Hell with pods, FG door time!

[Ryan from Ohio]

Im giving up on "pods" per say. Not enough room for my huge mids.

So Im going to attempt to glass in the entire lower vinyl area.

Most of the glass will just be 1-2 layers of the fine mat to provide base work for where I actually need strength.

It will be the light gray area...

Im going to start on it today. I need to cut 1 new speaker ring (PITA).

Also note Im going to do the imaging inside the car! That way I get what I truly want, not a guess!

[cherrington17]

so the entire "taupe" area? essentially... 3/4 of the door?

why not just do the full door then?

also...

how'd you get that tape to stick? i bought a full roll of painter's tape and it didn't stick to vinyl for CRAP! i ended up using duct tape. And if there is ever a next time. I'm definitely using that mat, for the first layer. doing it in chopmat was a pain, and it didn't lay right (lots of bubbles) PITA to work out.

Luckily... mine are almost done. Not fanciest i've seen on here, but functional, and sturdy.

[Ryan from Ohio]

Ya Im done with cop mat I think.

Its thick but troublesome. I can use the normal weave and fold it over easier than dealing with chop. Plus its WAY stronger than the chop.

[cherrington17]

it was my understanding that chop mat was stronger, due to its inconsistant texture. it gives more strength/thickness, but mat is easier to work with.


this whole thing would be tremendously easier, quicker AND cleaner, if i used mat... but i was told its more brittle.... so i opted for the stronger of the two.

[Ryan from Ohio]

Weave is stronger than chop.

[cherrington17]

then why the eff was i always told to use chop!? argh

[pimpalero2003]

Think chop is stronger make sure not to use straight edges tear it. The other would be ok but it's harder to go around curves and keep from bubbling it's better for flat surfaces. Check out fiberglassforums.com some damn good info and amazing builds!

[Ryan from Ohio]

Ok,

I cut out the parts of the door where it kind of formed into the pod area. I cut out the little web that was in there also.

Aimed and glued up the ring in place. I will have to trim some metal from the door... Oh well. It took me 4 tries to get that F'ing ring in a half decent location. So once I got it to stick in a fashion I liked, its done!



I stretched grille cloth over the ring, resined the lip. After that dried I stretched it out. Clamped in place and resined over the cloth a few times. Cut and ground away what wasnt needed. Smoothed out a wrinkle or two. Then added glass- theres 2-5 layers depending on where your at. Should be enough.

Result:



Its drying tonight. Tomorrow I will grind/sand away the unneeded areas. Bondo it up and sand. Then Milkshake the whole gray area and glass to make it one level. Then I will probably just paint the bottom half/glass area. Trying to do vinyl is impossible because I cant tuck it to hide the seam...

[clutch1]

Dumb question, but you did remove all the vinyl stuffon the bottom of the door, right?

Unless I'm forgetting and the Alero's bottom is just textured plastic.

Make sure to drill lots and lots of holes where the FG meets the door plastic, it'll help with cracking and so forth.

[Ryan from Ohio]

Nope. I went over whatever was there...

[cherrington17]

wow... you certainly made that pretty quick. those middle steps took me like... 4 days.

I had to cut metal too. Oh well. I didn't want to originally.. but now I KNOW I'm driving this car to the ground. I'll irreversibly change things. No Biggie

but i did learn some valuable lessons.

1) if you FG bolts into the mold, coat the threads in wax. Its a pain in the balls to get resin out of the bolt threads.
2) Chop mat doesn't bent around corners... at all. Use weave

[Ryan from Ohio]

Yes I spared NO time with the latest attempt.

Hot glue on ring. Then it was about 3 small batches of resin, I burned it hot too. <- Extra hardner in the resin for quick dry. Then I put all the glass layers on one after another...

The end result right now is hard as hell and looks good. The mat stayed down except for the loose ends/stragglers.

Now to sand later.

[cherrington17]

i get to sand/mount mine today. i'll bodyfill in a few days (when i get time)

i want to see/hear them! i'm getting impatient.

[Ryan from Ohio]

Ya Im in the same boat. My cars been in pieces now for over a month.

I will probably just sand away any wrinkles/defects and patch as need be. Then get it mounted to the door and test it. Then move to the other panel.

[cherrington17]

ooh. thats how its so quick. i'm doing both at once. (not that thats slowing things down THAT much)

you can clearly see which i did the majority of the work on first... it looks horrible. the 2nd looks neater. To someone who does this often, they both look like a gradeschool project.

[Ryan from Ohio]

Ya now Clutch has me second guessing... lol

I got my passenger side done now.





Now what Im second guessing is bondoing the whole thing and all that sanding/painting. Vinyl would be best, but its next to impossible at this point. Paint would be nice also, but thats a LOT of sanding painting.

Im half tempted to just put some gray box carpet on it and call it done.

As long as it matches the floor carpet, it shouldnt be to bad.

?

[cherrington17]

why would vinyl be hard? (can't see pics, so i might understand more when i get home)

wrap the top, hot glue into place, heat, and stretch to the bottom, and wrap around to the inside again, hot glue again.

[Ryan from Ohio]

Well to do a quality vinyl job you need to glue the vinyl to the base. Which means mucho Bondo and sanding.

I dont want to vinyl over the carpet insert. I would also like to keep the top part black.

I dont know at this point.

Its a coin flip.

[Ryan from Ohio]

I need to fit the drivers side and cut a little metal away probably. But its done and trimmed.

Now to figure out how Im going to cover these...

[cherrington17]

do it right. get the drill and buy some vinyl.