C-3 Luggage Rack Removal- Filling holes successful?

[Rich C.]

Was curious as to the chances of success in filling in holes from a removed luggage rack on my '73. Not a project I would tackle myself. But the car is 'silver metallic', is a undetectable repair going to be next to impossible? The body will be coming off when before body prep, so reaching the underside of the deck won't be an issue. Guess I could always re-chrome the original rack, which is starting to look a little tired. Like to have the car judged some day. Any thoughts?



1973 LS-4 454 coupe owned 24 years
1996 LT-4 Collector coupe owned 15 months
Sierra Nevada Torpedo IPA currently on tap!

[Bill L.]

Re: C-3 Luggage Rack Removal- Filling holes successful?

Was curious as to the chances of success in filling in holes from a removed luggage rack on my '73. Not a project I would tackle myself. But the car is 'silver metallic', is a undetectable repair going to be next to impossible? The body will be coming off when before body prep, so reaching the underside of the deck won't be an issue. Guess I could always re-chrome the original rack, which is starting to look a little tired. Like to have the car judged some day. Any thoughts?

1973 LS-4 454 coupe owned 24 years
1996 LT-4 Collector coupe owned 15 months
Sierra Nevada Torpedo IPA currently on tap!

Hi Rich,

I can only mention what I did and after 6 years still no evidence of the rack except from underneath. I am confident having done this once that the next time it could be done with virtually no indication of a repair from top or bottom. This was done with the body on and gas tank in place.

Here is what was done.

Picked up a trashed rear deck. Used a hole saw and cut out perfect circles from donor deck. Then VERY carefully used a dremel to make holes an exact fit on the rear deck. I was very careful to leave a bit of the rear deck there to use as a kind of bonding strip. . Then reduced the thickness of the circles from the donor panel to match top of panel on mine. Used bonding material and bonded them in place.

What would I change? I would keep the circles the original thickness and dremel the bottom of the circles the diameter of the luggage rack holes so that even from underneath the repair would be original glass and pretty tough to detect once excess bonding material is carefully removed. The other possiblity would be to use tinted fiber glass instead of bonding material when securing glass circles in deck. Then just lightly sand the underside and the glass will match very well.

Figure the closer the tolerance the less the chance the repair would be visible at some point let alone detectable.

Bill

[Rich C.]

Re: C-3 Luggage Rack Removal- Filling holes successful?

Bill,

That is an interesting approach! I looked at and earlier thread similar to this, and saw some pictures that Alan posted showing a picture of his deck repair. Probably cheaper than rechroming all the pieces on my luggage rack, not to mention the judging penalty.



1973 LS-4 454 coupe owned 24 years
1996 LT-4 Collector coupe owned 15 months
Sierra Nevada Torpedo IPA currently on tap!

[Jeff P.]

Re: C-3 Luggage Rack Removal- Filling holes successful?

The luggage rack was one of the most terrible options GM ever thought of. Just my two cents!

[Joe R.]

Re: C-3 Luggage Rack Removal- Filling holes successful?

Rich,

Yes, the holes can be fixed but it will take a professional and some time to accomplish the task! Since the body is going to be off the frame the holes can be fix on the bottom side also.
First take a grinder with something like a 2.5 inch disc of 36 sandpaper. Feather each hole from the back and front to about two inches from the center of the hole. That doesn't mean enlarging the hole to two inches. It means the edge should feather out to two inches. The two holes from the front and back should meet in the middle of the panel thickness.
First glass the underside with loose fiberglass mat. Do not use fiberglass cloth. Let it set and grind it smooth from the underside. Now from the top do the same thing with resin and fiberglass mat. Now grind it below the surface only slightly. At this point it would be nice to let it cure for the next 30 days if you have time. Fiberglass resin and mat will shrink no matter how you accomplish this task. Waiting will help. After waiting as long as possible use a polyester filler such as "Rage" and completely cover the patch. Again wait as long as possible because the filler will shrink but NOT as much as fiberglass. Finish the repair as with any fiberglass repair and I recommend using an Epoxy Primer such as DP-90.
And this is all assuming that you have completely stripped all the paint and primer and working with bare fiberglass.

Good luck as you are going to need it!

JR

[Alan S.]

[Pat M.]

Re: C-3 Luggage Rack Removal- Filling holes successful?

It can be done. My 70's previous owner made the repairs using a method similar to Joe's and when I got the car you could barely see where the holes were and then only in the perfect light and at the perfect angles. After I had the car repainted (with no further attempt to address the repairs) it is now impossible to tell where the holes were.