Need some ideas on attaching the Baja "Nose: to my front end.
What I would like to do is get a smooth transition from fiberglass to the inner fender well.
A little history on the car. As far as I can see the front clip was damaged replaces, made into a Baja, rat rod and who knows what.
Was considering cutting out the inner well and replacing with sheetmetal or inverted fender. Tried to hammer flat but there is to manh bumps,creases, welds ect.
Way beyond my skills.
Any ideas.DWP
As i tell my son, waste money on cars not Girls.
You can always sell the Car.
I would say that if the nose piece fits over the metal of the body the easiest way to get a smooth transition would be with filler. If it is a tight fit over the metal you may be able to flange the edge of the metal to make the transition a little smoother, but it will still need filler or possibly seam sealer for the final smoothing. Hope this helps. If I am way off base someone will speak up and let us both know.
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Hello.
In my opinion you have only 2 quality options- metal or fiberglass
metal is difficult to maneuver fiberglass is flexible, but you have a negative space to deal with
I would use expandable foam. Use cooking plastic on the inner surfaces as a releaser (almost like some shippers do with their packager filled with foam.
so push plastic in in a "U" shape do body line-IUI-body line (U in the center is plastic)
shoot 3M or any other expandable poly foam inside. Now your foam raise outside like a cake does, but it will be clean inside because of plastic. After it hardens cut a straight line of the excess foam. You have a nicely filled hole and a surface to lay fiberglass over.
Overlap nicely the nose piece with fiberglass and resin- 90deg-over foam-90deg over metal. You can use masking tape over metal so after it sets you release it and cut straight line.
Reinstall with flexible seal sealer and rivets on metal side as metal extands and contracts- fiberglass little less.
Dont use body fillers it will absorb moisture and corrode you body. Within months the metal body will be shot from bondo you will loose the car.
My first baja i got- i had to trash the entire body because previous owner did restoration with bondo painter over, but it sucked moisture from heater channels side and one day a whole floor opened up un me like sandwich (goind 60 on the freeway) Since bondo was applied higher then heater channels line.I could not fix it- scrapped the chassis to metal yard.
Other car was widebody rx7 (fiberglass to metal). Also previous owner applied body kit with bondo. Its been 8 years since i started re-pulling the fiberglass and fix it right way. Now i am getting back to that project since i've got myself 3in1 sheer, bender and roller- i was about 2 years short to completely scrapping the body as well (only 60K orig miles), but got into it last moment and its sitting dry place since.
Also try to seal fiberglass panels inside with a coat or resin if possible
Good luck w/ project
HxC
Ps:
Also there is many other half ass ways like- you can get thick rubber used to create curved doorway jams in architectual construction and work out profiled thick gasket, or some other ways like that ect...
