Can anything be done about this warped deck lid?

[seanscandalous]

I bought this deck lid about a month ago and it arrived really badly warped on the bottom left side.
It's a steel deck lid with the fiberglass duck tail grafted on.

I'm thinking when the fiberglass cured, it tweaked the deck lid base but I'm not sure.

Can anything be done to fix this?

Maybe a second latch to hold it closed on that side?

Maybe a strut shock on the right side to match the left side to try to even out the pressure?

Thoughts?

[seanscandalous]

Album full of pictures both on and off the car here.

[DanielDudley]

*I'd* cut a slot from just under the duck on the driver's side to about 3/4 of the way to the lower passenger side corner, and try to wedge it, warp it down. If that worked, I'd grind a trough around the slot and glass it back up.

OTOH, that kind of stuff doesn't scare me, and I'd figure I had nothing to lose. I'd warp it on the car, for proper fitment.

[seanscandalous]

Originally Posted by DanielDudley

*I'd* cut a slot from just under the duck on the driver's side to about 3/4 of the way to the lower passenger side corner, and try to wedge it, warp it down. If that worked, I'd grind a trough around the slot and glass it back up.

OTOH, that kind of stuff doesn't scare me, and I'd figure I had nothing to lose. I'd warp it on the car, for proper fitment.

Can you clarify further? I'm sorry, I'm having a hard time picturing it.

[dfhtrhjn]

My duck tail isn't totally straight either; not as bad as yours. I put little rubber bumpers on the bottom corners of the deck lid where the tail comes down in the back. When I shut it, the rubber bumpers automatically level the decklid and set the height so the panel lines are clean.

[lsf911]

I had the same problem with my metal framed ducktail lid when it showed up. I mounted it and twisted it slightly several times in small increments until it was straight.

Yes I took a chance that the fiberglass could have cracked, but it didn't. Even if it did, the lid needed to be straightened and I could have repaired the fiberglass. Unless of course you can live with a twisted lid then just leave it alone.

Good luck.

[DanielDudley]

Originally Posted by lsf911

I had the same problem with my metal framed ducktail lid when it showed up. I mounted it and twisted it slightly several times in small increments until it was straight.

Yes I took a chance that the fiberglass could have cracked, but it didn't. Even if it did, the lid needed to be straightened and I could have repaired the fiberglass. Unless of course you can live with a twisted lid then just leave it alone.

Good luck.

You should try this first. ^^^^ Twisting the top of the lid is probably easier than warping the bottom.

I was literally talking about cutting a diagonal slot directly through the fiberglass in such a way as to make it possible to force the driver's side corner down. If you drew a line from the bottom passenger side corner up to the bottom of the duck on the driver's side, that would be your cut line. Wedging that cut would force the driver's side corner down, like a fold in paper. The reason you would grind a hollow into the deck lid before you added a layer of fiberglass cloth and resin would be so you would not create a lump when you glassed in your repair.

It is actually a bit more complicated than this, but not very much. Once you get the area glassed up, you can then use a bondo type filler to contour the rest of the repair.

Fiberglass is a woven cloth or matt material suspended in epoxy resin. Grinding out a hollow and laying a new section of cloth in reinforces a break in what was once a solid section of glass reinforces epoxy. Probably I would cut it, wedge it, mix epoxy resin with a thickening medium to fill the crack and stabilize the wedges, then I would grind out the area and lay in my reinforcement.

I am guessing that there are probably tons of You Tube videos of people repairing boat hulls and Corvette fenders. Fiberglass is easy to work with, but the dust from grinding will have ground up bits of glass in it, so you need to be aware of that. The epoxy resin fumes are not so swell either.

[Fixer]

Just secure the top and flex it back carefully.