Installing Gas Fill Cover in Fiberglass Hood.

[surfnc]

Unfortunately I left a few steps out (did not take pictures), but they do not have to do with fiberglassing.
First you get a gas filler cover. I got my billet aluminum cover from Advance Auto. It is for a Ford F150. You want to make sure you can get your hand through it to get to gas cap and have enough room to twist it off.
Next mark where you want filler neck to be. I mocked up the tank on the body, put the hood on and marked the location on underside of hood with a pencil.
Next lay up enough glass and resin to build up to about 1/4" thickness on the underside of hood over the pencil mark big enough to cover an area larger than your filler cover.
Then measure and and drill a pilot hole where the filler cover will go. Remeasure and "eye it" to see if it looks centered.
Then use a proper sized hole saw to drill out the final hole size. Make sure that the screws of you filler cover will go into fiberglass not "hole" area.

This is what you should have looking at the underside of hood.

Then put tape around the opening on the top and draw a line around the filler ring on the tape.

This is the key to doing this well, a air powered angle grinder. I got it off ebay, but you can find them at Harbor Freight or Home Depot.

Then using angle grinder with 25-40grit disc, grind straight down to edge of the line you drew.

Test fit your filler ring and grind till it is just below the level of the hood.

When you have it to that point remove the tape and it should look like this. If you are very careful you may be able to do this on a finished hood and not have to repaint. Just put a little silicone under it and install screws and it will seal the exposed glass and bring level to top of hood. But since I am going to paint the hood later, on we go.

Wrap your ring with tape, try to keep it as thin as possible.

Put some body filler into the edge of ground out area, not too much. You are just trying to fill exposed glass edge. Then place ring into hood and cover edges with body filler. When you get done it should look like this. Do not use too much because it will be hard to get ring out.

Remove ring when the body filler gets rubbery. Do not wait too long or it will be hard to remove. If the edges are a little ragged do not worry you can do the fill step a few times to get a nice clean edge.

Now sand carefully and refit till it is level with the rest of the hood. You can make it a little lower since the paint will bring it up a bit.

Now you are ready for primer and final paint. Try not to build up too much paint it that area or the ring will not go in level. If so, no big deal just use some sticky backed sand paper stuck to bottom of filler ring and carefully sand down area till it is level with top of hood.

[Yellermanx]

Nice, Cool Idea

[bpritchert87]

very detailed and seems like you do nice work... great job all right now lets see those painting skills.... lol
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[MURZI]

Action and drama....keep it coming
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[joescoolcustoms]

Son-of-a-biscuit-eater.

I just finished off my body, and was about 4 hours of work away from painting the hood and you post this.

I glassed over a poor job by the PO where they cut the center of the ridge to stick the filler through, used the same filler door as you are using but flush mounted it on the right side of the hood.

You have just raised the bar.

I am now about 8 hours away from painting my hood.

Thanks surfnc
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Everyone is gifted. Some just do not open the package.

Looks like it was painted with a live chicken,polished with a brick and buffed with a pine cone

[Elwood]

Great job, I really like the way it looks.

I had a thought on an alternative approach, that might help someone out who might not have access to air tools or not comfortable grinding the counter sunk circle.
If you cut the hole the size of the ring first. Tape up the ring with a layer of masking tape or beter yet foil tape. The fit it flush into the hole, then glass it you can save your self a lot of grinding and potentially fucking it up as it takes a steady hand to grind that hole with that control. I use those grinders all the time and can do it but I know if your not used to them they can be a little on the agressive side and can remove more material faster then you would like.

[surfnc]

Yellermanx
THANKS! I have been looking forward to one of your posts.

bpritchert87
Thanks, and I will post the paint job when it is done. My buddy usually does the top coat, but I might try this one.

joescoolcustoms
Thanks! What does your hood look like? Are you going to put the filler in the center or off to the side? Even if it has a ridge you could still do it in the center. I would just use micro balloons to thicken the resin and fill in the underside of the ridge so I could fair it in on the top without a lot of fiber showing.

Elwood
I like your idea, and it would work well. You could also cover the ring with wax paper or spray it with silicone release spray. Yes you are right about the aggressive grinding, but body filler is a wonderful thing if you have to use it.

MURZI
I cannot wait till the sanding "action" is over. I truly believe that that is the most time consuming part of my 3 restorations. So far the "drama" has been pretty low. (No pan riding on this build) You must tell us the story about the fence though, I know its got to be filled with "drama" and "action".

[Augie]

Very nice job!!

I think Elwood has a good idea there also, I know that the sander is tough to handle sometimes.

[mach4]

Great idea. I was trying to think of a way to do a flush mount when we did ours, but couldn't think of one. Was toying with getting a panel from the junk yard with a flip lid, cutting out the section around the filler and glassing that in. Seemed like just too much work and expense.

Yours turned out very nice and if I ever do another one will definitely do the same. Thanks for the idea and the great workmanship.

[Elwood]

Be careful with using silicone lubricants and silicone based waxes as release agents. They work great but then the silicone is almost impossible to remove and come back to haunt you when it comes to paint.

If you use Aluminum Foil tape you will need no release agent as nothing sticks to Aluminum. I just made a back seat form for my buggy out of wood,Sprayed adhesive on it, covered it with Foil (out of the Kitchen) Glassed it and pulled it right off cleanly. I do this sorta thing all the time.

Since you have posted this I am kinda thinking about doing it to mine as I will be doing the tank really soon.

[Yellermanx]

[darkdune]

good job, in te future when i have to pant my buggy, illbe doing it like that
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[shermer-high]

I did mine flush from a vette.If these fuel doors were more common when I did mine I probably would have done it this way.

[mach4]

[66 Shorty]

That is a great tutorial!

Only thing I would have changed was to use a fiberglass filler like Duraglass or Everglass for the first fill, then finished it out in body filler/primer.

Either way, you did a fabulous job & I hope mine comes out 1/2 as good as your projects have!
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'60's Spatz Buggy body on '74 Chassis (Budget Build)
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[surfnc]

66 shorty
Thanks for the kind words and the "body filler" was actually Evercote fiberglass filler.

[66 Shorty]

Very Excellent!


I think I'll be doing the exact same thing on my Spatz. Still not sure on the filler I'm using if it needs to be directly connected to the tank, or if it's like yours where you remove the cap from inside the "cover".
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~X-Man~

'60's Spatz Buggy body on '74 Chassis (Budget Build)
'69 Bug (Baja-to-be partial daily)
'10 Silverado (My daily)

[GTBRADLEY]

I did mine with the filler type that sit on top for one reason. I took a ride in a friends buggy that has the above type cap right after he filled it up with gas. No problem right? Well I guess he wasnt careful and spilled gas around the filler. This causes an almighty stink in the buggy until the residue fades. Other than that I would definetly do what you did here because it looks way better than my flip top cap.
Great job and tutorial.
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[CoryN]

After I built mine up thicker, I put a pin in the middle and spun a router in a circle 1/8 inch deep and then cut the center out with a hand saw. Perfect circle and no need for any filler of any kind.

[surfnc]

CoryN
Neat idea!! Do you have any pics? What bit did you use? I would be afraid that it might splinter the gelcote. Also was the hood curved much?