Bonding a Toyota Hood


For many years the hood on my 1985 4Runner had slowly started to separate. From the factory Toyota hoods of this era came as two pieces a brace and exterior sheet metal skin. These two pieces were then bonded together with a kind of adhesive foam. Over time with engine heat, my constant abuse and neglet this foam had fallen apart which caused the two pieces to vibrate against eachother, so I was looking for a (cheap) solution.

My first poor attempt was using RTV, this failed miserably. RTV is designed to harden and as opposed to the foam from the factory that had a "give" to it this stuff just hardened and flaked off (taking the factory paint with it).

My second attempt was using a two part epoxy but this also failed in part because it didn't have the give this application needs but also because I didn't have the correct applicator that could get underneath the brace piece. This epoxy also hardened too quickly and I wasn't able to get enough in the correct spots.


Finially I decided to something crazy, research. I looked on-line for a product that met several criteria:
1. Bonded to aluminum.
2. Available in a package that would work with a caulking gun.
3. Decent working time.
4. Wouldn't heat up when drying and damage the paint.
I finally sumbled upon a Dow Corning product 700. This met all my criteria plus it was available in clear and also had low VOC. I was able to find it available through McMaster Carr.

And these were the results. Which keep in mind, having attempted this twice before I had dented and removed a noticable amount of paint. I also intentionally smeared a whole crap load on to avoid this breaking off. Only time will tell if this will hold up but so far I'm happy with the results.

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