There's water in me bonnet!

[mooserage]

So I've been noticing the last few rainy days that when I open CF JDM vented hood that it has water pooling in it. I know it is because of the area around the vents where the skeleton (bottom portion) of the hood meets the top skin of the hood. There is a gap between the two, but they are held together in a few places by some kind of sealant/epoxy/something. Anyway, my question is, does anyone know what that stuff (sealant) is, or a good alternative high temp sealer/silicone I could use to fill the void? I would like to get some and fill in the the open area around the vents, but I want to make sure whatever it is can handle the heat from the manifold.

If a picture of this stuff would help I can get one real quick...

Thanks.

 

[rdomeck]

More than likely they just used resin to hold the two panels together.....It is messy and runny and hard to do a good job with. I would suggest using SEM panel bonding adhesive. Another good one is there seam sealer. The down side is you have to buy there two part gun to use it. If you have a friendly body shop they may let you borrow there's.

Another option would be Evercoat's corvette panel adhesive. It comes in quart cans and mixes like body filler. The down side to that you are back to using your fingers and a spreader to put it in!

The other down side to all the options above is that non of them are clear and probably not the same color as you hood. I could give my opinion on what I think about unpainted hoods, but I'm sure you have heard it before. I believe your best option if you never plan on painting your hood is to use clear silicone to fill the area! Sometimes you can find clear latex caulking and I would prefer that over silicone if there's is ever a chance of painting it (hint hint).

One more option click All-Seal Sealant for Wet and Oily Surfaces. I haven't tried, but this should be able to be painted over with automotive paints. ( I use the SEM stuff)

 

[toybreaker]

Shamus, pics would help a bunch!

Of hand, I'd use permatex "the right stuff" for something like that.

It's an rtv that can more than handle any temps that application will see. What's really cool about it is that it remains flexible, so there won;t be any issues with cracking if things get flexed. Aerodynamic loadings can cause flutter, especially at higher speeds. Locally bonding the two panels solidly *may* turn out poorly when the whole panel flutters under the wrong conditions, and the stress concentrates at that bond.

Buy the "right stuff" in the caulking gun style tubes, cut the tip really small and try and get a decent quantity to go into the gap. You can also fill a plastic syringe and use it's much smaller tip if the gap is smaller.

Wipe the edge with a finger to give it a finished appearance.

Let it dry a week, and then you can paint it to match.

 

[jepherz]

3m 8115 would work too. Stuff's expensive though.

 

[mooserage]

Thanks for the suggestions so far, I think some pictures will help clarify things. This won't really be visible from the top of the hood, so as long as the sealer isn't bright yellow, no one will notice. On a related, note someday (gets all dreamy) I hope to paint the whole car, including the hood.

Anyway here are some pictures for ya:
(sorry about the quality; the gold+ low light+ phone camera wreaked havoc on the colors.

You can see part of the gap I'm talking about below the two "fins," its the only black area in all the gold. It also has a piece of brown pine tree stuck in it...

Much easier to see it at this angle. And yes, my car has been sitting under this stupid tree for a couple of weeks, i gotta clean it and move it...

This last picture shows the gap around one of the aerocatches which also needs to be filled, but I'm not worried about heat with these

 

[mooserage]

I like the idea of using something softer as toybreaker pointed out it will probably see a lot of flexing and anything hard will probably eventually break. The area I photographed actually used to be bonded with whatever they used, but when I bought it and opened it I found that it had already split apart.

 

[mooserage]

I've looked through all of the suggested products and decided I am going to try using Permatex "The Right Stuff." I like that its flexible, relatively cheap, can definitely handle any heat, and probably the biggest reason is I don't have to buy a special caulking gun. I'll let you guys know how it goes when I get around to it, hopefully this week.