My Carbon Fiber Hood Restoration

[SirThomas8]

So I bought a pretty nasty looking CF hood from Gabe a couple weeks ago (no offense Gabe lol). But he gave me a good price for it.

Was very faded, had some yellow discoloring, and had lots and lots of spots of tree sap dried all over it. Unfortunately there are also many cracks in the resin itself straight down to the CF. Those I won't be able to get rid of, but at least I can still get rid of the spots, fading, and discoloration.

So I scraped off all the tree sap, wasn't too hard. Took a flat thin metal piece to it and the sap mostly cracked right off. But the tree sap actually protected the clear coat under it so where tree sap had been is now shiny clear coat spots unlike the rest of the hood which is all faded and clear coat gone.

Bought some 600, 1000, and 2000 grit sand paper, and got to work on it a couple days ago. I worked on the left half of the hood all day yesterday and all day today and I think it's almost done w/ sanding. With the 600 grit and no power tools, sanding it down takes a lot of work and is slow progress. My goal for sanding is to remove the spots from where the tree sap was and remove discoloration. I don't even bother with the 1000 or 2000 because even 600 takes so long.

Tomorrow I'll start the right side of the hood. After thats done I'll take the hood off my car and give it a few layers of clear coat with a clear coat can I bought from Pep Boys.

Here is a picture I took today using my camera phone. In it you can see part of the side I'm working on. You can see dry and wet spots. Hopefully the wet spots give me a good idea of what it'll look like after I clear coat. The white stuff is the results of sanding the resin. visible results come so slow that the white stuff is the only way I can tell I'm making progress.



Since I neglect the edges when I'm working on the hood I lifted the hood up and focused on the edges for awhile.

Tomorrow I'll take some more pics with a better camera before I get to work on it again.

[JamesT]

Interesting...

Be careful with the sanding. If you hit the actual CF, there isn't anything you can do to fix it. If you're planning, on clearcoating, I wouldn't use anything above 800 grit until after you clearcoat or it won't stick to the hood and will peel very easily.

If you were local, I'd be happy to slap another coat of epoxy on there for you.

[SirThomas8]

Interesting...

Be careful with the sanding. If you hit the actual CF, there isn't anything you can do to fix it. If you're planning, on clearcoating, I wouldn't use anything above 800 grit until after you clearcoat or it won't stick to the hood and will peel very easily.

If you were local, I'd be happy to slap another coat of epoxy on there for you.

Thanks for the advice. I've been monitoring the sanding to make sure I don't get down the the CF. With as slow as it takes me to sand w/ 600 grit, I'm not too worried about it. The epoxy is pretty thick.

Thanks for letting me know about using grit above 800!! I was indeed planning on going over the hood with the 1000 or 2000 grit after I'm done with the 600. But now I won't bother using the 1000 or 2000.


hmm.. Chicago is about 10 hours away from me. Well if I had other reasons to go to Chicago I might just take you up on your offer! I drove 8 hours to Maine to visit Gabe. But it was worth it because I was picking up the hood, s/c, JP cat-back, and got my headers and exhaust installed for cheap while I was there, plus not having to pay for shipping. thanks for the offer though

[JavaJoe_2]

hmm.. Chicago is about 10 hours away from me. Well if I had other reasons to go to Chicago I might just take you up on your offer!

Elmhurst!!

[chullen1]

Nice pickup with that carbon fiber hood where you located in MD I am in the Columbia Area

[bigbirdSCed]

how did it turn out josh? maybe you can fix mine

[TheBossMan]

hmm.. Chicago is about 10 hours away from me. Well if I had other reasons to go to Chicago I might just take you up on your offer!

Elmhurst!!

Oak Lawn!!

[kenny6683]

the sanding is good! but the clearcoat wont hold on a hood from a spray can. you should take it to a shop to get coated. the engine heat will ruin it again. carbon fiber hoods usually do not come with the insolation underneat which is why this happens. try and get that off your stock hood

[SirThomas88]

Rob, the hood came out pretty good. Much better than I got it, that's for sure. I didn't do the best job on the clearcoat unfortunately. Despite being an art major :p. The first clearcoat I applied turned out really really good, then I made the mistake of applying two more coats on top of that which dulled down the shinyness of the CF and didn't come out as evenly.

Sorry I've been procrastinating in posting the final pics! Now where did I put them.....

kenny, yeah I guess I shouldn't expect much better. I'll eventually get my whole car repainted and I'll get the hood painted too.

I'll get the pics posted as soon as I can find them (or take new ones).