Prepping for Paint - Tilt Front - Part 2

I finally found a bit more time to spend on the Pop so decided to progress the tilt front a bit more.

You will recall I sent the Grille and side vents away for sand blasting and a bit tweaking to straighten everything up.

Here they are back again and in much better shape.

Now to get them fitted. The idea is that I will cut holes in the fibreglass, then fit these in from behind and use fibreglass to bond the 1 inch flange onto the inside of the tilt front. So first up, just how do you get holes in the right place and exactly the same shape as the vents and the grille?

Its not easy but luckily I've had time to give this a bit of thought.

You cant just trace round each vent as it has a 1 inch flange remember. If i do that the holes will be too big. I could trace round then come in an inch from that line, but it is a bit risky as you really only get one chance to get it right.

The other issue is the bars in the vents and grille are stamped out and folded inwards, so the panels have a bit of depth to them. If I lay them against the tilt front, they sit well out from the surface as can be seen here.

The brain wave I had though was use the one from the other side but in reverse. That way it is the same as the correct one on the correct side. Kind of a mirror image. You can see here that it sits much flatter.

I measured for placement on the original car and taped the panel in place once I had it sitting right.

The next brain wave I had was to transfer the placement of the tiny holes that the stainless trim clips into.

By being flush with the tilt front I got very good and accurate transfer of the holes.

I then drilled these holes and installed the stainless trim. Now it's an easy task to trace around the outside of this trim. There you have it....a perfect outline that is exactly the same shape as the vent and its trim.

The grille was a little more difficult as I don't have a reverse grill that I can use to tape it flush to the tilt front. Instead I had to tape it on as close as I could to the right position, then carefully drill the holes where the trim mounts by passing the drill trough the tiny holes in the taped on grille, and carefully drill through the fibreglass. I must have done ok as the trim clipped in nicely.

The next thing is to cut the holes.....a bit nervous but in theory it should be ok.

After a bit of time with a cut off wheel on the angle grinder, the die grinder for the tight corners and a fair bit of sanding.....its starting to look like a Pop!

The panels to be glassed in have come back from the the sandblaster in primer and in some parts it was even bare steel, so I need to add a bit of protection before glassing these in. I am concerned that water could make its way down between the fibreglass and the steel once its in place. If it did and the panels were only primered, they would rust.

I have thrown a bit of paint at them, just so they have a bit more of a chance to withstand the elements.

 Now its time to fit everything up. I made a couple of wooden frames to pull the panels up against. This allowed me to bring them right up against the fibreglass from the inside, so that there is the minimum of gap between the face of the panel and the fibreglass. This is quite critical as gaps would be pretty ugly.

You can see here how well the grille has pulled up.

And here is the view from the outside.

The side panels look pretty sharp too. Very pleased with it.....and yeah it looks simple but fitting the grille and the side vents took the best part of 6 hours. I had to fit, mark, trim, refit, re-mark and re-trim about 3 times. Now think about this. How do you get one hand inside the tilt front to hold the nut, while the other one is on the outside turning a screw driver......I needed six hands today, but you'd be surprised what you can hold with your mouth, press on with your chin or a knee just so you can reach with your left hand and still have the right hand free to tighten up.

Catch you next time!