Hi All,

How far out are other manafactures GRP?

Let's not go into the Avon field here as we should all know what 1" is.

My ST rear arches are about 3/4" different in overall circumference.

Any others?

Just trying to make myself feel better.

Pat...

Rear arches seem to be a problem from most manufacturers. Just have a look around any show, you'll see loads of cars with one back wheel not centralised in the arch. I bought mine from Locost Ltd and had to position them differently each side of the car in order that they framed the wheels the same each side. The difference was about 3/4" in my case also.

Feel any better?

David

It isn't such an uncommon problem within the low volume car manufacturers for bodies to be different from side to side.

I have seen this numerous times particularly when cars are modelled by hand to produce the patterns and mould tools. However, as more companies use cad and cnc manufacturing techniques they are getting better.

In 1996 I worked on the Porsche 911 GT1 '97 LeMans car and the roof was 30mm lower one side compared to the other and that was a steel shell. The '98 car was significantly better as we did the whole thing. The entire surface was within 0.5mm at any point on the surface.

There was about 1/2" difference in my rear wings. Everything else fitted brilliantly.

David

This is completely OT but a mate of mine used to work in a garage and they took delivery of a new escort Mk2 for a customer, they did all of the post delivery checks and handed the car over.#
Five minutes later he came back in to the showroom looking rather perplexed and said to the salesman "i ordered a 2 door car and this is a 3 door"

Salesman replies "ford dont make a 3 door escort"

Customer "this one has 2 doors on the drivers side and one on the passenger side"

this had managed to go through all of the production line checks etc and the garage quickly took it back and got him a replacement.
So even ford can get the sides of the car wrong

The rear wings from MK were slightly out, but with a bit of positioning, I managed to get them close enough. You can only see the difference if you had 2 photos of either side of the car.

The GRP on the FPA race cars is pretty terrible, some pretty big panel gaps and Ive heard that the Ascaris have poor panel fitment too.

I think in the case of the FPAs the supplier doesnt leave them in the mould long enough and they sag.

Ah.. This is the old classic!

My father worked for BL for the first twenty years of his career in the ill fated British car manufacturing industry. They had a couple of cars like this go down the line. I'm sure one was a demonstrator though to show show how the "job card" could alter the build.

Cheers

JC

Pat, I bet you feel a bit p*****d off after the Avon build. 3/4 inch isn't much better than the Avons issues is it. Well, at least you've got the experience now to tackle it and put it right.

How about cutting the rears off and putting bolt on jobbies on instead ? Surely they've got to be a better bet ?

Naa.

These are single jobbies.

Look really good though and I can more than live with them.

The wheel arches were only the icing on the cake on the Avon.

My MK nose, bonnet and scuttle were fitted in about 20 minutes and all fitted perfectly.

Pat...