pirana

[merlinsautobody]

Earlier this year a friend of mine who owns a shop that does excellent work brought over a customer who wanted to build a replica of a race car that was very popular in the early 70’s in south Africa and many other parts of the world. The customer wanted to have a set of flairs made out of steel so that’s what my friend brought him to me for. He showed me this picture and asked if I could make these flairs.


http://metalmeet.com/forum/picture.php?pictureid=5502&albumid=417&dl=1318117456&thumb=1 (http://metalmeet.com/forum/album.php?albumid=417&pictureid=5502)


Of course I told him yes even though I had never taken on a job quite like this before. I asked him a lot of questions and he was impressed with my observations and attention to details. Time went on and I never heard any more about it even though I had mentally figured out my approach to this job. A bad turn of events forced my friend to close his shop but the customer he brought over kept in contact with me. He sent me a series of emails showing me what he liked and didn’t like about the various cars of this style. So I was able to get a real good feel for exactly what he wanted. He had taken the car to another shop that mainly does collision repair but better quality he had stripped the car down and mounted it on a rotisserie. In the mean time he had another car that had already been modified with a v8 installed and drivable he just felt it had more rust than he wanted to deal with so he used the cleaner of the cars he had. We finally set a time to get started on this project and we used the drivable car because it was already at the right height for the motor being used to set the flairs. This picture shows what I started with.

http://metalmeet.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=417&pictureid=5501

[merlinsautobody]

The first thing I did was mount the chosen wheel and tire size so I could establish exactly where the flairs had to be placed and what size they needed to be. So I made a paper mock up of the proposed flairs so he could see exactly what it was going to look like. The following shots show my paper flair.


http://metalmeet.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=417&pictureid=5504



http://metalmeet.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=417&pictureid=5505


Next I had to make a way of establishing where the outside of the flair would be since I was doing all 4 flairs I wanted them to be exactly the same so I made up a template to mark them all the same. I used a 2x4 frame and put a piece of 1/8 spring steel wire in the frame to make a nice curve that could be repeated. This is a picture of that setup.


http://metalmeet.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=417&pictureid=5506

[merlinsautobody]

The next thing I do is very unconventional I made a plastic mockup of the wheel opening. I used sheet styrene and glued up the pieces. I had to use a bunch of clamps to hold it in position while the glue set up. Heres a few shots of what that looked like.


http://metalmeet.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=417&pictureid=5507


http://metalmeet.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=417&pictureid=5508



http://metalmeet.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=417&pictureid=5509

[merlinsautobody]

I didn’t take a picture but I mounted a piece of plywood to the edge of the flair and filled it with fiberglass and wood scraps and filled the gap between the wood and the car. There’s a lot of pictures of this stupid plaster flair in my album. Like I said I wouldn’t do it this way again. Next time I’ll just mark the area of the outside of the flair and cut it shorter and bend it out manually , I finally did this by the time I got to the fourth flair and it was a lot easier. Some things you just don’t get until you actually do them.
Now I’m actually ready to do some metal shaping. Enough of this plastic and plaster stuff. The owner of the car had the front fenders removed because they were coated with a thick layer of undercoating that was starting to fail and he wanted to get it removed. These are weld on fenders so that was no small task. He brought me clean and primed fenders. I set the fender on the fiberglass form I had made and screwed and clamped it down.

http://metalmeet.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=417&pictureid=5517


I then marked the area to cut out and removed the wheel opening lip. Heres a shot of the fender with the lip cut off.

http://metalmeet.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=417&pictureid=5518

I can’t remember but this may be the first fender I did because I learned to cut the area I had to turn out a little smaller’ here it is after a little beating.

http://metalmeet.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=417&pictureid=5519

[merlinsautobody]

The fender came out ok but the form was brittle and cracked to pieces. I normally use marglass for this type of work but I was using a European product made by upol and didn’t know that it was brittle. Surprise!

http://metalmeet.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=417&pictureid=5520

why is my type comming out so small when i copyed it fromword it was much larger and it's even larger when i type it here'

here is what it looked like after the roughing out stage.

http://metalmeet.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=417&pictureid=5521

[red baron]

Lookin good! What part of San Diego are you in? I'm up in Oceanside

[Hairy-Neil]

why is my type comming out so small



Edit the post and remove the 'Times New Roman' font formatting...;)

[anders nørgaard]

Edit the post and remove the 'Times New Roman' font formatting...;)


Yes, and change the formatting to "Verdana" size "2" ;) (default font)

[oldgoaly]

Gayle,
Don't let the computer glitches hold you back, size of wording isn't important. The content is Great! Thanks for Sharing it with us! tt;)

[ESjaavik]

Is this the one you are cloning?

http://www.capri-perana.co.za/gunston.html

Please keep on posting. I will have to deal with a similar flare and not sure about how to attack it. Your take on this may help me.

[merlinsautobody]

anders&neil tried to edit as per your instructions but nothing changed the main tool i use is a hammer and that won't help my computer. :o but thanks for trying

esjaavik yes i think that is the one. he showed me pictures of cars of that style from all around the world. most notably so africa, austraila, and somewhere in europe.

