Fitting fibreglass rear valances

[ahebron]

As I have one steel rh valance with the bit under the cover missing and a set of new fibreglass rear valances I am fitting the latter to my Vitesse 6.
Attached are some photos I took today of the dry fit with my clecos.
Concerns are the gap between the valance and the side of the guard but will see whatb happens when I get the bolts in, I am expecting it to crack.
My plan is to cut out some 1.2mm stainless steel to fit inside the right and left valances and fold a small return on it, tig weld nuts underneath it to line up with the holes and bond it to the panel so it pulls up evenly hopefully.
Off to get the nuts and bolts for fixing these to the car on monday and will experiment with SS tig welding

At the front I have a rusted and mildly damaged steel valance and a damaged fibreglass valance. I will rebuild the glass one using the steel one to make templates for the missing sections and then rebuild the steel one. I have made the templates out of 12mm plywood and replicated the 2 mounting brackets on the ends of the valance and the 2 that connect under the chassis out of 1.2mm stainless steel and will bond these to the panel when I fit it.

All the fibreglass panels I am using are made in NZ, steel ones would have be bought in from the UK.

I have some bits of 1.2mm scrap SS I am using.

[ahebron]

I made the brackets to pull the side valances straight to the body and bolted the valances up today.
I had to get them folded on an industrial folder witha 10mm return then cut them out of the 1.2mm stainless sheet.
When I bent one in the vice the hammering induced a curve in it and the metal was too thick for my shrinker to pull it out.
One big problem was the left side was out by about an inch at the bottom of the rear valance.
Over lunch I googled how to fix this and to my surprise I found out that you can carefully heat fibreglass to reshape it.
It is obvious when you think about it being glass reinforced plastic, every day is a learning day.
Ignore the crooked boot lid it is not shut properly.

Repairing the front valance is the next job!

 

[Richeee]

As i have this job to do at some point im watching with interest.  

[ahebron]

At present thats all there is to see on the rear of the car Richeee.
It will be a wee while before I get them painted etc.

 

[Colin Lindsay]

Even with metal valences you can have problems getting them to match up. If you pull the bottoms in to line up the screw holes you end up with a gap at the bottom of the rear wing, along the top of the side valence. This is the bit I'd concentrate on, get it right visually then whatever you need to do down below will be hidden under the rear overrider. 

[ahebron]

Thanks for that Colin.
That is why I made the stainless steel plate that fits inside the top of the side valances, the photo looking down into the side valances.
It has the 10mm return on it to keep the side valance rigid when it is bolted up so it gives a straight line instead of 3 pinch points, the nuts are welded to this.
Once it was bolted on I used the hot air gun to heat the panel and bend it to meet the rear valance, cooling it with compressed air.
I went and took photos of the rear of Mk2  to see how its valances sat on the car.
I was just after the seams below the bumper overriders between the rear and side valances being parallel and as snug as safely possible.
The Cleco tools are a godsend when doing panel work
What you can see on the rear of the car is the valance catching on the spare tyre wheel well.
To sort that I think I will need to clamp a bar behind the valance heat it then pull it forward a touch.