I'm going to (attempt) to make an Alu rear panel for the car.


Has any one any info on how to go about making this for a book chassis, i.e is there a basic guide on this any were on the web or is it detailed in any ones build pages.

AshG might have one. He had a decent walk through in CKC magazine.

Get some lining paper from B&Q, some thick stuff and start with a template.

We riveted the one side and worked around, go slowly and be gentle.

have a look on my photo bucket there are some pictures on there

http://s707.photobucket.com/albums/ww75/ashgardiner/

basically i went and got a roll of thick wall lining paper from the decorating dept at b&q

wrapped it round the back of the car cut it to shape transfered it on to the ali sheet. cut it out clamped it on the back of the car then knocked it over.


edit.. by the way it took the best part of a day to get it spot on. i used 1.5mm ali but if doing it again i would use 1.2 as it was back breaking bashing the 1.5mm stuff round such tight curves

[Edited on 10/2/10 by ashg]

I clamped one side onto the rail and gently bent it round, clamping it in places, a few rivets once it was all bent round, trimmed it down, then bent and annealed the top so that it was a nice fit, then removed it, trimmed and filed the edges, before getting it powder coated.

I think the end result was pretty good, you need to make sure your top rails are round if you want to do this, else it will crease.

My new rear panel is 2mm, and very easy to deal with, the thin 1.2-1.5 alui will tear if not treated well, also the thin stuff will resonante/vibrate on the car,

hence one reason to change it

I did not make any templates (either time) measure twice, cut once, dont forget to allow sufficent overhang top sides and bottom to loop around the tubes

Hold the alui in place wih g-cramps with wood to protect the finish,
gently pean the edge over /round the tubes, i used a small rubber mallet, , cut slots/triangles were it goes round bends
DONT cut them to deep

Taking your time, and clamping/re clamping allong the edge will minimize noise, and distortian

when finished, a VERY satisfying job

well the second one was !!
first one 1998, second one 2010

Steve

[Edited on 10/2/10 by steve m]

I made a template from a large sheet of paper.

Drew round it on the 1.2mm ali. Cut roughly with the grinder and then tin snips to do a nice cut.

I then had *a lot* of help actually doing the metal bashing. But they wanted to stay anonymous so I won't 'out' them here.

The main thing I remember was that we did each side on 2 different weekends. One was a cold day, the other warm. The difference was amazing. On the 1st (cold) day the ali was really hard to work. On the warmer 2nd day it was much, much easier to work.

HTH,
James

quote:

---

Originally posted by fesycresy
go slowly and be gentle.

---

As said above, do it in cardboard first. I never did get the measurements right, and made a big mess of it, so get another piece of ally ready just in case!

Mine is actually three pieces, but I don't highly recommend that - it was difficult and didn't turn out very well at all. The pics don't show, but it's a right mess on the top surface around the corners. That was my motivation for making a boot cover.