R5 Turbo Replica build

[GeoffBob]

Can someone please offer me some advice with regard to how to the fit the GRP strip along the bottom edge of my boot. The piece from Politecnic is hollow and has no visible mounting points. I thought of shaping and mounting two wooden blocks between it and the boot, however I don't like the idea of wood expanding if any moisture gets into it. I guess sealing the wood in polyester resin would solve this. The other possibility is to fill the cavity on the rear of the the GRP panel with PU foam and then adhere the whole thing to the boot with Tigerseal or Sikaflex.

I'd appreciate your input.

Geoff

 

[GeoffBob]

Hellooooo, anybody out there?

Will the last person to leave this forum please switch off the lights on their way out.

 

[ejk]

:lol: Still here G. Just not much to tell. Haven't driven in weeks. Can't help you much with the bodyparts either . However, I do know that the part you are showing tends to crack on the seam due to the frequent use of the rear door. As it is probably epoxy or polyester, I would suggest adding some stiffeners and mechanical fastening points to get a good connection. However good Sikaflex may be, adding some threaded studs or nuts would probably be better.

Cheers,
Erik

 

[GeoffBob]

Hi Erik, glad to see there is someone still out there. This forum has been so quiet lately I was thinking of retiring here

I hear what you say with regard to that panel. Reading some of the other posts on this forum I am concerned with the seam cracking around a lot of my panels, so for the most part I have relied upon tigerseal to form a flexile but smooth edge that will hopefully flex with the movement of the panels. But that boot strip is just a mystery to me - absolutely no way of forming a reliable bond to the boot door without first modyfying it. I eventually glued a 50mm thick medium density closed cell polyurethane foam strip along its inside surface, trimmed it to size, and then glued the inside face of the PU foam to the door with Tigerseal. If you push on the panel it flexes along its tigersealed edge, so I don't believe there will be any issue with cracking, but then I don't think I have fitted it in exactly the prescribed fashion. Oh well, so long as it looks neat and tidy and moisture can't get behind it! Oh, and I first made certain that tigerseal holds paint properly - it does. I think the car would loook really stupid if paint started peeling off along the seams :shock:

Oh, and BTW I was quite surprised at the poor fit of some of the GRP panels from politecnic. Not impossible to work with, but a fair bit of trimming, sanding, filling etc required to get them to fit properly. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend Cyril Gacia's products, but I think it's important to be aware that some post production work is required to get a neat and tidy job done. In all honesty it's probably the same for most aftermarket GRP panels.

Thanks for the advice
Regards
Geoff

 

[GeoffBob]

Just read a few comments in another thread with regard to the hatch spoiler tearing away from someone’s hatch. I don't think anyone need feel bad about this occurrence. Having just fitted mine I'm convinced the design of the roof trim, spoiler and hatch strip/trim (as shown above) is flawed. The effort required to fit these properly is, I think, comparable to what it took to manufacture these GRP bits in the first place!

By way of example, my spoiler arrived as a hollow GRP moulding with three solid bits (one each end and one in the middle). At a guess I would say these solid bits (pieces of wood coated in a slightly flexible, almost waxy, resin) are there to make the spoiler more rigid. So the obvious way to fit the spoiler seemed to be to drill holes in the top edge of the mild steel R5 hatch and put self tapping screws through into the solid bits. This, along with a copious amount of TigerSeal, initially appeared to do an excellent job of holding the spoiler in place. Very neat and tidy!

Then, one week later, I placed the hatch out in the sunshine to be sanded in preparation for paint. To my surprise the spoiler began to bulge as it warmed in the sunlight. The bulges coincided with the hollow areas, while the solid bits kept their form. It looked awful. Needless to say I removed the spoiler (cutting through the TigerSeal with a hot blade) and reinforced the hollow areas with additional pieces of wood which I shaped to fit. I glued and sealed these bits of wood in place with resin. So now the spoiler is essentially a solid item. I have since refitted it to the top of the hatch (again with screws and TigerSeal) and the result is a definite improvement.

I wonder how these flimsy bits were fitted at the factory so many years ago, and whether they went to all the trouble to reinforce them to ensure they never peeled away or deformed on a hot day? Or maybe the bits I ordered from Politecnic aren't the same as the originals? I certainly don't plan to have to refit mine for a while to come, so I plan to get them right first time, regardless of what modifications are required. 'Would certainly be an improvement though if these bits were a little more plug-n-play.

 

[GeoffBob]

Excellent weather for painting today. Cool in the shade, warm in the sun with zero humidity. Not a cloud in sight. Perfect winters day up here on the SA Highveld. Finally got to make some progress painting the GRP panels.

 

[ejk]

Looking good!

Can you tell something about the roof trims? Are those the soft rubber ones or also GRP? Did you get them on easily?

E

 

[turbo2lee]

i cant believe how much work you have done on this car its brilliant

 

[GeoffBob]

Thanks turbo2lee. Can hardly believe I've been at it 2 years already. Time just flies when you're battling a Renault

Erik, the roof trim is of the GRP type. The left side was a pretty good fit, the right side was slightly too long (or maybe the right side of my car is shorter than the left?). Regardless of size, both bits were moderately distorted (as is often the case with GRP bits after they come out the mould) and would never have held in place with just TigerSeal to secure them. Since it's virtually impossible to clamp them down to the edge of the roof while waiting for the TigerSeal to set, I opted to rivot them down to the roof .I figured I would just drill the rivots out once the Tigerseal had set, but now that they are there they don't look half bad. My doors already have rivots holding the aluminium bits in place, so I sort of have an "aero" theme going.

