panels no fitting

Hi all ,building my first speedster & I am upto fitting the doors & Ive noticed that the door will no line up due to the sill is bowed .Is this common ?The suppiler has told me to bend it & block it with wood & screw or clamp it & heat it ? also the rear boot lid does not fit in line with body , is this commom ? my kit has a seperate sub frame & body , Please help

If you haven't done so already, I'd suggest you go to this UK site:
http://www.speedsters.com/cgi-bin/speed/discus4_00/discus/discus.pl?pg=topics

Years ago CMC offered basic kit with nothing put together, option with sub-frame bonded and riveted in, and option with frame in and doors hung. I got the full monte. Can you start installing the sub frame and pull the body into shape using large sheet metal screws with big washers --- using door as guide perhaps? I'm not real pleased with door fit on my CMC but with it being good quality finished color gel coat - I won't try to fix until it needs painting. You might try sanding trim flange on the engine lid and its mounting flange for a better fit. I wouldn't use heat other than heat of sun or a heat lamp.

Try to reach Simon Hambly in the UK. Has posted to many interesting subjects here on the SOC forum and I assume would be very a competent problem solver with regards to your Pilgrim.
His web-site: http://www.hambly.org.uk/chesil/
I believe this is his published e-mail address: speedster@hambly.org.uk

Oliver-what is up? Have you gotten any assistance from your tribe members?

I have a cmc wide body witch i bought unassembled. The gaps where horible. The car had colored gel coat also. Being a autobody tech i decided to hand file and sand all the gaps very even. I also blocked all the little ripples out of the gel coat. I will be priming the whole car and blocking it out 1 more time. Its taken a long time but the finished product should be worth it.

James is right, It does take time to prime Block and re prime and Block again to make a glass body nice. It's as time consuming as lacquer.

Packard would rest a prime job 3 months before re blocking a car. Rolls Royce even longer. Fiberglass is a lot like that it needs time to mellow out. before you can continue. Modern paint shops with a kilm room help that a bunch. But the old ways are better.

Hi guys when u said block it ,wot do u meen ?us uk brits have a different lingo sometimes .

Looks like IM killed your command of English language! ;<)

Block sanding is using a block (of wood is fine but usually hard rubber covered) as backing to sand paper. It flattens the final surface vs it having valleys and peaks.

http://www.hotrod.com/techarticles/body/hrdp_0805_auto_body_sanding_block/index.html

Ollie:

Block sand.

Usually, with gel coated cars (and boats) you bar sand the entire body with a 12"-18" pneumatic bar sander to get the ripples out (especially the doors and front hood (bonnet?), then prime it, then sand it with wet-type sandpaper wrapped around a block (4"-6" long), then re-prime and repeat with the block until it sands out smooth. Depending on the quality of the glass in the first place, this overall process could take a while. One guy spent one entire day bar sanding my car before he started the prime/sanding process (I have a CMC).

Here's another section of the article Wolfgang shows:

http://www.hotrod.com/howto/hdrp_0610_paint_body_tips_tricks_materials_sanding/block_sanding.html

Gordon

A air powered 14 inch sanding board works best the first time,,

But Eastwood offers a flexible hand sanding board that works great on the 356s curved surfaces. Being I like to go slow with things like this I'd use the hand tools.. Air tools can do a lot a damage fast..

220 Grit the first round then prime and re sand a month or so later with 400 grit ., Then re prime again, another long wait.
and up to 600 grit by hand ,, For that mirror down the side look that everyone likes.

A Bic pen, a good check and a case of the body shop guy's favorite malt beverage ....I'm just say'n ~

Hi all ! blocking with wood ? The company owner who sold me the kit told me to block it with wood ,he sent me photos of a speedster bowed sill a photo with a length of timber & screws to take the bend out. Will this work? coz the mould is only 5 weeks old , he said it take a year to cure? is he correct?

