The "other" flare thread

[dscoff]

Instead of continually hijacking Kristian's thread (http://www.bmw2002faq.com/component/option,com_forum/Itemid,50/page,viewtopic/t,323701/) here's the continuation of my Alpina-style pig cheek flares. The first few entries are part of the aforementioned, but just to bring you up to speed: Korman fronts, IE rears.

I cut my rears in stages, being careful about slicing the inner fender because my plan was to re weld the inner and outer fenders rather than adding more metal like Kristian. I basically cut a crescent shaped section out of the outer fender, then cut the original lip off (where the inner and outers were originally connected). I cut the outers until they were at the same height as the highest point of the inners, then made relief cuts all the was around the inner fender. The inner was then folded up to meet the outer, the tabs folded over and welded in place. Ta da!

A couple of notes: The last person to do body work used excessive amounts of filler including the silver "metal body filler"... this stuff DESTROYS cutting blades (I used a grinder with a cutting disc for the majority of the cutting, then an airsaw to make some finer trims and reach in where the grinder wouldn't fit). MIG would be the fastest was to reattach the fenders, but I only have a TIG. It took a little longer and the fit had to be pretty close, but ended up nice and clean.

More to come... panels getting bonded this weekend and the fronts will get primer.

Jonathan

[dscoff]

Since welding the fenders, I smoothed the welds with a grinder and dressed the seam up with some filler... I know it will be deep inside the wheel well, but I'm OCD like that. The inside of the new seam got a coat of white primer, then a layer of fiberglass to seal a few of the relief cuts made in the inner fender followed by some ProForm seam sealer.

I took all the areas on the car that the flares will bond to down to bare metal and pre drilled the flares for 1/8" countersunk aluminum pop rivets every 2" or so. With a helper, I also drilled a couple of holes with the flares aligned so I could put rivets in right away after applying adhesive.

Tonight was the "big moment"! With everything cleaned I applied the ProForm Panel Bonding Adhesive to both sides, placed the paned and popped the three or four pre drilled rivets. Then it was just a matter of working from the middle and drilling a couple of holes at a time followed with rivets. Woo hoo! Flares are on!!

I also had time to apply the first of what will be many coats of filler after chamfering the edges of the panels with a random orbit sander.

Jonathan

[canadamatt]

I assume you are leaving the rivits in.. just curious, why would you not just use the adhesive? I would think the rivits may end up showing some time in the future (months or years). I have only used panel bonding adhesive a couple of times, but I have a relative who has been a bodyman for 20 years, they do insurance repairs almost exclusively and use adhesive wherever possible instead of welding. He told me when they first starting using it, they had some comebacks about 6 months after, as lines would start to develop at the edges, where they used body filler to smooth out the transition. Now they use a thin coat of fiberglass over the transition(ie, rage pink), then a thin coat of filler overtop.

Anyways, like I said, I don't really use the stuff, its just 2nd hand info so take it with a grain of salt.

Good work, can't wait to see the finished product

Matt

[dscoff]

The rivets are staying in I have no doubt panel adhesive is super strong. Although the IE flares are a great fit right out of the box, they're not an "oem" fit and a couple of spots needed slight flexing to fit. I was worried if these ever started to come loose the seam would spread and I'd loose the whole thing. I've also seen photos of a car that was tapped in the back end and the flare popped off. With the adhesive and rivets you could tow my car by the flares!

I tackled the blending yesterday with pretty good results! I thought about the 'glass trick but for simplicity just stuck with filler and obscene amounts of sanding.

More to come after today... hopefully hit the fronts with primer!

Jonathan

[jrkoupe]

exciting stuff.....congrats.

You never showed us the fronts all fitted!!!! Did the rt. side come along alot faster?...

How many hours would you say to get each front fender fitted well? I need to start budgeting some build costs.!!!

gl

PS

what wheels will you be running?

[KB73]

Looking good!

I like your approach using the inner fender skin instead of a patch (wish I had thought of that).

Kristian

[dscoff]

Woo hoo!! It's done!!

After an epic push this week to get the primer, paint and reassembly done, the car is ready for a German car show tomorrow.

From where I last left off it was a ton of body work: fill, sand, repeat. I used normal poly body filler for most of the blending (instead of the long strand that was initially my plan), followed by 3M glazing putty to finish things off. I'm not sure how much more detail I can offer besides keeping in mind that paint highlights flaws, not hides them, so attention to the filler is key. My only setback was a can of budget filler instead of the USC stuff I'd normally been using. The batches were sporadic in curing, despite adequate mixing etc (all the normal causes for poor curing). Some dried with no problem, while others remained soft for 12 hours. The first coat on the drivers rear fender was so crappy that I had to scrape it out with a razor and start fresh... ughh!

Because this was my first shot at automotive painting, I went with PPG Omni Acrylic single stage paint and Omni high build epoxy primer. I basically spent a few hours getting rid of all the body dust in my workspace before spraying, placed a small exhaust fan at one end of the garage and made sure the lighting was excellent. The primer went on both the fronts and rears easily even with a 1.4mm tip and a touch up HPLV gun. The colour coat took a little more attention, and one of the hardest parts was not overapplying coats: you get this urge to get complete coverage with the first couple of passes, but thats a quick was to get runs in the paint. I ended up with a couple of runs, one because of incorrect HPLV setup (I had the tip oriented 90 degrees the wrong way for the direction of my passes) and one because of how the contours in the panel your spraying affect paint coverage. All in all I'm extremely satisfied with how it's turned out, especially being my first time painting. The runs and some minor orange peel came out easily with wet sanding (2500 grit) and polishing with Meguire's 86 and successively finer pads.

In addition to the flares, I installed IE Stage 2 springs to fill them and I'm really happy with the stance.

I suppose the one flaw is the paint: it doesn't quite match the old stuff (although how can you really match paint that sat outside for 10 years?), but its pretty close. I would have also repainted the doors, but I was unsure of how much paint I had to work with... it would have been a bitch to get them sanded down and run out of paint half way through. The car is due for a total repaint in the winter anyway (when the motor is out).

If anyone has questions about this project, don't hesitate to shoot me an email!

Jonathan

[jrkoupe]

Jonathon....

I can appreciate all the hrs you put in.....to me it looks like a perfect period hot rod....not concours perfect....like a step back in time..The IE 2s give it a proper stance....not too low....

enjoy...are those the wheels u r staying with?..

[dscoff]

Yep... I love the Alpina wheels and with 205's they fill the flares nicely.

I've got some more polishing to do along with some wet sanding, but again I'm pretty happy.

As for the passenger front fender, it required the same rebuild around the signal area where it meets the front clip. That area fit worse then the left so required more body work, whereas (thank goodness) the door end fit far better. Most importantly it just needed some shaving to get the gap correct, rather than the massive depth transformation the other side needed.

Some other tid bits I left out of the previous post: Where the fronts fasten to the body down low by the door, I embedded a small strip of 18g steel with resin to reinforce the relatively small flange before drilling the mounting hole. Also, the pockets that are formed by the rears I filled with aerosol foam (for sealing around windows), then shaved it to match the contour of the wheel well and coated it with gravel guard. This wasn't for any kind of structure, but just to keep road crap and small animals out of the void.

Jono

[jrkoupe]

Jono.....a quick few questions...can i e mail you?.....I lost your e addie....tia

Joel