rivets! newer thought of that before.

Jordan

 

Hysol has a lot of different epoxies that would do the job. Epoxy and steel expand and contract at the same rate so don't use any polyester or vinylester resins like you would for a boat. There are some methacrylates that are bonding new cars together too but the expense for a small job might not warrant it. I have a lot against fibregl*** but that's mostly because I worked in and around it for 40 years.

 

FWIW, and ***uming you don't want working doors, I gl***ed a 14 ga. steel floor into a 27 gl*** body by gl***ing in a series of angles along the lower inside edge of the body. Then I welded the floor to the angles and then gl***ed over both. I would think you could gl*** in angle(s) vertically to the inside of the gl*** body and then weld the resulting flange to the cowl.

 

i was suggesting making the rear tub yourself out of good ol 18 cold rolled.

 

fibergl*** body what? AM I in the ol skoolrodz message board cause i smell ****. have you gave up the search for a steel body in wisc's woods or have you not even started and just looked at gaybay. go out side this weekend and search, hell search this whole month before ya buy gl***. but its your deal do what you will p.s good luck !

 

'Gl*** bodies were in use before ANY of us were born. If you want "old school" a fibergl*** body is as old school as you can get. Do your research. Thanks, Mike

 

Google West system epoxy this is the best stuff for it it will allow you to use S-2 gl***, carbon ,or kevlar to tie into th steel.the bond will be as strong as steel.

 

If you want this to work in the long term perhaps you should look at in a different way. Not BONDING the 23-25 roadster body to the 26-27 Cowl section but rather mounting it to the cowl section.
What I mean is mould a steel reinforced mounting flange of fibergl*** to the back edge of the cowl section, i.e. the door flanges, and then bond this flange to the 23-25 body section. This gives you a solid and matching mount between the two pieces so you can bolt them together and should you choose mould the seam over with body filler.
Just a thought.

 

A couple of things:

DO NOT use methacrylates, sometimes just called acrylics as mentioned above (this is what alot of Fusor products are) they will eat away at the fibregl*** resin. They are designed for metal to metal bonding only. You want a two part epoxy if you are going to bond to fibregl***. There are many good products out there and some are now coming in cartridges that will work with a standard caulking gun. Evercoat and Wurth both have some available in this dispensing system.

Vette Panel Adhesive is NOT really designed as an adhesive even though that is what it is called it is more like a reinforced filler designed to work with SMC (like a Corvette Body) So that it will expand and contract at a similar rate.

Your biggest problem as mentioned above is that steel and fibregl*** expand and contract at different rates it is not going to matter if your adhesive expands at the same rate as either substrate as that is not what will cause the problems. If you can I would try and incorporate a body line of some sort where youare bonding the two together so when it does expand and contract it will not be as noticable.

Good luck with it.

 

What about Marinetex? I've used it before to do repairs on both metal and 'gl*** with good luck. Was I just lucky?
I was thinking about bonding the wood into my 'gl*** body with it because the car has a killer hand lettered and striped paint job already applied and I want to save it.
I was thinking I could keep the mess down with Marinetex, and force it into the cloth around the wood without getting it all over everything. Thoughts? Thanks, Mike