Jobs On The Side!
Below is the work details for a Berkeley that had a front and rear end hit, I should really be working on the Rochdales but a change is a good as a rest, if anyone wants a quote then give me a shout!
The next few photos are when it came in, you can see the front wing has completely split and the only thing holding it on the car is the internal wheelarch aluminium panel. The rear has been crumpled and has a network of gelcoat cracks eminating from the impact point.
You can clearly see the bend in the aluminium wheelarch panel in the picture below.
The only thing holding the wing on was the fibreglass attached to the inner side of the wheelarch, this had to be removed to take the wing off. You can see the holes cut in the edge of the aluminium panel to aid the fibreglass to stick to it, works well as it was a bugger to get off and access wasn't great!
With the wing removed you can clearly see the bend in the engine support arms.
The picture below is me putting a few layers of chopped strand matting on the rear of the damage to help keep the profile and strengthen the area when I start the repair on the outside
The front overider/bumper was attached to the plate below which has slightly bent the front chassis member
With the front wing off the first job was to clean out the inside and lay some chopped strand matting inside to strengthen the area prior to a repair on the outside.
After the matting Ihad put on the inside had cured I chased out all the gelcoat cracks on the outside with a chisel!
A quick sand prior to laying up on the outside.
Now the fibreglass has cured on the inside of the front wing the intentions turn to the outside. As this wing was literally ripped of there is a massive network of gelcoat cracks all over it, most of the outer gelcoat will have to be removed.
1x layer of matting over the whole wing and some extra over the more damaged area.
Straightened chassis support.
Straightened aluminium wheelarch panel.
It's important to chase out all the gelcoat cracks as they will just reappear in the future, you can see below that some suprise you at how far they go!
The picture below shows the grind angle that has been put in the top of the wing, the idea is to grind through to the fresh chopped strand matting that has been placed on the underside
There were 3 layers of Chopped strand matt reducing in width put on top of the repair area
The first coat of gelcoat has been rubbed down to get a good profile
A second thinner layer of gelcoat is applied which will be rubbed down to get the final profile
Once the resin and matting had cured on the front wing I gave it a very light rub down prior to putting the first coat of gel on.
As i'm not using filler on this repair my next step was to put a light coat of gel on and rub it down once it had cured. The pictures below show the wing after I had rubbed down the first coat of gelcoat.
Following this quick profiling I then coated the wing with what will be its final painted coat of gel. This next coat will be rubbed down to get the final profile so a light layer of gel can be sprayed on to acheive the finish for spraying paint onto.
The picture above shows the gel on the wng, I rubbed it down and got the whole wing down to just gelcoat getting a good profile as I went, basically removing all of the paint and undercoat. Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures of this so the picture story jumps a few to the next picture, sorry.
The 2 pictures above show the wing after I sprayed the final coat of gelcoat onto it, this will need a light rub down with wet and dry before it is ready for paint. The picture below shows the cracks on the bonnett that happened when the wing broke in two and pushed up on it.
The picture below shows the gelcoat removed to see how far the cracks go. Luckily it was not too far! I have also ground into the fibreglass to allow a new layer of chopped strand matting to be put in.
The car is now waiting patiently for a space in the paint shop!
In the background you can see my Olympic which is still a work in progress!
The stripes in the paint are just due to the dust on the window projecting a shadow on the paint in the photo below.
