Just wondered if anyone had any good tips/hints for doing the ali side panels?

I fancy making a start this weekend but I'm a little unsure of a few things.

For a start, how have people done the long bends where the sides curve round under the engine bay? I was wondering if it could be bent around a piece of 4" drain pipe or something? Presumably it's important to match the profile of the nose cone in this area?

Anything else I should know?

Thanks,
James

[Edited on 15/7/05 by James]

Its cheaper and easier to use paper or thick cardboard first! Dont ask how I know

Are you panelling all the way to the nosecone filling in round the wishbones? It makes the job more complicated if you do. Finishing them at the fu tubes makes life a lot easier and lets the air out from the radiator before the engine bay.

The bends top and bottom are right angles , they dont need to follow the nose cone 'cos there's a cut out right at the front for the wishbone...........
Rescued attachment frontalloy.gif

This was the template that I made........you can see by the writing that I muffed up the position of one of the holes, good job it was the template..............I think I still have it James
Rescued attachment template.jpg

Yup, good advice...templates every time

Fozzie

I used a bit of 50mm dia tube attached to the lower chassis rails by two bits of strip welded to the round tube and g clamped to the lower chassis rails.I set the tube to be parrallel and directly below the top chassis rails.
I then made a pattern from some old wallpaper and adjusted till correct .Cut the alloy and bent around the temporary former .
Paul.

you can make the alu easier to bend with the soap and blowtorch technique. do a search on my posts if you need to know cos ive explained it so many times its becoming daft

atb

steve

Ali side panels, best advice is take your time and consider every cut carefully, plus how you handle it etc to not scratch it, especially if doing alone, like me! My opinion is that its worth doing the whole lot in one piece, the bends are easy if you support the panel well with wood battens both sides before hammering (with rubber hammer) its really not difficult to cut holes for suspension components to fill in to the nose cone, I prefer the look personally. Its a very satisfying job!
I imagined you had finished yours already James, you were ahead of me before, thought I was taking my time!

I made a full length template from grease proof paper. 90 deg bends all along the top edge, 90 deg bend along the bottom edge from rear arch to bulkhead. From the bulkhead to rad, I then produced a curve with some old floor boards and rope. Resulted in a very nice curved panel. Didn't anneal the ali, as I've never been able to get a satisfactory result that way. Good luck!

quote:

---

Originally posted by alfasudsprint
I imagined you had finished yours already James, you were ahead of me before, thought I was taking my time!

---

James
I am at the same stage and was waiting for you to share some of your findings.
What did you end up doing.
I want to use SS for my sides, but was looking at the problem or how to get the sides to match the nose come.
Share some ideas.

Ok, well I haven't really got that far.

This weekend was knackered by having to fix my tin top and the arrival of an old mate of mine (recently released from a mentalist institute! ) in a knackered transit that needed some emergency work!
Just in my skill-set that is... fixing old transits- not!!!

Anyway, I've so far got as far as making an experimental paper template of one side so not an awful lot of progress yet. Also hit a slight flaw with the chassis/engine height which I need to resolve before much longer.

Cheers,
James

Get some Cleko panel pin thingies!! They are a Godsend for fixing your panels accurately.
You can get them from Car Builder Solutions and they are worth every penny

Oh and some cheap plastic clamps like the one shown in the pic

[Edited on 10-8-05 by RazMan]
Rescued attachment Cleko pins.jpg

I have a bag of the plastic clamps.

And Ned has the Cleko things and only lives down the road from me so they shouldn't be too hard to source!

Cheers,
James

oo, i dunno, you'd have to ask him first though

I found it easier to do the bending once against the chassis, I used some large clamps holding the ali tightly against the rails. Get a mate to give you a hand so that two of you can bend at the same time (sounds bad!). You should be able to do the initial bend easy enough by hand, from there use a long straight piece of wood and gentle hammer the edge down. This should give you a perfect angled edge. Rivet the top/bottom in place before proceeding with the other edge.

My biggest tip is to keep the protective film on the ali until you absolutely have to take it off, don't let it tempt you

cheers darren

Same here, I bent most of my panels in place, often leaving the final bend until I was ready to glue or rivet them in place.

When folding over I've found it's best to clamp very tightly with wood just shy of the bend point, then use a soft hammer to coax the ali over from the bend point out - this cuts down on the tendency of the ali to spring back from the fold.

Some step by step pictures.

Any progress James?

What thickness Ali are you going to use?