Fiberglass fractures?
Discussion
Hi, hope to hear from a fiber glass specialist or someone with experience on pranging their lotus..
Basically i had a small shunt on the front arch of the car which caused a very minor split (1cm) on the fiber glass. Not to bad, no other visible damage!
A few days later the car went into my local lotus garage to have some work done on the brakes and the car was there for almost 2 weeks. I popped down to pick the car up but realised they had cocked the brakes up.. looked at the car and all seemed fine.
The 2 days later went to pick it up again and there are serious stress fractures and damage 2 inches
about the split i created!...
There are no stress fractures from the split i created to the new damage on the car...
The garage is saying that fiber glass does not show its damage until a long time after the accident, but i have a strong feeling they created this new damage...
Any thoughts?
Ray
Basically i had a small shunt on the front arch of the car which caused a very minor split (1cm) on the fiber glass. Not to bad, no other visible damage!
A few days later the car went into my local lotus garage to have some work done on the brakes and the car was there for almost 2 weeks. I popped down to pick the car up but realised they had cocked the brakes up.. looked at the car and all seemed fine.
The 2 days later went to pick it up again and there are serious stress fractures and damage 2 inches
about the split i created!...
There are no stress fractures from the split i created to the new damage on the car...
The garage is saying that fiber glass does not show its damage until a long time after the accident, but i have a strong feeling they created this new damage...
Any thoughts?
Ray
This is a reprint of Miles Wilkins advice on Fibreglass,
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/fillpoke/glass2.htm
"After a major accident the extent of the gel crazing may not be evident for some days or even weeks later, when it shows. Driving a car after a minor accident will cause cracking to spread, making life difficult for any accident estimator to assess the TRUE damage. I always look for the slight deflections of light over the paintwork to tell me where the cracking stops, even though nobody else can even see the cracks beneath the paint. It goes without saying that all accident damage/crazing must be removed completely to prevent any further stress/gel cracks occurring again on the 'repaired' area."
So the garage are probably correct, I damaged the rear wing on my S1 by pushing the roof bows into the recess too far and hit the inside of the wing. About a week later the star crack appeared, all my own fault as well.
You don't say if its an S1 or S2, apparently S1 are much easier to repair being hand laid to begin with. S2 are injection moulded, much thinner, therefore lighter but more easily damaged and more difficult to repair!
henry
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/fillpoke/glass2.htm
"After a major accident the extent of the gel crazing may not be evident for some days or even weeks later, when it shows. Driving a car after a minor accident will cause cracking to spread, making life difficult for any accident estimator to assess the TRUE damage. I always look for the slight deflections of light over the paintwork to tell me where the cracking stops, even though nobody else can even see the cracks beneath the paint. It goes without saying that all accident damage/crazing must be removed completely to prevent any further stress/gel cracks occurring again on the 'repaired' area."
So the garage are probably correct, I damaged the rear wing on my S1 by pushing the roof bows into the recess too far and hit the inside of the wing. About a week later the star crack appeared, all my own fault as well.
You don't say if its an S1 or S2, apparently S1 are much easier to repair being hand laid to begin with. S2 are injection moulded, much thinner, therefore lighter but more easily damaged and more difficult to repair!
henry
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