filling holes in firewall ?

hi all, I swapped out the birdcage on my 72 and need to fill in the rivet holes because they dont line up with the new cage. whats the best way to do this? am very new to fiberglass repairs. thanks

Welcome to the motley crew of the Flying Dutchmen....

I found some glass random stranded mat from a parts house, and some glass resin from Home Despot worked well in my doors to remove the lock cylinders, and fill in....maybe the ONLY part on the car, but it's a great hole filler...the
mat is held with painter's tape on the backside while you soak in the resin on the front side....

maybe need 2-3 layers of matting and resin....

:rain:

I'll bet swapping the birdcage out was a big project! If you have pictures of that, you should post them.

The rivet holes are pretty small. You might want to chamfer the edge of the hole (so that the bepair blends into the surrounding surface) and fill it with chopped fibers mixed in epoxy.

As mentioned, chamfer the holes with a countersink both sides if accessable and use some epoxy paste such as this. No need for mat for small holes.
This stuff is used to plug screw holes of yachts under the water line.

This is one place where you can buy high quality fiberglass repair "stuff". They have pretty much everything. Make sure you buy resin that is compatible with fiberglass and/or SMC. Your '72 should be fiberglass, not SMC - I "think" SMC started around '73 ???

www.uscomposites.com

thanks for the info guys. I think i'll try the paste first.


yes, it was a big deal on the birdcage. took me 6 months to get the balls to start cutting. if i had it to do over i would still do it. just a little different though.

MYBAD79 said:

This is one place where you can buy high quality fiberglass repair "stuff". They have pretty much everything. Make sure you buy resin that is compatible with fiberglass and/or SMC. Your '72 should be fiberglass, not SMC - I "think" SMC started around '73 ???

www.uscomposites.com

Click to expand...

The stuff in the pic came from their local store. :thumbs:

I'd really like to see pic's of that b-cage swap. Mine is pretty bad off and I bought another one but don't know if I want to cut and chop or swap the whole thing out.

010752 said:

As mentioned, chamfer the holes with a countersink both sides if accessable and use some epoxy paste such as this. No need for mat for small holes.
This stuff is used to plug screw holes of yachts under the water line.

Click to expand...

Never try this. Might be worth looking into however, I would repair this by grinding a small dimple on both sides if possible, mat it, sand it, glaze it, and paint it.

Danny

Check out my thread under projects. I am currently glassing all those small holes shut with fiberglass mat and resin.

That epoxy putty is what I use too, a thick 2 pt epoxy paste and it fills holes much larger than a small screw hole easily. With some backing it easily bridges larger holes. The stuff is called variobond here but it's made by a local firm, judging by the color of the white base and honey like hardener I'd be willing to bet it's the same stuff

thanks for the replies. I havnt used it yet but I got a 2 part epoxy from west system. REp said it will work great for what I need