body fit questions

Jim c · 03-04-06, 05:44 AM

Started fitting body work today.
Got the spider in place
Sills in place temp.
front clip mounted, all the gaps seem fairly reasonable at this point.

The questions are the gap between the sill & front clip seems pritty good but should I be able to see the chassis tube that the radiator is suported by. it is down by the width of the tube 20mm.
If this is ok then that is good.

If not I will drop the front of the clip but it may not help with the gaps.

2nd question .Doors seem to be a good fit around the roof & front pillar.
At the rear pillar the door hits & wont fit in the apature it gets wider maybe 15mm overlap towards the bottom.

The rear leg is in the exact spot & no I havnt fitted the rear clip to check but I will.
If that all works out & the excess has to come of the door is this amount normal.
If it is then that ok but does anyone have an expected measurement for the lenght of the door & from the back edge of the door to the door handle recess to give me an idea if im going in the right direction.

I dont want to cut the doors then find out it was a bad move.

I presume I was correct in notching out the underside of the sill to accomadate the lowered floor.
As the sill has to stretch a long way & it didnt look right.
Nothing in the manual ,I presume not updated .

The other thing is the front clip lower edges seem to wont to keep curling intowards the body. is this normal & I presume that once it is held in position on clips & cones it will eventually find its relaxed position ?.

Hope someone can help with this.
I will thank you now. Jim Cowden

Jerry · 03-04-06, 06:29 AM

hi Jim,
Question 1- The lower chassis rail is exposed on mine.
" 2-I had to shave the rear edges off the doors to get a good uniform 4mm door gap.
" 3-The side sills do need to be relived around the lowered floor.
" 4-The sides of the front clip do curl in, so i made up some small ramps to push the sides out as it was lowered on to the cones.
All these probs are normal for the old australian built bodys, but have now been resolved on the new kits.
You will probably find that youll need a skimm of filler on the back edges of the door tops to align with the roof, and a skim along the front egde of the rear clip to align with the roof as well.
hope this is of some use
jerry

Bill Hara · 03-04-06, 07:45 PM

Jim

Is this what you mean by front clip curls in where it meets the door/sills? (see below)
There is a stiffener piece out of fibreglass that is glassed in to push it out to the correct location. Standard on new bodies, not on mine (or yours?) I'll add that photo too.

Bill.

Bill Hara · 03-04-06, 07:50 PM

1 of 3 showing stiffener

Bill Hara · 03-04-06, 07:50 PM

2 of 3 showing stiffener

Bill Hara · 03-04-06, 07:51 PM

3 of 3 showing stiffener

Ron Earp · 03-04-06, 09:15 PM

Nice work to help that problem out Bill. I know others have dealt with it using the locating cones, but then the body can flex back in when raised.

Jim, I'm not an expert on body fit but Hershal helped me do mine which Dan M. now has. Basically, we located the spider according to measurements, then hung the doors. However, the spider had to be moved slightly to get the door fit good, which means a little has to be added here and there to get everything right.

How old is your body? There were different body men, years ago, and how your body fit depended somewhat on who was doing it. For example, I know my car (Dan M. now has) and the one before it that Mark W. now has had very good bodies with well defined edges, releifs, etc. and didn't have any warpage anywhere. For the most part they fit pretty good. But Hershals body and John's body, both US cars, I'm told by Herhsal required a lot more work than Mark's or my old car.

15mm sounds like a fair amount and it'd be worth asking around or others chiming in to comment on their fits. I know my old one the doors fit well with no worries about having to chop 15mm off, just some light sanding and releiving to make the gaps consistent.

Jim c · 03-04-06, 10:22 PM

Jerry.
Thanks its reasuring knowing it sounds all very similar.

Bill
Stiffeners look the go.
when lifting the clip they will catch & I now it will give me the shits, so thats an easy fix.

Ron
The chassis is rf105 I dont now when the changes were implemented.
Got it DEC 04.

Personally I dont think its to bad it all looks pretty tidy.
I figure if the clip,sills & spider fits witch they seem to then I can put it down to much excess
on the doors.
Its to tall in the door at the horizontal gap were the clip & door come together as well.
I dont find any of this a problem as I will just cut it , maybe some measurements to reasure me.

Maybe RF can give me the expected door lenght & the measurement from the back of the door to the door handle apature to give me a guide.The height of the door from the bottom to the holizontal line were the door & clip meet.
Cutting is easy glueing it back on is the hard bit.

Jim

Bill Hara · 03-05-06, 07:38 AM

Jim

I know that I fitted the back legs of the spider first, as per the manual. After that, I made many measurements with the front of the spider, trying to triangulate to different points in case some of the frame bracing didn't coincide with the centreline of the car. You have to remember that the original moulds were allegedly taken off a damaged then repaired original vehicle, so in effect we are all living with the original panel beaters work [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/banghead.gif[/img]
If you check out some of the photos on my build, you'll see in which areas I had the most problems. I recall cutting quite a bit out of the leading edge of the left door and there was also a bit of material that came out of both A pillars. My left door was bigger than my right door and it didn't matter how much manipulation the spider received, the door wouldn't fit. I also remember taking material off the bottom edge of the right door..... Probably sounds different to what other RF owners have experienced.
Check out the RF photos in the build pages and see where work was done.
As far as the photos above are concerned, they are provided by RF as an option and help keep water out of the doors/cabin if you are caught in the rain.

Hope this helps

Bill.

Jerry · 03-05-06, 01:54 PM

Hi Jim,
The mesurement from the back edge of the door handle reccess(at the top) to the back edge of the door is-
Right hand door- 64mm
Left hand door- 75mm

I'm not sure where you wanted the mesurements for the height of the door, so i've mesured from the bottom of the door to the top of the door handle reccess. the mesurements are-
Right hand door- 241mm
Left hand door- 238mm

Hope this info is of use. It will be intresting to see how these mesurements differ from kit to kit.
Jerry.

Ron Earp · 03-05-06, 03:44 PM

Jerry, now that you mention that I think I do remember one door being slightly longer by a cm or so. I think this was fairly common on many replica bodies, although I believe RF has fixed that on newer cars while other companies like RCR, Superformance, etc. fixed it on their current designs.