Just plucking up courage to fit the panels. A 1st dry fit of the side panels shows they are deeper than the distance between top & bottom side rails.

With the top panel lip against the top rail the gap at the bottom seems to be about 5 - 10 mm. I can't imagine I'm the only one who's encountered this. What have other people done/used to pack the gap? I'm planning to use sikaflex/pu plus rivets at about 500 mm spacing.

Hope this is what your meaning we used a foam tape one side foam 1 side sticky. Bit on top and a bit in bottom and then just screwed it in. took up all the gap.I will get back to you with where we got it when dad is home (he bought it)

Tri

Just pack out the gap where you rivet it otherwise the rivet will pull the side panel up and distort it. I used plastic washers I made from some of that plastic strip you can get from b&q, seemed to work fine.

Rich.

I got that gap too. I used plastic bits as spacers at the bottom with Sikaflex

Yeah, me too. Mount the top lip straight to the chassis and packed bottom off with spacers cut from a big sheet of 10mm plastic a mate brought me from his work.

i just bent a bracket out of ali, bolted to the chassis and riveted to the side panel.

I just did it using some offcuts of the MK black interior panneling, found to be about the right thickness.
Double and treble thickness at front

[Edited on 18/4/06 by ReMan]

I didn't need any packing in mine,I made my own panels!!!

They're a sod to clean though!

[Edited on 18/4/06 by DEAN C.][img]http://locostbuilders.co.uk/upload/a357806-IMG_0108[1].jpeg[/img]

The gap is there for a purpose. It's to allow for fitting of a steel floor panel if you so needed. Just fill the gap with PU and personally, I wouldn't bother with any rivets whatsoever to hold the side panels on

Phil

Hmmm! 2mm floor pan ,10mm gap?

Seriously I think a bit extra was allowed for variations of the top and bottom rails as well,they do curve quite a bit with the welding.
I always thought that an unpacked panel at the bottom would give a bit of a weakness if you caught the bottom on anything.
Phil should be the expert though as he's built two,and PU will stick anything without rivets as he says.
The good thing is that unlike ally it doesn't corrode and is much easier to look after.

at ackworth it looked like hellfire's side panel lower, at least on the offside had seen the rough side of a sleeping policeman. even though it had taken a chunk out of the bottom flange, no real damage was done to the vertical face, so PU should be fine.

i droped mine onto an evil hump in a pub car park, up near bolton abbey, luckily a plastic one, and even though my side panels were just PU'd on, no damage was done at all. once set, it's pretty solid in compression, and it's all my gap was filled with.

tom

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Originally posted by indykid
at ackworth it looked like hellfire's side panel lower, at least on the offside had seen the rough side of a sleeping policeman.........

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