Winter's Coming...Thinking Less About Driving, More about Sanding - Questions

[Kevin Davis]

I've been gone for the summer, driving in gelcoat! ;-> But, now it's time to start seriously thinking about body work.

I feel pretty confident I'm ready to start this arduous process, and actually sort of looking forward to it in a sadistic way. ;->

The main concern I have overall is fitting the doors, hood, and trunk, and I thought I'd pick some brains around here and see if you guys could throw me some info on fitment and maybe some links for further reading.

My doors are the worst part of the fitment, but I think for the most part between trimming them and adjusting the hinges, that should work itself out for the most part.

The main question I have is if most guys start by trimming stuff first, like the door and hood edges, or if you ignore that and build up the rest instead.

Here are pics, the biggest concern is how to address the hood. It fits pretty well on the front and driver's side, but then it sort of buckles on the passenger side. It appears I just need to trim along the windshield side edge and maybe along that ps side of the hood, and possibly use some of the various tricks to get it to settle down.

Would love to get some links and any specific advice based on what you guys see in the pics, I'm sure I'll have lots of them along the way!

SDC13869.JPG SDC13870.JPG SDC13868.JPG SDC13873.JPG SDC13874.JPG SDC13872.JPG

[3kcarbon]

Trim and fit before you take the body off. Round off the edges and recheck the fit and adjustment. Do what has to be done while the body is on but save the bulk of sanding for after the body is off. The gelcoat sanding dust will get on and in everything and make one %$^ of a mess. I spent a full day cleaning up the gocart after pulling the body off for priming and final work. Make a check list on anything you want to do while the body is off. Working on the go cart is so much easier. My body wanted to be to low in the front causing the hood to be off. You may have to move the body some and not just the hood. Make sure the hinges aren't binding or the props hitting. Check the shape and size of the side vent cut out mine were waaaaaaaaaay off. The research I did on originals proved they vary but the angle of the cut out looks best if they are the same and the vents echo the angle. Good time to decide to go with rectangular lights and round up the rump.

[skullandbones]

Kevin,
I asked a similar but a little more general question regarding "who's doing their own body work. It has some great links and advise. If you are interested it's on the roadster forum list page 6. WEK.

[Kevin Davis]

Thanks guys, I need to find some good pics of the trimmed edges of these parts so I can make sure they blend nicely. 3K, I definitely have a laundry list of stuff to do, SOOOO glad I spent a summer in gelcoat, I'd actually recommend it to all builders.

The biggest thing I found is that there are a lot of things I had thought were a good idea, but really sort of fall into a "not really worth the effort," like hidden side body mounts. I'm doing a riveted on scoop and decided it's sort of dumb to do that and then go to all the trouble of hiding the side mounts.

Good call as well on the side vents, I'll check those out.

[AC Bill]

Do you have the gas struts on the hood? I have heard they can cause the hood to bow up slightly like that, in that area. If that is not the problem, I have heard of some fellows resting a weight on the hood, while it is sitting between saw horses, and leaving in the sun for a few days to reform the hood.

I thought my door fit was bad?..Sheesh.. you have some work ahead of you on those..Too bad that the mold they used for them didn't configure a little better..Some further hinge and or striker adjustment may help the fit, but it looks as if your going to have to build up the body in that area quite a bit.

I agree with you on the side body mounts..not worth the effort. I think if you paint the side bolts and washers, same as the car, they will hardly be noticeable. No one has ever even asked me about them, or pointed them out, and mine are still shiny against the black gel-coat.

[Kevin Davis]

Do you have the gas struts on the hood? I have heard they can cause the hood to bow up slightly like that, in that area. If that is not the problem, I have heard of some fellows resting a weight on the hood, while it is sitting between saw horses, and leaving in the sun for a few days to reform the hood.

I thought my door fit was bad?..Sheesh.. you have some work ahead of you on those..Too bad that the mold they used for them didn't configure a little better..Some further hinge and or striker adjustment may help the fit, but it looks as if your going to have to build up the body in that area quite a bit.

I agree with you on the side body mounts..not worth the effort. I think if you paint the side bolts and washers, same as the car, they will hardly be noticeable. No one has ever even asked me about them, or pointed them out, and mine are still shiny against the black gel-coat.

I do have the struts on, so that might be contributing to the issue, I think that the main problem is that there's just too much material on the windshield side of the hood, which is making it bow up when it's down. The rest of the hood fit isn't all that bad, which like you said, might be a good thing as it'll take me a long time to get the doors right.

[AC Bill]

I believe some of the fellows have overcome the hood strut issue, by mounting them further up the hood, than the where the factory marks on the hood has them going. Had you seen that adjustment method mentioned, prior to installing them?

Hopefully someone that has done this, will chime in as to the mod. Be easy enough to do before you start the body work, as you may need to patch up one rivet hole, and drill another for the adjustment..

[Kevin Davis]

I believe some of the fellows have overcome the hood strut issue, by mounting them further up the hood, than the where the factory marks on the hood has them going. Had you seen that adjustment method mentioned, prior to installing them?

Hopefully someone that has done this, will chime in as to the mod. Be easy enough to do before you start the body work, as you may need to patch up one rivet hole, and drill another for the adjustment..

I just used the factory marks, but the easy way to check is to remove both struts and see how it fits then...adding that to the list, thanks, good idea!

[Jeff Kleiner]

Kevin,
By the looks of the bow in your hood I suspect that your struts are bottoming out. Disconnect them and see if it lays down. If so the solution is to move the mount for the ballstud rearward on the hood by 1 hole:



If you haven't checked them out already you might find my Mk4 bodywork & paint thread and Scott's posts documenting the prep and paint of his Mk3 helpful. Basically to answer your original question, do an initial trim to the panels before working on filling and contouring. You don't need to get them to their absolute final gap yet; about 90%, then fine tune them after the bodywork.

Good luck!

Jeff

[Kevin Davis]

Thanks Jeff, I'll check out your thread, I've seen a lot of time looking at Scott's, but haven't done yours. You might be right, it could be the struts. That'll be the first thing I check.