mitrasautomotive.co.uk see below
Mitras Automotive UK Ltd’s success continues with Renault’s highly desirable and powerful 3 Litre Clio V6. Mitras were asked to provide the Front Bumper, Front Fenders, Side Air Vents and Sills, all to an “A” Class standard.
The Front Bumper, Fenders and Sills are all SMC compression moulded supplied to a primed “A” Class standard. The side air vents are BMC injection moulded supplied top coated.
The integrated front end bumper combines safety and design. As the face of the vehicle, high quality
of finish is imperative but also safety cannot be overlooked. The bumper combines the strength of SMC with a crash block protection unit and still manages to house two stylish fog lamps and grille.
The Fenders, Sills and Front Bumper are In-Mould Coated during the press cycle.
Both the Front Apron and Front Fender utilise moving cores in the mould tools in order to achieve undercut conditions.
Mitras have numerous robot operated cells and even low volume vehicles benefit from this automation. The front bumper and front fenders are all bonded in the robot cell.
SMC was chosen for the Clio V6 due to its strength, versatility to enable part consolidation, light weight and class “A” finish.
Automated routing and bonding provided reliability and repeatability.
Heated bonding fixtures were used to speed curing time.
so door skins and rear wings were made by a company in france out of glassfibre, the problem with glassfibre is 2 fold, as the resin produces heat during the curing process the panel can distort slightly in the mould also glassfibre will give a bit in hot conditions, like being put round a hot engine bay !
The result is slight panel movement and this will show as a uneven panel in the end, the rear wings are very big bits of moulding and are only realy contected to the car along the top and front edge by bonding the rest of the wing only has a couple of screw so can more about with the heat as well.
That's my take on it.
