C-One Replica Hood. Lets Fix this sucker!

[TinyGiant]

Okay some of you have seen the hoods that microimage had that came in with poor fitment. I finagled my way into trading him for one.. After Trying it on the car I saw potential for sure.

Observations:
-The Drivers side was nice and tight to the body and contoured nice with the headlight. Above the headlight the side was a little tight.. so i have to trim that down a little.
-Passenger side was about 1/4 if not more off. its like the trimmed the hood or set it up like 1/4in toward the drivers side.
-The hood had a little bit of a bow to it .. when you clamp down the middle (in the cowl) of the hood to the inside of the hood it removed the bow.
- The front sits a tiny bit too high


So... Here was my thought. BONDO! rather than laying down fiberglass and dealing with that i figured bondo sets fast and sands easily.


I'll get some pics later on.

I used Bondo-glass .. its a bondo with some short fiber in it.

a while back when fixing some rust on an old camry my parents had a mechanic taught me a slick trick with bondo to get off to a good start.. WAX PAPER! Start out mixing the bondo according to the directions and be ready to work fast because it sets fast. I would reccomend doing a little at a time so that you dont end up a with a pile of hard bondo that you cant use.

Put a little bit of bondo on the top and bottom edge of the hood.

Then cut a piece of wax paper and apply it to the bottom enough hanging out that you can fold it over the top.

Put an appropriate amount of bondo on the waxpaper by the edge. you might do a little more than you need so you can have an easier time shaping after.

Fold the wax paper up and over and squish it a little so that you can smooth it out and make it the thickness you need. dont worry about how wide your edge is because we want something to be able to trim down.


keep doing this until you get a good 1" more of an edge.

after is hardened you can peel off the wax paper and you should have somewhat of a smooth surface to work with.. more harder will make it set faster so if you put a little more in it will set faster so you can wax paper it and hold it in place so you get the right curve on it .. its pretty hard in 3-5min or so.


At first i used a sanding block and some sandpaper but found this to be taking way too long since i made it quite thick in a couple spots So i decided to graduate up to a palm sander. This saved alot of effort but still took a good amount of time.

Sand that sucker and shape it .. its going to take a long time. I actually used a paint scraper to shape it to start to get the high spots down.

after a while of sculpting and sanding you should have a nice smooth surface with more of an edge.


Removing the Bow:

Clamp the hood in the middle

Sand a little around the middle and wipe it down

Bondo the top and bottom making sure to get some bondo in between the top and the bottom and make sure that it petrudes over the gap so that it will set and secure it.

Let it sit 30-40min to make sure its really set.

Remove the Clamp.. and viola! no more bow!

Sand the sucker to make it smoothed out .. just make sure not to sand too much that you lose the bridge between the gap that you made to bond the two parts together.



Fitment/sculpting edge: (i'll do this tomorrow when i do this step)

[josevenezolano]

I can't wait to see the result I would like to get one of those hood.

[1NZYaris1]

Garms going to paddle my bonnet over too New Zealand , we should start
a sweeps stake on how long it will take too get here
with or with out Garm .

[TinyGiant]

lol

i got it pretty smooth last night after like 3hours of messing with it.. i just have to get it to line up today :)

i' got some air bubbles in the stuff that i discovered while sanding so i'll have to get something to fill those in before painting..

I also noticed the bondo is not as stiff as i thought it would be but right now its like 2" out from where it was so i expect it to be stiffer near the actual hood :) it'll be cool if i can get it to work.

I did notice when fitting it the other day that it seemed that the hood locked in a little high .. so i have to figure that out too

[cali yaris]

^ what a trooper, yeah!

[Yarisight]

To TinyGiant, and anyone else buying these hoods.....

You may want to try installing hood pins instead of trying to layer bondo to fix the problem with warped sides. Instead of going through the trouble of bondo and sanding you *MAY* be able to get a good result with hood pins.

I installed a carbon fiber VIS Monster Reverse Cowl Hood on my Yaris...similar to the C-One design.

I don't know what the extent of the fitament issues are with the C-One replica hood you guys are dealing with without seeing it first hand, but when I put my VIS hood on I had no problems with the back sides. The only problem I had was with the front passenger side of the hood looked a little warped (about a little over an 1/8 of an inch off or so).

Not horrible, but I noticed it, and wanted it to sit perfect. When the hood pins were installed this problem was corrected, and everything sits nice and even now.

Obviously if you don't like the look of hood pins this is not an option, but if you were thinking of getting them, or didn't want to go the bondo sanding route with these particular hoods it may be an easier answer for you. Just throwing the info out there for anyone interested...don't know if it would work with these hoods. Just sharing my personal experiences.

Best of luck to you all...it is a great hood design....I'll be watching to see how you guys make out.

[TinyGiant]

its not that the sides are warped.. its that the sides are cut too short.

i'll snap a pic of the bondo progess so far tonight .. i have too much screen printing to do to be able to play with it tonight :(

hopefully tomorrow!

[PHXDEMON]

In for pics.

[1NZYaris1]

I am going too reglass mine , if , i mean when Garm arrives

[TinyGiant]

uploaded some pics.. i still have some sanding to do i think today i'll fit it and trim it to where it needs to be then i'll put the sanding time in again and fill the air bubble holes :) Then i'll prime it :)

[severous01]

if i'm paying 500 for a hood it better darn well fit perfect. i dont care if it's a replica, one-off, or factory hood. if i'm reading on someone's website 'direct fit'...'perfect finish' bla bla bla...then it better be what's being claimed or i'm gonna have issues.

the hood on the car is freakin tiny...how hard is it to make a decent mold and make a perfect fit hood. seriously. for me it'd take some time...i'm compulsive and have no idea what i'm doin with CF or FG. but i guarantee that if i made a mold it'd be perfect and would have perfect fit.

i also understand that every car isnt the same. but then again that's where mass production and the hood bumpers come in...and the mounting bolts as well.

[TinyGiant]

Originally Posted by severous01

if i'm paying 500 for a hood it better darn well fit perfect. i dont care if it's a replica, one-off, or factory hood. if i'm reading on someone's website 'direct fit'...'perfect finish' bla bla bla...then it better be what's being claimed or i'm gonna have issues.

the hood on the car is freakin tiny...how hard is it to make a decent mold and make a perfect fit hood. seriously. for me it'd take some time...i'm compulsive and have no idea what i'm doin with CF or FG. but i guarantee that if i made a mold it'd be perfect and would have perfect fit.

i also understand that every car isnt the same. but then again that's where mass production and the hood bumpers come in...and the mounting bolts as well.

i traded garm some custom shirts for this hood. my costs are minimal and i got it expecting it to be a project :)

[kngrsll]

so does it weigh any less than the stock hood? i would guess not.

[TinyGiant]

Originally Posted by kngrsll

so does it weigh any less than the stock hood? i would guess not.

way less. i'll have to weigh it up to see how much.. but its alot lighter for sure

[kngrsll]

thats amazing. normally aftermarket hoods weigh more than the stock hood.

[TinyGiant]

okay here are some pics after dremeling for a couple hours to sculpt the hood for a "good fit"

[TinyGiant]

the white is the poweder from the bondo being sanded.. starting to come together nicely.

the passenger side fits great.. i think i did a better job than the mold.. lol it sits perfect on that side. I have to grind a little on the other side .. the topside along the wiper tray needs some work too.. its tight on the passenger side and like 1/4" on the other side .. so its either more bondo and shaping or grind the other side to match it lol

[TinyGiant]

bondoing the center piece after clamping worked perfect. put the perfect bow to the hood like it should have had.