zarx

I'm in the processes of building a set of pods onto my existing door panels. I want to move my mids and tweets down low, but I don't have any room in the kick panels so I will put them on the door panels for a similar effect. I am planning on repainting the panel to give the fibreglass panels the appearance of being part of the door. The panels on my car are one single piece of injection moulded plastic, and I am wondering what is the best method of fastening the fleece to the plastic. Can I simply use a little 3M adhesive spray and then resin the fleece to the plastic - or will the resin hardened fleece pop off the plastic?

SUX 2BU

iTrader: (1)

^ Got that right. Where spray adhesive won't work, I find that hot glue does. You will still have to devise a method of fastening the fleeced pod to the plastic panel more permanently though. Like using screws or bolts.

sac

Would you not be better to fasten the pod to the door frame, perhaps hiding it behind the speaker grilles (stock or modified) on the panel?

Admittedly the frame will vibrate, but the panel seems like a rather flimsy object -- can it really provide an effective anchor for a solid pod?

Or is decoupling the pod from the frame part of the strategy?

I'm looking at doing something similar with my Miata, but my set-up will include two 6-1/2 mids. I had assumed that I would better to anchor to the door frame...

zarx

well I will definately be fastening the pods to the door frame with screws and such, but I wanted to give the pods the appearance of being part of the door panel (only they will be painted a different colour for contrast). I am doing a few tests to see how well the resin will adhere to the plastic when the plastic is smooth and also when I have roughed up the plastic with course sand paper and a file.
I will let you guys know how it goes.
Anybody else have some input?

zarx

It worked pretty well! When you scratch up the plastic the resin holds on with more than enough force. Quite impressive actually. I am now trying another approach for a test. I am making a mold of the plastic area using mold release - then i am going to epoxy it to the plastic. I want to see if it is any stronger.
has anyone else tried doing this?

Westec

iTrader: (1)

I would grab the new panel and twist it a little bit, this will simulate the car door opening and closing etc. If the pod remains in place with no cracking, thumbs up! If it pops off, start again. You can use a skim coat of epoxy like ,zarx suggested, but it will only help adhere better but it might still crack. Re-enforing the panel is the key, its usually panel moment that makes the pod crack or seperate. I learned this building the pods and a-pillars in my car, and 5 customers cars. There is also a ceramic based coating used in exotic cars repairs that works awesome, but I cannot find it in Canada...cheers.

Blinddemonz

I'd like to see some pics of the finished product if possible I wanted to do this in my Z24 with my 6.5's to make 'em look better.

zarx

well I'm going to do a few more tests tonight. The epoxy worked well, but honestly not much better than the resin did on the roughed up surface. I bought some 50 grit paper so I am going to rough the hell out of the plastic and see how the resin sticks again. If it pops off I will try the epoxy one last time. I am determined to find a method of adhering the fiberglass to the plastic.
Blind...No worries - the pictures have already begun [img]graemlins/thumb.gif[/img]

Kinslayr

iTrader: (2)

You could always try putting some small screws through the back of the plastic to the outside, then try adhering your fiberglass to the lil "spikes" The screw itself would not let the fiberglass pull off.