> I too would be interested in what it would cost to get a hood like that
>painted. (I immagine it would have to be clearcoated too in order to look
>good.)
You'll pay a little bit more for a quality primer coat to get the paint to
stick to the fiberglass, the rest of the paint job (including clearcoat)
would be the same as for steel. I would be really surprised if the whole
job, including prep, cost more than $300. Unfortunately, you want an epoxy
primer, which you can't buy in rattle cans, so there's not much pre-prep
labor cost you could trim off by doing it yourself.
>should just bolt on. Something to keep in mind with fiberglass hoods is
>that the springs used to hold a car's hood up are designed for heavy steel
>hoods, and if you pull down on the hood to close it, you could crack the
>hood. I don't think this is an issue on the Dakota; the hinges for the
>hood don't appear to have any resistance; they're probably just simple
>hinges.
There's no assist (springs or gas struts) on a '93 anyway. Seems to me
the Durango had struts, so maybe all '97 and later do????
Parts engineered for fiberglass CAN be much lighter. Most fiberglass
automotive parts I've seen use way too much material, and weigh very nearly
what the steel part weighs. 'Glass still allows shapes that you can't execute
in steel, and of course it doesn't rust.
BTW, the heavy fiberglass problem is at least mostly due to what I call
the 'Corvette factor'. Supposedly, some GM bigwig came in to see one of the
early Corvette prototypes, and insisted that you be able to sit on the
fenders, just like a steel body. I bet you could save 80% of the body
weight of a 'Vette using modern epoxy composites with glass, kevlar, and
carbon fiber for stiffening.
Jim
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