[cycleguy]

Well, I am looking to make my metro as light as possible so I thought I should replace any steel I could with fiberglass. My friend, Mike, and I started on it today even though neither of us have much experience working with fiberglass. How hard can it be, right?

First, we pulled the old steel (not as heavy as I had hoped) hatch and set it up on some saw horses so we could use it for a mold. Next, we tried and tried and tried to remove the window but sadly the bottom portion would not budge so we just left it on. Then we brushed on some mold release goop that I bought at TAP Plastics for about six bucks. Then came the fun. We set out a big piece of fiberglass cloth over the whole hatch and cut out the section where the window was. We did this because, with the window propped up a bit, we could get some fiberglass on the track that holds the glass. I though that may help to make it easier when installing a plastic window on the hatch later. I brushed on the resin while Mike used a scraper to thin it out. We found the the heavy cloth I used did not like to cling to the hatch and so we used a ton of clamps to assist in that department. After the whole thing dried, I put some fiberglass tape in a few areas and put more resin on to help make it a bit more rigid (I don't think it really did anything though). After the second bit dried, I removed it from the OE hatch and laid it upside down on the ground where I put spray foam all over the inside of the fiberglass. It is drying now, but I am hoping that this foam will help make the hatch a bit less flexible. Also, after evening it out I plan to lay more fiberglass on the inside using the foam as a structure. So that is where I am now, but it is time for bed. Hopefully I will have a little time to work on it again on Sunday. I attached a few pics from my phone so everyone can see kinda what I was doing. Please let me know what you think. Ask me some questions or tell me what I should do or have done. THANKS!