[Nick59]

Originally Posted by tlrtone

Nick, it sounds exactly like mine, so I would say that you may not have anything wrong with your body or your chassis.

The side rails on mine needed widening at the rear to sit under the body (and have space to put the ply side panels under the lip), and the rear frame was not square with the back of the cockpit on the body.

The first bit was rectified by cutting and re-welding the side rails. I did mine with the body off though which did make life easier. You could try and do it with the body on, or even cut the rail and then make up a bracket that can be bolted in - it is purely a strengthening rail so bolting it would be fine.

the rear frame was a minor issue in my mind as I just cut and trimmed the plywood panel at the rear to fit and then made adjustments with the final filler and bonding paste, so no major trauma.



The front wheel arch looks exactly as mine did and I too pondered a while over a few evenings. The outcome was my cut and shut story, that is on my thread, and actually I think it turned out better for it! You can get the bonnet to line up and fit, so don't panic over that. I am still not sure why the body fitted like it did, I took many measurements and diagonals and in the end decided that I would fit MY body to MY frame and MY chassis and this meant minor adjustments to all of them! The overall results is very good and even though things are not 100% square or a mirror image from side to side, it doesn't really matter in the overall scheme of things, people WILL NOT notice!

So don't pull you hair out trying to decide where the error is, just satisfy yourself that you have no major chassis twisting by taking diagonal measurements and the bulkhead is fitted correctly ( you can't really get this wrong if the bolt holes line up!) and then just make a plan to adjust the body to fit.

Take a deep beath and get your marker pens out and plan your cuts. Remember that it is only fibreglass and the worst that can happen is that you make a wrong cut and have to add more fibreglass or cut it and do it again!

Good luck!

Thanks for the comments: I think it is the thought that I am missing (or screwed up) something obvious, as I could not believe my luck (or Garys spot on frame) that everything lined up even to the extent of bolt holes into the original door hinges...I have studied your thread and will now attempt corrective surgery....watch this space