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I've fitted the nose cone no probs - four screws and it was on. I am having some issues with the dash / rear bonnet / scuttle top. It's very tight, so I assume that I have to trim the lips that butt up against the chassis sides and the mounting points... Not having worked with GF before, what's the best way of trimming this? Files? Emery paper? I don't think I need to remove too much, so doing by hand is probably the safest bet.
I've also noticed that there are a few hairline cracks in the surface of the panels. They don't go all the way through the full thickness of the GF. I know that the panels are not going to be absolutely perfect due to the hand made nature, but how do I fix them? Or should I just leave them for the body shop to sort out when I eventually have the car painted?
Hi Jason,
congratulations on getting your stage two body kit.
Do NOT trim your scuttle as you may need to 'spring' it wider! This was the mistake I made.
You need to wait until you've got the aluminium A panels fitted. You need to pull the scuttle panel out until it is level with the A panels. Difficult to explain in writing.
Hope this picture helps?
Without the A panel you can line it up with a flat sheet of ali. Once 'sprung' you fix it down with the nuts and washers on the inside. It's very tough and needs brute force and packing pieces.
I don't think I have a hairline cracks but certainly the panels are not perfect. I think all this can be sorted when painted.
It's very tight at the top, where it turns the corner to run along the top of the chassis (the square internal corner in the above the packing in your pic).
I don't want to force it, as I don't want to cause any cracks to radiate from the corner... A little bit of filling to alow a snug, but not GF creaking-ly tight should be ok, shouldn't it?
I'll try and take some pics tonight to show what I mean
I don't want to force it, as I don't want to cause any cracks to radiate from the corner... A little bit of filling to alow a snug, but not GF creaking-ly tight should be ok, shouldn't it?
It's best to try and radius the corner to avoid a stress point. (Keyhole look) You do need to "spread" the moulding to make it fit correctly as in Peter's picture. I found that the fixing holes drilled by Marlin were in the wrong place and I had to open them up considerably and then use some penny washers.
It's probably best to fit the A post plates first and work from there. Handy tip from Peter is to fold back the trailing edge of the A plate to make it more rigid - sounds more difficult than it is. There are some pictures on Peter's and my website of this.
At this rate of progress you will be soon catching me up!
Fitting the tub took endless test fits. I lost count of the number of times I had it on and off! The fibre glass sands quite well. I used the angle grind + a sanding disk when I had to take a lot off.
I remade the trim piece that goes around the dash as the factory one just didn't fit once everything was spaced out.
It's very tight at the top, where it turns the corner to run along the top of the chassis (the square internal corner in the above the packing in your pic).
I don't want to force it, as I don't want to cause any cracks to radiate from the corner... A little bit of filling to alow a snug, but not GF creaking-ly tight should be ok, shouldn't it?
I'll try and take some pics tonight to show what I mean
It is surprisingly strong and will likely need to be streched to fit. I wouldn't file anything off until you have lined it up. (each chassis is slightly diffrent depending on which laser robot was working that day)
The one at the factory last year being built by Simon had spacers made of pieces of 3mm hardboard actually screwed to the chassis to hold them in place.
Robin's suggestion of filing a round hole in the corner is a good one to avoid any stress.
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