Well I am back from a bad trip to Kenya which involved of the trip being spent ill in bed. Not fun!
This did mean that I was off work recovering on Monday and felt well enough in the afternoon to go in to the garage for a couple of hours and continue where I left off a week or so ago.
The first thing to do was to strip down the panels I taped in place prior to leaving. They looked cool and I was glad I did it but they needed to come off before work could begin.
Once all the panels were safely off the car, I started to trim and sand the passenger side panel to match the driver side I did last week.
This meant timing the rear end to fit around the roll bar turret. I also had to cut some off of the end so that it did not overhang the chassis rail by the rear suspension.
Once that was done, I offered up the panel, clamped it in place and then offered rear tub to allow me to mark what needed to be trimmed from the top of the tub in order to allow the side panel and the rear tub panel to meet with the neatest, closest ‘shut line’ possible.
Top Tip: When cutting GRP (fibreglass) with a jigsaw, I used a special fibreglass blade but even with masking tape in place, I found the gelcoat splintered along the edge. Not too much but enough. Too late, I discovered if you put tape on both sides but cut from the inside of the fibreglass the the cut is much cleaner. I will know next time!
Almost at the last minute, I remembered that I needed to drill out a couple of holes in the aluminium to allow the roll cage to be fitted.
The same hole will need to be drilled in the outer side panels once fitted.
And then it was time for the big one, bonding the side panels to the chassis!
I was very nervous about doing this as if I screwed it up then it would either mean I would have to live with a very visible mistake or bad job, or order new panels from MAC#1.
First thing I did was wipe down the aluminium and chassis rails with white spirit to degrease them. Once this was dry it was time to get busy with the glue.
The bonding agent is called Wurth and it is this horrible, sticky black goo that dries like hard rubber. I applied a bead along each of the edges and along the top and bottom of the chassis rails. Then I added beads of bond along the length of the panel in ‘zig zags’.
I also put it up the rear chassis rail (up the back wall) but this was not necessary as the panel does not contact the chassis here. Never mind.
The bead of bond extended all the way to the front of the car on the top but I did not use any bond on the bottom chassis rail beyond where the aluminium panels as the exact position of the bottom of the side panel will need to be adjusted to keep it straight so I will fix this with rivets a later.
I fitted the side panel using the tape marks on both the chassis and side panel to make sure it was in the right position. Once I was happy I used a combination of ratchet straps and clamps to clamp it in place.
Then I repeated the process on the other side, then left them to set fully which should take at least 24 hours.
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