Has anybody ever tried fiberglassing their wheel wells? At least the rear? Mine are getting pretty bad, and rather than pay out the *** for new ones, what would be wrong with cutting out the rotten sections and fiberglassing over them? They arent structural, and once painted, I dont think anyone is really ever gonna know. They just look kinda bad when you have the wheel off and you see this hole up top. Am I loony, ot could this work?

 

They are very structural

Look at the upper rear suspension

 

Just do it right and have new metal welded in

 

do u have a pic? i would glass it.

 

The inside of the wheel well is the rear frame rail, and the wheel wells are about the only real structure in the back of the car… it would be a big mistake to glass them.

 

I seriously do not see how you could make the fiberglass stick, unless you liquid nailed or riveted them into place. Fiberglass does not stick to metal.

I would just recommend welding in new pieces and buying some por-15 Marine Clean (degreaser), Metal Ready (Acid Etcher for new metal), and Por-15 paint. That should hopefully stop any further rust from coming back.

If you don't want to go to that work now. At least spend some money and get the paint. I like por-15 very much, because it will stick and supposely neutralize rusted areas. The Metal Ready is very nice as you can spray it on rust and leave it wet for 30-45 minutes and come back and your rust is gone in that area and there's a fresh coat of zinc in it's place. The silver Por-15 is made for deeply pitted/rusted areas. It contains metal flakes to help replace some of the pits.

 

Umm... fiberglass does stick to metal. That's what it's made for. Besides, it's weather proof, although it's not too strong and isn't vibration proof.

Although metal is the best thing to patch it with, as long as the wheel well as a whole is structurally good, then you could always use glass as a cheap fix. A step up would be kevlar and epoxy (same concept, way faster set time, very permanent -- can only buy at well-stocked body shops or off the net). Whatever you do, I'm sure you can also find some asphalt based undercoating to replace the original finish while your at it to smooth off the patch.

 

I dunno, I still think just fiberglass mat or cloth on will not work right. After acouple hard hits I can see it chipping or flexing enough to get air pockets underneath and eventually falling off. Maybe if you did both sides it would stay better, but if you go to all that effort just fix it with metal welding.

I have fixed minor holes in truck beds before with the simple Bondo Company fiberglass mix. Basically it's just spreads on like bondo but it more water resistance. I'll also note it was on a $800 truck so it wasn't meant for long term usage or show quality.

 

Fiberglass is great if done right. Hell, I made a subwoofer enclosure for my other car out of carbon fiber. Now that's strong and light. Too bad now there is a carbon fiber shortage and it's almost impossible to get the material to do some great work with my 91 RS.

 

if its a small hole(about the size of a quarter or so, and only one you can easily fix it with liquid nails poly or something along those lines. I grinded out a rust bubbles on my wheel well in the sunbird and since by the time i got the cancer out i had a dime size hole in the back, i juist filled it with poly. then to attemp to fix another leak(still trying to find th e last one) I filled the seam with poly, that altogether workedpretty well. no longer leaking from under the car though it still leaks in heavy rain. the wheel wells are still structurally sound and i drive on streets that look like the surface of the moon....(darn south florida roads are horrible on cars, ive gotten nails in tires driving down 95, had friends dent rims on potholes, etc)

 

Fiberglass is just something that you’re soaking with a resin or epoxy to form an FRP (Fiber reinforced plastic). What it sticks to is largely dependent on what you’re soaking it with. It’s mechanical properties are mostly dependant on how well you wick the resin through it and squeeze it out and how the ‘glass is woven or laid in a matt and how those mats/cloths are laid down.

Kevlar is added to cloths to give them some flex or to create a spot that can crumple and not fall apart. When you see an indy car hit the wall the cloud of dust is the carbon fiber tub disintegrating on impact and the parts of the body flapping around that they keep giving as an example of how strong the carbon fiber is are actually sections that were reinforced with carbon fiber to keep them from disintegrating. The reason that this happens with Kevlar is that the Kevlar fibers are really stronger and don’t like to tear or cut, but the resins used in composites do not wet them out well so they never get rigid like other fibers used in FRP.

Heh, I’ve cheated and fixed a lawn mower deck by making a new contoured surface out of adhesive aluminum tape, and then used fiberglass cloth and truck bedliner to coat the inside of the mower deck to reinforce the patch, making for a repair that has the rigidity of the fiberglass and some impact resistance from the plastic like truck bedliner stuff…

FRP has different properties then metal… you can make structural parts out of it but you need to shape them to take advantage of the particular FRP that you’re using… just laying it flat patching over some sheet metal will not give it the same strength as the sheet metal had. Basically I’m saying that you’re right and wrong. No, it will not work as well as sheet metal would, but if you did it right you could make a part that would (look at corvettes, for that matter, if it wasn’t a structural part you could use something soft like they use in the front wheel wells of our cars and most others).

The actual bondo repair stuff uses actual bondo to wet out the cloth. Interestingly bondo itself is not 100% water resistant but if you add some fiberglass to it it becomes 100% water resistant.