--- The Stude's 2013 Changes Page 12 --- --- Nose -- Side Body Panels --- |
Extending the wheelbase by about 24 inches also meant that the body work had to be addressed in order to fill in the 2 foot hole. John Kimbrough tackled the job of making new panels that would fill from the cowl forward to the rear of the original glass front-end.
He started by cutting off a portion of the back of the front-end where it was dzus fastened to the cowl, bottom left arrows. The piece that was cut off is laying on the top of the front-end, top arrow.
At this time the bottom of the fenders in the area behind the front wheels where the zoomie headers came out of the car was filled back in.
John then made a template that followed the inside of the fender where he had cut it off, right arrow. Using the template 4 pieces where cut, one shown with left arrow. Foam was cut and placed between the end pieces so that the resulting plug was over 24 inches long.
The foam was then sanded to shape....
.... and glass was....
...laid up and also attached to the pieces that had been cut off. Next a skim coat of body filler was used and sanded.
John was headed out of town on vacation so he took the hood and the new side pieces back over to Hooley in OK.
Above one of the filler pieces was mocked into place. It was decided to not attach them to the existing hood as it would become too large and awkward. Also now individual panels could be removed depending on what had to be serviced on the car.
Hooley spent time getting the old front-end in place along with the new panels.
To some extent he copied what Mike had done to attach body panels to Ack Attack his world record holding motorcycle streamliner. A piece of sheetmetal was bent to follow the inside of the fender and then a stiffening piece added to the backside which was then supported by brackets coming off the frame.
The back side of one side.
This allows the body panels to butt together and not be trapped under one another.
Dzus fasteners will be placed where the cleckos are in the picture above into the sheet-metal strip that is behind the junction of the two panels.
John did a great job making the new panels follow the contours of the original body lines.
Next up Hooley has to tackle this center section where the old hood scoop was and also the areas above the panels that John made.
