Arctic Egg: Fiberglass Repair

1996 SD 16' rehabilitation. Fiberglass repair work (to be followed with a gelcoat post later). We had a smashed portion of a wheel well, bad cracking above doorway corners, miscellaneous dings, and a fair number of hairline cracks (some looking like they were telegraphing structural stress). I also didn't like how the water heater surround was a fiberglass frame riveted to the body, so decided to make it a part of the body.

Removal of bad cracking above door.

Fiberglass from front and behind.

View from behind. Note the old holes for the rain guard above the door.

Using a fairing compound to fill areas. Why do they make it red?? I know it's easier to see/sand, but I'd prefer it were white.

Sanding and more fairing compound.

Areas that had a decent number of hairline cracks. I sanded them down fully.

And added some fiberglass over top. Not much, but hoping it will give a bit more structure under the gelcoat.

These are from the old boomerang shaped TV antenna.

Ground down enough to add a few layers of fiberglass.

I don't like that the heater mount is fiberglass riveted to the body, with plastic filler pieces where they made the whole too wide.

So I took it off.

Trimmed pieces of it off with a jigsaw (keeping some tabs to rivet it in place to get the right alignment)

View from the inside.

Fiberglassed it in place inside and out.

Fairing compound to get it smoother/filled.

Some more fiberglass to build it up more.

I didn't like some of the cracking in the 'lip', so I removed the belly band to get access.

And ground down the areas that were damaged.

Built it up with fiberglass

And did the same on the rear lip.

Fairing compound to fill/smooth.

Our new lights will have different mounting holes, so filled the existing ones.

The access compartment in the back right had rivets that were only partly gripping the fiberglass, so decided to build up some tabs to get them attached completely.

Ours is a bunk model, but we don't have the bunk. The piece of wood that supports the bunk from under the window had four rivets going to the outside. The rail is supported well from the inside, being fiberglassed in place. I decided to grind the fiberglass down a bit to put new rivets in that would be under the fiberglass/gelcoat. Time will tell if that was a bad idea or not.