It should be simple. The panel comes pre-cut and with two right angle bends for attachment to the underside of the chassis and to the supports from the roll bar. What is required is two curved bends of about a 3 inch radius to form the corners around the small boot space. This presents the first problem as, due to the existing bends, it is not possible to bend the sides past the 90 degrees needed to form the curves. Well I can't do it anyway.
After a couple of days trying to get it to look right, and some more help from my brother, I think we've make a reasonable job if it. At the moment the chassis is sitting on a couple of trestles to raise it to a workable height so the imperfections in the bends are visible, but when it it on the ground and the trim is in place it shouldn't be so obvious.
Next job, fitting it. Again, should be straight forward, there are defined points to attach the panel to the car, and its clear where it should fit. Along the sides it should line up neatly over the wheel arches, and at the back it attaches to the supports from the roll bar and to the underneath of the chassis. No matter how I offered it up to the chassis, the panel was either too far forward of the wheel arches when the roll bar supports lined up, or too far back from the supports when it lined up with the wheel arches.
The answer as it turned out was painfully simple. It seems that somewhere in the manufacturing process there is a tendency for the supports to dip down slightly. GBS say they haven't workout out how and why this happens but it is safe to bend the supports up slightly to make the panel fit. I'd already worked this out by the time I spoke to them but it was good to have it confirmed.
In case you are concerned about bending said supports, I used the logic that if the welds broke I probably wouldn't want to drive the car anyway.
At last it fits. I've now attached it with rivets and adhesive so it's really not going anywhere. There is a thin bead of piping trim that runs between the rear panel and the top shroud. This was a little tricky to get right, but after spending some time getting the bends neat, it actually looks pretty good (as long as you don't look too closely at the bends in the panel underneath it).
Panel looks good, very neat top edge.
ReplyDeleteSaw you extended the 'U' cut outs to give more shock access & interesting they pre-drill the wheel arch holes now - not sure if that makes it easier or harder.
One thought/suggestion - rear shocks - that way up can you get at the spring adjuster rings & adjuster knobs?
Hi Richard, thanks for the comments. I think the pre-drilled holes for the wheel arch are a bit pointless, one of them is too close to one of the chassis sections to be any use anyway.
DeleteThe rear shock - yes - the wrong way up. Annoyingly they don't fit the other way up as the cylinder hits the Mazda upright, and too much packing with washers would be required to get it far enough away. I can get to the adjuster rings OK, although the grub screw to secure them might be difficult to access if it ends up on the wrong inside. The adjuster knobs can be reached with the end of a finger but it's not great. It's a bit of a compromise for the size of car I guess, but I think it will be OK.