There has been a lot of discussion on the quality of aftermarket OAI Hoods. I thought I would share my experience with the Glasstek hood that I purchased from The Parts Place. This hood initially cost approx. $700.00. After I purchase the hood I took it to the paint shop.
They had it outside working on it in the direct sun on a 95 deg day. When the hood got hot in the sun blisters started forming from air pockets in the gelcoat. To repair the hood we had to find all the air pockets by gently heating it with a heat gun. We then ground out the blisters with a dremel tool. The first 2 pics show some areas of the hood where the pockets have been ground out and are ready to be filled with resin.

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Holes have been filed and are being sanded flush


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a couple different angles showing the extent of damaged areas. Also note the rough primer finish that comes on the hood. I looked at some hoods at a show this year that have a slick smooth finish. The back edge of the hood is too thick and has to be worked to get it to the right dimension to get the trim molding on.


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The hood does come with cutouts and provisions for the factory latch assembly. The bolt holes do not line up and will have to be filled and redrilled. The underside finish of the hood is horrible.


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Ok the end result. I spent 8 hours of my time (no charge) finding the air pockets, digging them out and refilling them. The body shop had 15 hours @ $75.00 per hour with epoxy primer and block sanding to get it to this point. Hind sight is 20/20. I have a lot of time and money tied up getting this to a point I can use it. My paint guy said it was the worst hood he had ever dealt with. If I could have a do-over it would be with something other than a Glasstek Hood

 

Wow, that is rough. I'm sorry you had to deal with that. When it's time for me to do a hood, I'm going with OEM or Thornton for exactly this reason. Please post pictures of the end result, though.

 

yes a definite bummer, but.... My original hood probably had at least that much time into it to get the waves out of it. Look at any original hood that hasn't been blocked sanded and worked on and it will be wavy. Not saying its as bad as what you had to deal with, just trying to point out some of your cost would have gone into an original hood as well (just trying to alleviate some of your pain )

 

My pin on wasn't that bad.

 

Fiber concepts seems like a good hood. Anyone want to share their experiences with it?

 

Thanks Steven. You are correct about the original hoods. Any fiberglass hood is going to need some work to make it right. My purpose in this thread is not necessarily to run down the the Glasstek hood but to prepare those who buy one that there is a lot of work to be done once they get it.

 

One other thought on this hood is I was lucky that we were doing this work in the summer and that the hood sat in the sun. It would have been really bad if we prepped it and painted it over all those air pockets. Get to the first car show next summer and all these bubbles start forming under the paint

 

I purchased a glasstec as well and had about 10 hours of sanding and filling the lake size low spot in the driver scoop. the black primer was rough and almost all of it had to be removed to find imperfections. I had to do way more filling and blocking on this then I would of hoped for. the lip was oversized on the trailing edge but the front matched up perfectly. the hinge bolts were perfect on mine. I've forgotten to bolt it down three times now (once was the painter) and have had the hood pop up driving down the road. The hood is still perfect, no flex or damage. Can't say the same for the three sets or repo hinges @ 250 bucks a set! Overall I love my hood but that's only because after spending hours on it to make it mine.

 

Those bubbles were caused by an inexperienced fibreglasser who didn't take all the air out of the wet cloth. I work in fibreglass every day and I see what happens when an inexperienced fibreglasser doesn't take all the air out of the glass. It leaves an empty pocket under the gelcoat and the result is what happened to your car. The gelcoat collapses into the empty space. It was very lucky that you happened to put the hood out in the sun.

 

My Glasstek hood was not nearly that bad and I have had no pops in the sun. Maybe it was late on a Friday with happy hour looming when yours was done! I also had to cut down the rear portion and sand it to install my trim. All in all, for the price, I only had about 8 hours of my time in to it. No body shops.

 

I bought a fiber concepts hood last year. Haven't done anything with it yet. Looks pretty decent initially. I'll have some finish work to do on the opening on the scoops . It has provision for factory latch which looks like it should line up OK. I'll let you know what I get into when I start prepping it for paint but so far I see no major obvious issues.

 

A couple of other issues you might want to check. I bought a FC hood for my car as well. Had the following issues:


1) The scoop openings needed A LOT of work, as you mention, to get them anywhere close to decent looking



2) The whole center area of the hood was slightly depressed and my body man had to put some serious work into getting it level.


3) The rear lip where the trim snaps onto was REALLY too fat and needs a lot of material removal before the trim will install


4) One of the nuts in hood that captures the hinge to hood bolt was attached at a weird angle (the rear passenger side one) and caused some installation issues. I could not start the bolt well, and wound up stripping out the nut.


5) I don't remember the specific issue, but I had to do some rigging on a couple of the front grille opening trim screws to get the trim attached.


