fibreglass doors

[ray]

are fibreglass doors legal on the street and what about bumpers is it possible to use the original glass in fibre doors so the can roll up and down and what about the interior panel

[GLENNP]

My doors are stock but gutted. Very light and free. The structure behind the trim panel is also removed and an aluminum panel used in it place.

[thebankerstoy]

You can check with your local MVD office to see if they are legal for street use in your area. If your building a serious race car that will see most of it's use on the drag strip, then glass body panels make sense, but for a daily driven street car, I would seriously think about it, as saving weight via fiberglass body panels on a street car, verses the expense and hassel of light weight body parts on a street car, just doesn't make sense to me. I have a 70 Cuda race only car, with a glass hood, fenders, doors, trunk lid and bumpers. Not only are fiberglass parts harder to get properly fitted and aligned with each other, but painting these parts is harder to get a really nice top coat on, as compared to the original stamped steel body panels. Larger fiberglass panels tend to look "wavy" when painted, as you can't really block sand and fill imperfections on fiberglass panels like you can on sheet metal.

I don't know about all fiberglass companies, but most of the glass doors that I have seen, including the older doors on my Cuda, have no provisions for mounting roll-up windows in them, as that would negate the weight savings that you get when you use these glass parts. I would also doubt that anyboby would want to take the time to reproduce all of the mounting points that you would need to install all of the hardware needed for factory style windows. Most of the folks who are using glass doors on their race cars, have lexan door and quarter window glass, that is  mounted into  frame work that is then bolted onto the car. Not having windows that roll up and down on a street car would NOT be a good idea for obvious reasons.  You will also have fun trying to make glass doors and lexan windows weather proof. 

As far as using your stock inner door panels goes, most of them use metal clips to attach the door panels to the stock sheet metal doors. You might be able to install your door panels the first time, but it could be hell trying to remove all of these metal clips out of the light weight holes in the glass doors without damaging them if you ever needed to remove them for some reason in the future. 

Sorry for the long post, but I've been where your at right now and have gone over and over the pro's and con's of fiberglass body panels on both street cars and race cars and I just feel that unless you have a SERIOUS race car, just stick with your original sheet metal, you will be a LOT happier in the lomg run, in my humble opinion. 

Richard
 

[ray]

yeh that makes alot of sense thanks man i still want bumpers tho just because they will be easier to find and ill paint them insead of chroming are the bumpers usually a good fit?

[thebankerstoy]

The glass bumpers that we used on our 70 Cuda back in the mid 80's were pretty well done and were the best of all of the fiberglass parts that we used. Since they are smaller parts, you will have an easier time painting them also.  Just shop around for QUALITY, rather than PRICE, as there is nothing worse than cheap fiberglass parts! 

Richard   

[Bakaruda]

I would say if you do not tell they will not know.

[Dartsport]

For Inspectin , fiberglass doors should pass. Corvettes are fiberglass, and a bunch of new cars have fiberglass and plastic body panels. Doors, fenders. Chevy Lumina mini vans are all plastic except the floor pan, and maybe the roof.