Gen 1 Paint question

[Darren C]

Hi,

I need to deal with some star craze & micro blisters on the hood of my Viper Red 94 and have a question I hope you experienced guys can answer please

Was the original factory paint in 94 a single coat 2K color or was it a 2 stage base color with a clear coat on top?

Many thanks in advance

[SNKEBIT]

Base/clear.

[GRglasser]

I've worked on my black '94 and my friend's green '95, both are base/clear.

[GRglasser]

Are you intending to wetsand the crazing? Could you post a pic? I wet-sanded a little on the deck lid with nice but far from perfect results. I'm curious if you have the same problem and if you have a better solution.

[Darren C]

Its real bad in the centre of the hood, I plan on grinding down an area about 2 feet square & re glassing it (the cracks are deep) then building back up the surface before paint to stop it returning.

Viper Bonnet 1.jpg

[Darren C]

To show location of damage.
It was already there when I bought the car, so no idea how it happened, just want to fix it as it really spoils an otherwise very good car

Viper Bonnet 2.jpg

[SNKEBIT]

Can't used regular fiberglass resin. Not same material. What happens is that the fiberglass resin does not move when it heats up in the sun, etc.. It will break loose.. The hood is SMC composite, so be sure you use a SMC resin..

[GRglasser]

I'd love to see progress pics as you tackle it!

[Darren C]

Thanks for the quality information guys.
I'll let you know how I get on.

[Darren C]

Bondo.jpg

Bondo 1/4" of it!

That's what's cracking in the center of the hood

- - - Updated - - -

Bondo2.jpg

Gonna have to dig it all out

[GTS Dean]

I believe that quite a few of the mid-year '93 model Gen 1 hoods that were rejected at the factory may have ended up in the replacement parts inventory system. I seem to recall that they had a lot of body filler on them. Maybe yours has been replaced with one sometime in the past.

[Darren C]

The whole surface appears to have 1/4" of Bondo, slowly & VERY carefully taking it all down to the original panel, there's previous tool marks under here
Bonnet 2.jpg

Bonnet 1.jpg

[Darren C]

Thats a lot of Bondo

Bondodust.jpg

But now I'm down to the original SMC with just the factory first fill of the Mould Join lines visible in the panel

Bonnet strip1.jpg

Bonnet strip2.jpg

It looks like all the heavy Bondo was actually added during manufacture as it was straight onto the SMC with no paint or primer below so the story of mid 93 manufacturing issues appears true!
Just got to remove the remaining paint around the two depressions now & start to prepare for paint. I really don't understand why they put so much bondo over the whole hood as now its removed the surface is smooth & true????
I'm guessing the different thermal expansion of the Hood & 1/2" of Bondo caused all those cracks, as none of the cracks go into the SMC or the mould joints.

[GTS Dean]

Behold - the largest single piece of moulded bodywork on any automobile in the world - up to that time.

[lisekplx]

Good work man, can’t wait to see the finished product .

[Darren C]

Quick update,
The hood was baked in the oven twice to see if anything was going to "pop" and all is good

Next stage was a light thinned down primer coat (which will be sanded back after) just to see if there's any cracks I've not noticed (thinned paint highlights cracks)

All good too, so I can now progress to a light fill of the few remaining little defects (nothing like the 1/2" Bondo, I'm guessing barely a 1/16th in small areas is required)

Whilst all this was baking and drying I've started on the Passenger Rocker panel. It was damaged by the shipping company (which made me mad) but hey they wont paid up so I gotta fix it myself, even though they accept it was done on their truck, have witnesses & photos of it happening (figure that out!)
Photo of the damage winching it on the shippers truck
damage 1 on truck.jpg
Removed panel off the car, showing full length gouge and ripped out cooling slots
Sill 1.jpg
I dressed down the gouge and reshaped the panel using hammers & dollies
Then switched my MIG welder over to aluminium and with a heatsink backing plate I welded back in the torn out pieces
sill 2.jpg
And from reverse so you can see the added aluminium penetrated right through the panel
Sill 3.jpg
Last job was to file down the welds externally to make a neat repair of the missing torn metal ready for paint preparation
sill 4.jpg

[Viper98]

Excellent!!!
I love this thread.
Thx for the update.

These kinds of threads are so cool.

Keep up the great work!

[GTS Dean]

British cottage industry craftsmanship FTW.

[Fatboy 18]

Brilliant work Darren

[GRglasser]

Very interesting! I love all the detailed pics. I'm baffled why the factory would use so much bondo if the hood shape was correct.

[Darren C]

Before the weekend I gave the hood a coat of thinned down primer as a crack test (paint highlights any cracks) and all is good, so this evening we're starting with a small amount of blocking to see where I need to add the smallest amount of filler

Bonnet 3.jpg

I found some aluminium corrosion on the Rocker/Sill panel top and side (which looked like a little bubble area under the paint) Sanding back it was corrosion and very perforated, working on it, it quickly became two holes about 3/16 diameter give or take. So Using the same method as the underside repair, I aluminium welded the holes up to fill the holes & pool welded the surface to fill the pitting before sanding back the surface flush. Not sure how well the picture below will show the detail as its an almost invisible repair? Its at about 6 to 8 o'clock in the lower half of the bare aluminium and just slightly a different color as my weld rod isn't exactly like the panel metal

sill weld.jpg

Here it is again marked up to show the position of the new aluminium welded hole repair

sill weld_LI.jpg

Then I also gave the Rocker/Sill cover a prime & its hardened good over the weekend

sill 6.jpg

[ViperSRT]

Great work. Back in 1996 give or take Dodge provided replacement sills to eliminate the sill corrosion for all RT/10 at no cost. Guess everyone didn't take them up on it.

[GTS Dean]

My GTS got new rocker covers due to oxidation/corrosion under warranty.

[ViperSRT]

My GTS got new rocker covers due to oxidation/corrosion under warranty.

Now that I think about it the timing for that customer satisfaction recall was around 1998, which then would have included GTS as well. Our local club spread the news and many of us had the work done at the same time and same place.

[My98RT10]

Now that I think about it the timing for that customer satisfaction recall was around 1998, which then would have included GTS as well. Our local club spread the news and many of us had the work done at the same time and same place.

That is interesting. I am wondering, what they have changed and if from 1998 onwards these changes were applied to the production, too?