[merlinsautobody]

Ok now I have the fender ready for the flair so now I need to make the flair. The first thing I did was to make a loop the size of the flair out of 1”x1/4 flat bar I bent it over the piece of plywood I had cut to the right size earlier, and then tweaked it on the stump to take out any wobbles . after I made the ring I cut little pieces of ¼” rod and welded them to the flat bar to hold it where I wanted it. Then I cut up little pieces of paper and taped them together to make a pattern for my metal for the flair. This is what it looked like.

http://metalmeet.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=417&pictureid=5522





I ground the backside of my forming ring so that I didn’t leave a line where it hit on the formed flair. Here you can see the ring and the pattern





http://metalmeet.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=417&pictureid=5524


I then cut a blank and lightly wheeled it out to give it a tiny bit of outward bulge this keeps it nice and flat when bending over the lip








http://metalmeet.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=417&pictureid=5525

[merlinsautobody]

I then wrapped the metal around the form and screwed it down to the plywood at the edge as you might be able to tell from this photo,

http://metalmeet.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=417&pictureid=5526

Then I started hammering the edge over a little at a time being careful not to hit the front edge of the flair. Then I hammered it against the flat bar to make the lip.

http://metalmeet.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=417&pictureid=5527

Now I have taken the flair off the form and set it on the fender. getting excited now it’s starting to look like something.

http://metalmeet.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=417&pictureid=5529

[merlinsautobody]

I clamped the fender back on the car in it’s rightful position and trimmed and tacked the flair to the fender you can see I didn’t leave much of the fender because the flair was so much smoother that I wanted to use as much as I could and have less cleanup work to do’

http://metalmeet.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=417&pictureid=5528

I finished welding the flair on and ground my welds and cleaned it up now it’s really starting to look good. One detail I didn’t get any shots of was the lower corners’ in the picture of it tacked in there not there but the suddenly appear when the finished fender is shown. Sometimes I get so into this type of work that I don’t even remember to take pictures, oh well.

http://metalmeet.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=417&pictureid=5530

http://metalmeet.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=417&pictureid=5531



http://metalmeet.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=417&pictureid=5532


After I took these shots I went over the flairs with a shrinking disc and smoothed them out even more.

[anders nørgaard]

anders&neil tried to edit as per your instructions but nothing changed the main tool i use is a hammer and that won't help my computer. :o but thanks for trying

esjaavik yes i think that is the one. he showed me pictures of cars of that style from all around the world. most notably so africa, austraila, and somewhere in europe.

Gale,

I changed the font to Verdana in your previous posts of this thread ;) :)

[metalformrt]

It looks really good your work

[merlinsautobody]

thank you anders

red baron; l'm in santee

[merlinsautobody]

And now on to the rear flairs they were basically the same just slightly shallower I didn’t need to allow for tire strike when the wheels were turned but I still had to allow for the wider tires and keep the over appearance uniform. Some of the pictures he showed me had huge lamp shade flairs and he definitely didn’t want that. So I modified my form a little by adding a little plywood to make the flair shallower in retrospect I probably could have made then the same and cut a little more off but sometimes you don’t think until your done and then go duh…here’s a shot of the flair in the modified form


http://metalmeet.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=417&pictureid=5533


Here’s a shot of the quarter after I cut the radius out notice the nice bodywork someone did for me that the sandblasting showed us no problem I’ll be beating this area up anyway.


http://metalmeet.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=417&pictureid=5535

I also cut out the inner wheel house so I could work the panelhttp://metalmeet.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=417&pictureid=5536

[merlinsautobody]

Then I clamped on my fiberglass form originally meant to keep all 4 flairs the same



http://metalmeet.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=417&pictureid=5538

The car was on a rotisserie so I just spun it into position and it worked out that my stump was just the right height to hold it in place while I beat on it

http://metalmeet.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=417&pictureid=5539


Here what it looks like from the business side
http://metalmeet.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=417&pictureid=5540[/FONT]

[merlinsautobody]

And after it’s pounded out



http://metalmeet.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=417&pictureid=5541


Then the flair was put on and finished out



http://metalmeet.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=417&pictureid=5544



Then a lower corner was added on I originally wanted to add a small mud flap lower corner but the owner wanted it to just disappear into the body at the bottom so that’s what I did

http://metalmeet.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=417&pictureid=5548

[merlinsautobody]

Now here is where the real fun began, the inner wheel house. I made another flair on my form out of an old door skin. It was 19ga and everything I had used up to this point was 18ga, I just thought it would be a little easier to work with. I used my flair form to keep everything in shape because it had to mate up with the flair I had already put on. I used part of the old wheel house and grafted it on.



http://metalmeet.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=417&pictureid=5550




Here’s a shot after I tacked it in.

http://metalmeet.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=417&pictureid=5555



And it looks like factory made on the inside. The body shop he took it to after me finished everything out like it was outside the car.



http://metalmeet.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=417&pictureid=5549

Here is the parting shot of this sidei then put on the last one and my part was done. A few years ago I would have done the whole job including the paint. Since my stroke I gave up on the bodywork part, besides I enjoy the metalwork so much more I don’t miss working the bondo at all. And it actually helped because I hit less hard and I find that gives me better control. Here is a link to the pictures the customer put on a web site he goes on. My part starts on pg13 http://tinyurl.com/3g2f3jg (http://tinyurl.com/3g2f3jg)

http://metalmeet.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=417&pictureid=5556

[Hotrod1932]

Gale thank you so much for taking the time to post this!!

REALLY nice thread!!! :D

[jlrussell4]

Hi Gale,

I'll second what Ray said. Very nice job on both the car and the post.