Gotta start somewhere

Time to actually start fixing the top of the Viper's hood.  I started with the crack in the upper passenger's corner of the hood scoop.  As you can see in the pic, after it was "fixed" it continued to crack.  You can also see towards the bottom of the pic another crack that never got addressed at all:

Grinding into the crack revealed another problem.  Just like the area further down the hood, some of the fiberglass has delaminated.  There are some fibers that have broken loose from the rest of the panel.  You can see too that though the main crack had some new fiberglass over it, it was still very much there.

When you start grinding onto these things, it's actually fairly easy to see the cracks and delamination.  As you're grinding, you just keep following the cracks until you get back into solid fiberglass.  If you're not ready for it, it can start to look pretty grim as you keep grinding, and grinding, and you're still chasing the crack.  With this crack for example, I ended up having to grind out a sizable chunk of hood to get rid of all the damage.  Much of it goes all the way down to the inner panel.

The rest of the repair is the same as any of the other repairs I've showed.  I do have another bit of how-to to add though.  As you're laying up fiberglass, you are going to get bubbles in the resin.  Bubbles can cause problems down the road, particularly if they're close to the surface.  You can, to some extent, use a bondo spreader to work the bubbles out, but it doesn't always work for small bubbles.  Fortunately, there's a tool for that.  For around $15, you can buy a fiberglass roller.  It's made specifically for rolling out fiberglass, and works great for working out bubbles.

The only down side to a fiberglass roller is that you have to use it and get it clean before the resin starts to set.  If the resin sets before it's clean, you may as well throw it away.  Dunking it in a tub of acetone will help dissolve the resin, as well as slow down the reaction giving you a few more minutes to get it clean.