Repairing Fibreglass- Bumper/lower Skirts

[Shoota_77]

Hi guys, I decided to have a crack at doing some fibreglass repairs to the bumpers on my R33 GT-R. I got some ideas on price to have it done professionally and it was a bit scary!

Now please bear in mind this is the first time I have ever done any fibreglassing so there is a pretty good chance there is a better way of doing it!

To help, I watched a couple of Youtube videos to get some ideas on the basic principles. The rest I just worked out as i went.

Ok, this is how the bumper looked to start with-

As you can see it's pretty badly cracked and splintered.

It's a Nismo bumper too. Not that it means anything anymore as I've fibreglassed over the top of the label for the repair!

I decided that it would be easiest to make a fibreglass template to sit over the top of the area to be repaired and then lay the new glass onto the back of that. It's a fairly complex section of the bumper with lots of curves so would be a lot harder to have to free hand sand it down later.

So top make the template I just layed a cover of packing tape over the bumper and then fibreglassed over the top of the tape so it wouldn't stick to the bar. Once it was cured I removed it from the bar and then put a new layer of the packing tape onto the side of the template that the new fibreglass was to be laid on. I'd heard that wax is good to prevent the fibreglass sticking so I melted a candle (advanced technique I know!!) and lightly spread the wax onto the tape that would be facing the fibreglass.

This is how the template looks-

This is how the template sits on the bar-

I then marked where the template would sit on the bar so I could see how much I could cut off the bumper.

Using an air saw I cut out the worst of the cracked section and splintered sections within the boundaries of the temlate (I left about 5mm each side of the template).

This is the section I removed-

I then put the template over the top of the setion to be replaced and lightly clamped it in place. This also prevented the bar from twisting while the section was removed. I also secured it with the trusty old packing tape as well to prevent it moving around at all.

The next step was to cut out the sectiions of fibreglass cloth to be used. I just guessed that it would be 3 layers to fill the hole and I ground a taper behind the bar so I could secure the new section in place by overlapping another 2 layers wider than the repair section. You can see the taper (cleaner section around the cut).

These are the 5 pieces of fibreglass cloth, 3 sections for the hole and the two overlap pieces-

Mixed up the resin and catalyst (hardener)-

I didn't have time to take photos in between layers and coats as the resin hardens pretty quick but this is the final result after I peeled off the template-

Obviously there is still a fair bit of tidying up to do with the die grinder and I'll probably need to run some bog over it but for $45 for the fibreglass kit (that will still do another 5 or 6 repairs), it was a pretty good result!

In hindsight I would make the template larger to give myself a bit more of a buffer to work within. Otherwise i would (and will) do the exact same thing with the other areas that need repairing.

Next up is learning how to paint!

Feel free to offer any further suggestions as to how it could be done better. As I said earlier it was my first go so I'm sure there are beter ways.

But for anyone thinking about giving it a go, GO FOR IT! It's actually really easy!

Cheers,

Ewan.

[Tommy Kaira RL]

Good start cant wait to see the finished product.

I did similar to my last R33 only I didn't cut a piece out I just fiber glassed over the back of the broken bits. Then when it was dry I filed the front smooth and then used a body filler to clean up the small holes then sanded and paint. I didn't get any cracks coming back either.

It cost me under $100 all up for finished product. Definately worth trying yourself.

Like I said cant wait to see it finished.

[Shoota_77]

I considered doing that with mine but it was just too splintered.

I was a bit worried about the strength of 'butting' the fibreglass usp to a straight edge but with the overlap from behind it's surprisingly super strong.

Been too busy to finish it off but I'll post up some more shots when I do.

[enka]

can you please reupload the pics?

it's all gone, imgur.com is a good host