Yeah, if he's not baking it AND you've got typical (cooler) UK weather, a year sounds even a little on the short side. It depends on resins used, amount of catalyst used, whether or not he used any "fixers" (used to speed up the curing process) and so forth. If you could "bag it" in a little room fabricated of plastic sheet and could elevate the temp in there to 30 degrees C for a few days to a week, it'll speed up the curing/outgassing of the resins, but, to be honest, if it'll take you most of a year to get the kit built before you go for paint I would probably just go ahead and get to the paint whenever - it'll probably be fine by the time you get there.

Sounds like it would be a good idea to find other buyers of that body on some UK kit car web sites and see what other people had to go through and use that as a guide. In the meantime, you can go ahead with the build after a couple of months out of the mold. Just wait for over a year before you start thinking about paint prep.

Just my two pennies....

Oh, and if you can post a picture of your sagging sill (or send it in an email) we might be able to give some better advice about straightening it. Fiberglass usually doesn't take a bend - in other words, if it's molded curved and you later straighten it, it'll go right back once the straightening device is removed.

If your builder is recommending that you put something under the sill permanently, that's another matter. The CMC kits, that a number of us have, run a body sub-frame made of 2" X 4" boxed steel right under the sills. If that wasn't there, those sills wouldn't have any strength at all and would be all over the place. The boxed frame sits on top of the pan edge.

I have a CMC body sitting on the floor of my shop, and I can lift it up with a winch in the ceiling. If you want, I could get it up and take some pictures of what's under the sills for you, or anywhere else for that matter. Just ask.

gn

Get as much of the glass corrections done now, and just keep going over her until your pretty happy with it.

Then let her rest and out gas. The guy was right it will take while. so while your waiting on that put her together. If after a few months you see some thing you don't like fix them. but try to get it as close to right early on as you can.

My bay has water pipes in the floor heated by a gas boiler. Leaving it in a warm room will help it out gas nicely.

Setting it in the sun on a hot day will help it out gas . but green lacquer primmer less than a month old will spider web badly and make you re block it again.

Be patient!!

Hi all,not priming or painting yet just fitting. UK wet now Ive no heating in garage .The company I got it from has told me the reason for the bowing of the sills ,Its coz thay get it out of the mold after a day & put on the floor ,so the front & back make the middle bow .He said he's getting a gig to sit them on from now on .So Ive got to sort the bow out .Ive screwed stainless angle under the sill and then Im going to bond them in glass ,will that work?

Blocking.....

Have a look at this thread regarding Speedster painting at home with basic equipment......And, as a bonus, Alistair is also in the UK, up here in Scotland not far from me....

http://www.autobody101.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=5183&highlight=speedster

And for the finished article

http://www.vimeo.com/1134294

Ollie:

The stainless angle should work as well as anything, although I might use some 1" X 1" or bigger square tubing (3/16" wall or better) just to make it really strong. What is the metal thickness and dimensions of the angle flats? Before you glass it in you might want to install 4-6 counter-sink-head bolts along the sill to draw it in tight and eliminate the bow before glassing.

Want me to look under mine to see what's there??

gn

3mm stainless 1+3inch angle & the bow is in the top of the sill so the door catches it,av put the 1 inch part at the top & the 3 inch at the side ,just waiting for the company to send me the glass re inforcing & a new boot lid not bonded together so I can make the boot fit correct aswell ,thanks for all your input dudes

I bet you have a pilgrim (L&B)
well good luck with that, I got one just like it, fit is horror indeed, I already spended a whole week on making it fit already,
I estimate that I'm gonna need at least another week to prime and block it to get a good even surface,might take longer

good luck

Hi where are you in the world ?..,coz this kit is sold all over Europe
av u any probs with doors or rear boot lid ,I have had to get another boot from Mr Tanner (Pil grim) not bonded together so I try to get better fit ?

Hi, I live in Belgium,
yep,it is the same kit, There are some guys in the Netherlands that made new panels for this kit with a much better fit (cruze.nl).
I didn't buy one of the because I'm done with the fitting, it was a lot of work, had to use fibreglass to make the door panels fit on a few places.Wished I bought a new JPS instead of this kit,but at the end it will be worth it