ok guys need help...

[Mattman24]

i need to mold in my sub box (made out of mdf) to some of the plastic side peices in the rear of my tahoe, it will probley involve using fiberglass but what else is it goin to require?

[///M5]

?

[BlackTahoe]

1st call up some junkyards and get the panels you plan to use. Save the stock ones.

Are you talking about stretching fleece or whatever over the panels and across the box?

[Mattman24]

yeah i need to make it all flow together in the back, so how do u attach fleece to plastic?

[Exalted512]

So you dont want your sub box against the panels, you want the panels to be a part of your box?
-Cody

[TheOtherSide]

Yeah, I understand it to sound like you don't want a gap between panels and the box. In that case, you'll have to cover most of the panel in fleece/glass and then smooth/paint it to look integrated and seamless (If I understand what you want to acheive). I would either wrap the entire panel and staple the material underneath or use the panel as a mold and lay the mat right on top of it.

[Mattman24]

yeah no gap or seam, so staple the fleece to the plastic, would that hold, cause dang if that does then its smooth sailing from there

[KWHITELAW]

hard to visualize without pics but you could possibly duraglass the two pieces together.

can you get a pic up?

[Stealth HD]

hard to visualize without pics but you could possibly duraglass the two pieces together.

can you get a pic up?

Without fleece or any other mat, duraglass would crack out over time, you need something underneath that will be uniform throughout the 2 separate pieces.

How exactly do you plan on putting this all back in seeing as how it will be one piece instead of three? Also post pics of the finished product as I plan on doing something similar on my 91', but I was just going to mold the box up to the windows, and have the original plastic go up from there.

[KWHITELAW]

hence the word 'possibly'. if the box was butted up against a panel, and that panel was scuffed and then had fiberglass resin applied directly to it, he could 'possibly' be able to blend it if the area it was covering wasnt too great.

regardless, if he fiberglass matt's up to the side panel, he is eventually going to need to apply filler to blend the pieces. its where those two pieces meet with filler that will determine if it cracks.

[Stealth HD]

Once the mat and resin is applied to the two pieces then they become one panel, it's how solid he makes the bond between both panels, if he just does it at the top edge, then yes it will crack because the bottom half will still be flexing seperately, if he bonds the two panels all the way up, and the uses the mat to blend the areas, it should be fine, and yes there is always a need for filler to finish out any work of this type, and that is where I would use the duraglass, just not to fill the crevice between the two panels.

[KWHITELAW]

ill hold out to see pics.

[Mattman24]

ill get some up in a few hours, i have school and then ill be home and snap some pics

[BlackTahoe]

yeah no gap or seam, so staple the fleece to the plastic, would that hold, cause dang if that does then its smooth sailing from there

So I guess you're going to carpet the whole thing, because sanding and painting that much glass isn't really smooth sailing. IMO

Get a good respirator! Take out as many seats as you can, cover as much as you can with plastic, maybe put a big shop fan in the middle of your truck blowing the dust out the back while you sand. It's a lot of time.

[BassBaller5]

If theres concerncs of the plastic pannels flexing and cracking, you could make a mold of each side and fleece to that. The mold wouldnt be too hard and wouldnt require sanding since it would never be seen.

Also, are you talking about making the ENTIRE box seemless? or just a front trim piece so it LOOKS like the box is seemless. Using a front trim piece (1/4" MDF over the front of the box) would make it alot easier to remove or work on the box at a later time. It would be a real bitch to have to remove all the interior panels and someone slide them out the back of the Hoe if you had the entire box glassed to the car

[Mattman24]

ok the rear setup is 3 different peices an amp rack, and 2 box's, each box is molding into the side panal that it is up against, it will be easy to remove sence its peices

ok here some pics


im thinking right now of filling the gap with mdf the sucureing the plasti to the box with bolts, glue, screws, something that will hold strong, by doing this i can eleminate the stress on the fiberglass and hopefully pervent cracking

what is the best way to attach fleece to plastic?

im painting it all its all comes out so no dust is in my ride,

[Exalted512]

Theres not really a good way to attach fleece to plastic, period. Eventually, almost everything that you put on plastic is going to seperate. Especially with a lot of bass.

If I was doing it in my car, I would do without the plastic panels, and just make some. It wouldnt be that hard, but if thats not something you want to do, then the only other way I'd do it is staple the fleece to your box, then wrap it around your other panel (as in, the fleece would go between the panel and the wall of your cabin, then go back on the inside of your panel)

Drill A LOT of holes anywhere the fleece touches the plastic to let resin seep through, as well as before you put the fleece on, coat the plastic panel with resin as well as the bottom of the fleece with resin. This will ensure you will get a bond with plastic. If you dont drill holes, 99% of the time the fleece will break away from the plastic, causing horrible rattles that would probably end up being next to impossible to get rid of.
-Cody

[BlackTahoe]

im painting it all its all comes out so no dust is in my ride,

Don't those panels have to be lifted up shifted back and forth and snapped into and out of place. I don't see how you're going to be able to do all that to both sides at the same time while they are attached to a ~150 lb enclosure. So post some pics of the process.

[glassman2k2]

I'd probably build some panels that extend to meet the sides, throw a chamfer on them and then mask the vehicle, lay down some duraglass, and then bondo to clean them up. Youll most likely have to do it in two pieces in order to wiggle them in. On the Baffle where the woofer is, you cut a couple piece that are bigger than the woofers, mount the panel, then build some rings that attach to that panel bondo and smooth them out, breaks up the panel a bit and makes it not so flat