Anyways, to answer your question the GRP roof trim is hardly the best, but with some massaging I got them to fit. Put it this way, once they are fixed in place they don't appear mis-shapen, but getting them in place is quite a job.

The door sill bits (running-boards) are also quite bad. So bad in fact that I am considering discarding them and making my own for aluminium. The rest (bumpers and fenders) are very good. I won't be able to say with regard to my bonnet until it arrives, but I have seen pictures on John Price's website that show the edges around the headlamps to be badly mis-shapen, requiring a fair bit of reworking.

 

[CdnR5T2]

Can someone please offer me some advice with regard to how to the fit the GRP strip along the bottom edge of my boot. The piece from Politecnic is hollow and has no visible mounting points. I thought of shaping and mounting two wooden blocks between it and the boot, however I don't like the idea of wood expanding if any moisture gets into it. I guess sealing the wood in polyester resin would solve this. The other possibility is to fill the cavity on the rear of the the GRP panel with PU foam and then adhere the whole thing to the boot with Tigerseal or Sikaflex.

Geoff,
I know it might be too late now. But I remember quite a few years back I was putting on a side scoop for
my mustang and it was fiberglass. The way it was mounted was with threaded bolts that were glassed in
the unit. It was as simple as drilling a hole for the unit and putting a washer and a nut on the end.
Other than that, I have no idea how the original was mounted.

 

[GeoffBob]

Geoff,
I know it might be too late now. But I remember quite a few years back I was putting on a side scoop for my mustang and it was fiberglass. The way it was mounted was with threaded bolts that were glassed in the unit. It was as simple as drilling a hole for the unit and putting a washer and a nut on the end. Other than that, I have no idea how the original was mounted.

Thanks. I did exacly that with the rear quarter-panels since it was possible to get a nut and spanner on the threads where they come through the body of the car. Unfortunately the hatch has a fairly wide double skin where that strip fits, making it next to impossible to do the same. Would need about 3" of thread to make it through both panels.

 

[ejk]

The door sill bits (running-boards) are also quite bad. So bad in fact that I am considering discarding them and making my own for aluminium. The rest (bumpers and fenders) are very good. I won't be able to say with regard to my bonnet until it arrives, but I have seen pictures on John Price's website that show the edges around the headlamps to be badly mis-shapen, requiring a fair bit of reworking.

Just a thought. If you are making the running boards yourself, maybe you could even consider making them like the Super Production model.

http://silverstone.fortunecity.com/studebaker/677/renault/riviera/renault5turbo.jpg

 

[GeoffBob]

Unfortunately I can't get to that picture Erik, but I think I you mean something like this maybe? Then I could put the cars name down the side of the running-board. This is sort-of the colour scheme that I am modelling my car on.



Excellent idea, thanks.

 

[ejk]

Hm, actually, I can not open the link either.

Try this one: http://www.renaultsport.com/Maxi5-prod.html

 

[GeoffBob]

Ah yes, I understand. You mean something like this then?

 

[ejk]

That's it exactly.

 

[GeoffBob]

Well, I have to say that really is a magnificent looking car. If it were not for the cost I would have bought that particular body kit from Politecnic. Each panel is about 3 times more expensive than even the Maxi panels. I am not sure if this is because of "exclusivity" value, or because maybe the panels are from Carbon or Kevlar reinforced plastic instead of GRP. The front fenders on this car would have suited me so much better. As it stands I have to enlarge/raise the openings on my Maxi front fenders in order to accomodate the fact that my track car is closer to the ground than standard. I hope that when I am finished my front fenders will look something like this car.

I like your idea Erik, thanks. I shall investigate if I can build some running-boards that look like this.

 

[GeoffBob]

Today I am annoyed. While finishing off the last bits on my car during our winter time I have also been looking at picking up some decent semi-slicks for the approaching summer season down at the track. And while I am very attached to my "vintage" Gottis I don't really want to put them on the track. I'd rather keep them for show-and-shine events (not that this is anything like a show car, but even track and rally cars attract some public interest, no matter how battered - the car that is, not the public). Having said this, even if I did keep my 15" Gottis, I can't seem to find a set of 245mm wide semi-slicks to fit my 15"x9J rear rims.

To the point, this means the only way I can fit my car with a set of sticky tyres is to increase the diamater of my rear rims to 17". I am therefore restricted (if I shop locally) to fitting a pair of compomitive MO1780 rims, like this:

Which means my car will look like this:



Now I know my car is modern, but this is sacrilegious! Harry, look away before you feel the need to vomit :shock: . So, not exactly what I had in mind - but I'll do it if I have to. Maybe they'll look OK with my yellow, black and white paint scheme? Unfortunately, this the only style rim in the compomotive range that has a matching 15" rim that I can fit to the front, otherwise I would have opted for a set of classic compomotive 15" ML rims all round, as seen fitted here:



But I just can't find any decent rubber to fit on a set of 15" rims ...... AAAArrrrgg. The last thing I want is a car that looks like its wearing hand-me-downs from a Quattro. What suggestions good people? Who makes a steady supply of slicks and/or semi-slicks that I can fit to set of set of classic compomotive 15"x9J ML rims? At least 245mm's worth of rubber on the rear?

Or maybe you actually like those five spoke white Compomotives?

 

[maxi.man]

have you tried toyo for your tyres

 

[GeoffBob]

Already tried them. Widest R888 they make for a 15" rim is a 215.

I can get 245mm and 255mm wide Dunlop DZ03G's locally, but I have to fit them on 17" rims. I'd really like something to fit a pair of 15x9J classic compomotives if possible.