Restoration Part 21

Front Panels and Arches

The front end was made as a flip front so the next stage was to manufacture some way of hinging the bonnet and some fixing points.

To make the front end a little stronger the corners where the wings meet the front panel was reinforced with triangular fillets.

A locating flange was welded onto the scuttle for the wings to rest on. The wings would be held in place by linchpins through the wing flange fastened with R clips.

The plan is to use Dzutz fasteners on the wing to A panel join was abandoned for the time being and replaced with a locating socket made from a a strip of steel bent to shape and spot welded to the A panel. A locating tang made from thick strip steel was then welded to the A panel edge of the wings.

Some form of hinge was required and after looking around a number of hardware shops I decided that it would be easier to make them than adapt what was available. The hinges were manufactured from a strip of steel bar and a linchin fastened with an R clip was used as the hinge pin.

The hinges were then bolted to the subframe and front valance. The bolts on the front valance were put through the bottom of the number plate mounting brackets as this was already double thickness so no extra reinforcement would be required.

The joints in all of the front end were treated with seam sealer and the insides of all the panels were painted with stonechip.

I am using 6x10" wheels so I needed some reasonably wide arches after looking at a number of options I choose some Wood and Picket style arches. They are the slightly more expensive version made from plastic. I liked the Wood and Picket style as there are no visible fastenings.

They fasten underneath onto holes drilled into the arch flange. The arches came with rivets to fasten them but I used self tapping screws as they would have to be removed for painting.

The front arches had to be cut at the A panel to wing joint to allow the front to flip.

The arches are quite a good fit and will look even better when they are painted in the body colour and the arch to body rubber trim is in place.