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Those funny shaped pieces of metal you don’t know what to do with |
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| This is where we learned from our mistakes. We had read of the difficulties people had had identifying these panels and then fitting them once the body was on. So why not tackle it now? | ||||
We knew the bodywork would have to come off again to fix the filler panels that seal the sides of the bodywork when it is in place. We primed and painted the filler panels satin black to match the chassis We agreed that were unhappy with the edges of the panels chafing against the inside of the body. We decided to fit black plastic sleeving down the edge that would be in contact with the bodywork as protection. We took off the body to fit the front panels. We drilled out the existing rivets. We put masking tape on the panels to mark the rivet holes, and drilled the panels. The RHS was fine just a fraction out requiring clearance with a 4.5 mm drill. LHS was more difficult, the panel must have moved whilst we were marking the holes. A little work with a needle file fixed the misalignment. Time to try the bodywork. The plates appeared too big forcing the sides of the body outwards. This is where we made our mistake |
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We decided there was nothing for it but to take the body off, and by trial and error make the plates smaller to match the contour of the sides of the bodywork. We made a cardboard template of the inside profile and transferred this to the plates. We cut and filed the plates to shape. We retried the body but the plates were still too big. Another 4 attempts were tried before we got it right. Or so we thought. Our mistake was to come to light when we riveted the body in place. When this is done, the contour of the sides of the body bow outwards, making our plates too small. So now you know why you should fit them after the bodywork is finally fixed in place. We will either have to make new ones, or think of some way of filling the gap (not huge) between the edge of the plate and the bodywork. |
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During this tedious process we decided that we would position the body and scuttle as close as possible to its final position once the front plates were fitted. This enabled us to clamp the body in placed and cut the rear plates to size, while we were doing this we worked out how and where to fit the panel over the pedals |
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