Disaster...

[MarkB]

Originally Posted by alga

The prototype car in the book did not have the front wishbone area covered at all, and it's barely noticeable. So I'd bet any reasonably tidy repair won't be noticeable unless you're looking for it.

You could buy a glossy sheet of Lexan or some other plastic as a background for the repair. MarkB, what are good plastics for that purpose?

No need to buy anything expensive, an old double glazing unit will do the job these can be found in most skips or down the dump as long as it's big enough of course. Wax it to make sure gel won't stick then clamp side panel to it and off you go....simple really.

[brainbug007]

Thanks alot for all of the suggestions guys. In the end I took your advice and repaired it instead of just cutting the whole section out as I figured trying to make it IVA compliant would end up being more hassle than trying to repair it. As it turned out my neighbor was quite handy with GRP and did a clever repair by kind of re-enforcing it from behind with some metal strips then applying more GRP the back. Luckly where it had cracked in a majority of places you could line the pieces back up and the crack wasn't that noticeble when you look at the shiny side so to speak. The only bit that wasn't fixable was a section along the top kind of between the holes for the top wishbones and the shock absorber so i've got a strip cutout basically between the front hole and the rear hole that kind of looks like an upside down T but at least none of it is over 100mm so once the rubber u channel strips are put on it should be impossible for the IVA man to shove his sphere into the engine bay anywhere so to speak.

[MarkB]

Sounds like you got away with that then, well done

[baz-r]

i have found that grit faced tools for tiles are brillent for cutting grp (jigsaw and hole cutting tools).
minimal chipping of gel and i use blades in my jigsaw free hand without touching the shoe on the panel if i need to do cuts from the outside.
finally opening out to the finished line with a sanding drum or disc.

[tex]

you could of made a flared side panel instead - if you cut the panel out from where the scuttle lower front touches the side panel - chop out the engine bay sides then either replace with ally but make the rear edge further out from the body allowing air out - front sits in same place

like this

http://forum.wscc.co.uk/forum/index...._fromsearch__1

looks really cool - if you use ally you can leave it bare - looks pretty
or carbon -
or - - - grp? needs a mould which shouldnt be hard to do - maybe then sell them on to other haynes users? could be a little earner

[shh120m]

thats got me thinking, i could quite easily churn out a 'locost' version of these for the haynes, using prepreg backed with grp to keep costs down. Would certainly consider making some up if the demand was there. Would have to add a radius to the rear vent to keep them iva freindly.

[MarkB]

prepreg isn't locost though