6) The underside of the hood looks pretty unfinished - if this is important to you.


7) Biggest problem - the rear underside of the hood is too thick. When the hood is closed, it actually is touching the cowl area. I could not get it to shut properly until I removed the cowl to hood weatherstripping, and even then it still rubs. I've tried shimming it every way, but it doesn't help much. Afterwards, I read here on CO this is a common problem on the non-Thornton aftermarket hoods. The only solution is to have the bottom of the hood worked to get some clearance.


8) I am now getting some "wrinkling" going on with the finish. I fear it is the trapped bubbles coming to the surface as others have mentioned.



The guy at FC is really nice, but it is a 795.00 hood. If getting it really right is important to you, get the Thornton. Expensive at first, more cost effective in the long run.

 

X2 on this Joe. Unless you have considerable time and paint prep skills so that you can perform the work yourself you will end up with more money in a hood of inferior quality!

 

At the end of the day if you work through the issues and have deep enough pockets the end result can still be nice. I finally got the hood trimmed out and lined up yesterday. Still need the stripes put on. I ended up with some fitment issues between the hood and the grills. Since both are repos I was not sure which was the culprit. If you are interested in how I fixed this you can check out my build site at:
https://classicoldsmobile.com/forums...442-clone.html

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One last question on this. I bought the light weight springs and they are not heavy enough to hold the hood up. Has anyone else run into this?

 

This part of the project is the gift that keep on giving. giving me a PIA that is. The hood came as a kit with the light weight springs that do not hold the hood up and the hood hold downs and brackets. I thought today would be a good opportunity to install the hood hold downs. Kind of the finishing touch. Shouldn't take too long right. That's what I said about 4.5 hours ago and I am still not finished. The brackets for the pins are not even close to being right. When I say not close, the holes are about 1.5 inches off. What a freaking nightmare. I will be calling TPP in the am

 

I had the same issue with my hood....I ended up using 1 light weight spring and 1 stock spring. I painted them to match.

 

I say something is wrong guys. I have a glass tek hood and had 0 problems and several others feel the same way about there products. I agree the aftermarket hinges have to have a prop rod or different springs. I would also like to add that maybe somewhere the product was changed out also. by the way did you put any chemicals on the hood? The hood could have a chemical reaction to things that are not designed to work with it.

 

I have the lightweight springs from pp w my glass trek hood. The hood opens and closes ( and stays up when open) just like the steel hood w original springs. The glass hood feels about the same as the steel hood effort wise opening and closing

My lock brackets could have better alignment, but they are close enough that w some adjustments they work properly.

 

we had not sprayed the hood with anything at the point it started blistering. The bubbles formed under the primer. Maybe the hood was made late on Friday but it was definitely due to air pockets in the glass.

 

Did your brackets come with the hood? These are so far off that I had to cut them to get them close where they needed to be. The hole was not even in the ballpark of where it needed to be. Could you take a pic of your bracket?

 

I had no problems with mine but that was 10+ years ago........If your doing a concourse restore I wouldn't go with a Glasstek hood...Mine is more go than show so the little issues didnt bother me......That thick back lip the chrome didn't fit over,I taped that off and painted it chrome........Did a little work to even out the eyebrow moldings....Got my light weight springs from Fusick as I remember.....I have a no name cowl on there now for room for the Victor intake.......I plan on a raised scoop one from Rocket Racing soon........

 

My hood hold downs came from Parts Place as well and I didn't have a problem with the fitment. I bought them in 2012, so I don't think they would change that much in couple years. I was going to go take a picture, but then I realized it's buried under a tarp because I've been spraying primer in my garage and I didn't want overspray on the Olds.

 

Where you finally able to get your hood pins installed?

 

I did get the hood pins installed and working nicely now! BUT! I had to modify the brackets quite a bit to gain some adjustment.

 

Did you have any directions to do this? I have to install mine from the parts place, and of course there is no instructions. I assume you just drill a hole in the hood, but do you have to remove the pin on the "pin" to get it threw the hood? Any help (and maybe pictures) on this would be greatly appreciated.

 

Sorry I don't have any pics and the car is in the shop having the stripes done now. Is your hood a Glasstek? I think I centered the pin in the depression in the hood and then put play dough on the lock down brackets. I gently lowered the hood so the pins made a depression in the play dough and then adjusted the brackets accordingly. Hope this helps and good luck.

 

Fiber Concepts hood. I'll try that with the play dough. What size hole did you drill?

 

Pretty sure I just drilled 1 size bigger than the pin. Just enough oversize that there was no resistance on the pin. Important to keep the drill perpendicular to the hood. Remember you are drilling through the top of the hood and the bottom of the hood and there is a void in between. Good luck!