Club panels - advice please

[alangraham]

I don't know whether to ask my body shop man to bodge, weld and repair the front wings and front end of the 1500 I've spent 9 years and £9000 bringing up to A1 standard, or whether to obtain and ask him to fit Club GRP panels.
I don't know enough about GRP panels. I once had a disastrous result fitting a fibre glass front end to a Herald where the sides were so weak they flopped from side to side at speed, the paint cracked off and the panels never fitted properly against the rest of the car.
I know now that I should have bought a restored mint Dolly rather than bring a rot box back from scrap but hindsight doesn't help and at some point I went past the point of no return.
What I'd like to ask is:
If I choose GRP, how are they fixed if they aren't welded?
Are they strong enough to pass off as steel after painting? Are GRP panels bendy?
Will it be obvious that the panels aren't steel?
Why do people still pay £400 on Ebay for NOS wings with surface rust, and £600+ for front ends that have been unused in lofts for 30 years if GRP is as good a substitute?
The middle section of the most recent Dolly Mixture was useful in that it showed what's available but didn't contain the technical help I need.
Thanks,
Alan

[xvivalve]

I'm biased, so I won't comment, other than to suggest you view a set that have been successfully fitted. Where are you?

[Carledo]

These are the club GRP wings and front panel fitted and painted just over 2 years ago.

















They say a picture paints a thousand words!

The front panel is also of the club GRP variety. The panels are not as easy to fit as nos steel ones would be but are worth putting the effort into. Do not confuse these panels with the non club old stock wings which sometimes turn up on ebay and elsewhere.
I held mine on with tapping bolts and Tiger Seal which seems to work fine, my car does NOT have an easy life!
The reason some people will travel hundreds of miles and pay hundreds of pounds for NOS panels is simple, no show car would be seen dead wearing GRP. But if you are building a daily driver, a modified or competition car or just something different to have fun in at weekends, GRP is fine and these panels are strong, well made and largely indistinguishable from steel, even at short range. Several people have had to tap mine to convince themselves they are GRP!

Steve

[Galileo]

I'm biased, so I won't comment, other than to suggest you view a set that have been successfully fitted. Where are you?

In some ways I think that your opinion is more important with that bias, as you can sell the idea of why the GRP wings are just as good as the steel, if not better in some ways.

With some initial misgivings my father fitted a set of GRP wings to an Austin Cambridge (A60) with the help of a bodyshop friend and when they were done you could not tell the difference, and they seemed just as solid as the metal ones that once resided there. The key thing with fiberglass is the quality of the mould, the thickness of the fibreglass and bracing in the right places for strength, and as to cracking, the quality of the protective gel coat that's applied to the fibreglass is responsible for that. I for one would not turn down the gift of a Scimitar, entirely made from fibreglass.

Basically, not all fiberglass is bad, my boat is 100% fibreglass and takes a full slam at 25 knots from a 1.5m wave!

[alangraham]

Thank you for posting the pictures and for the guidance. My GRP misgivings are fading away but are based on the Herald experience back in the 1970s. What I'm trying to build is a car that looks like it did when it was new. Winning shows is not a priority though it would be nice. Whi is fitting GRP hader to do than fitting steel?
I'm based near Leyburn in N Yorks by the way.

[Carledo]

Thank you for posting the pictures and for the guidance. My GRP misgivings are fading away but are based on the Herald experience back in the 1970s. What I'm trying to build is a car that looks like it did when it was new. Winning shows is not a priority though it would be nice. Why is fitting GRP harder to do than fitting steel?
I'm based near Leyburn in N Yorks by the way.

70s GRP was in some cases pretty dire, I fitted several one piece fronts to minis back in the day and a lot of them were almost transparent they were so thin and floppy! Likewise early dolomite grp wings can be of very poor quality. To be fair though, they were made when new steel wings were not only available but cheap as well, so the GRP offerings had to be not only cheaper, but lighter as well or they wouldn't have sold.

Fitting new steel panels is usually just a matter of clamping in place and welding on, GRP parts, no matter how well made, will always need a bit of fettling to fit neatly (and in the case of the front panel, some small adjustments to the inner front panel are required) Having done my own car, myself and a few other members fitted a pair of club GRP wings and a front panel to Aluns white project Sprint in just a day at the NEC restoration show and had it close to final fit time by the end of the show. Generally the more time you spend on repeated try fitting and small adjustments the better the final result. When I did mine the panels were on and off like a toms drawers over a 3 day period but I think the result justified the effort! And having done it once, the second time was MUCH easier!

Steve

[alangraham]

Thanks Steve, and were you happy with the result? When you got them painted and polished did they look as if they were part of the original car?

[Carledo]

I'm very pleased with the result! The 3 GRP panels cost less than I paid for a steel front panel for my Sprint, were reasonably easy to fit and once painted and polished up are very hard to tell from steel ones, even close up! If they were to REALLY look like part of the original car, I would have to put simulated rust bubbles all over them and a couple of ragged holes behind the headlights! You've seen the pics, what do YOU think?



Steve

EDIT, I should add that I used NO filler whatsoever on any of the GRP panels so what you see is what I got with only paint added!

[alangraham]

I think I should definitely fit GRP. Was that picture taken at Mallory Park? It's not my vermillion 1500 HL in the background, though it looks like mine.

[Carledo]

Its Castle Coombe and the all Triumph track day in April this year. The Vermillion car, I think belongs to forum member 80Sprint and is (as you might guess) a Sprint with an alleged 175bhp on tap. The 2000 has a BMW motor in it and was quite quick once he got the hang of the circuit.

Steve

[cleverusername]

My experience has been OK, as long as the car is straight they should fit. The only difficulty is that GRP has to be thicker than steel due the nature of the material, but if I can get them to line up, I doubt a proffessional would find it much of a challenge.

The advantages, in my opinion, outway any fettling to get it to fit. At a stroke you eliminate a large number of the rust traps on the front end. Both my wings and front valance are GPR, they will never rot. Fitting them allowed me to fully rust proof everything underneath. It also means that rot can't spread from the outer panels to the inner ones.

Mine are bolted on, so if I need to do any repair work I simply remove them and have full access. So I would say go for it, as long as you are sure that the inner wings are straight, as GRP can't be manipulated as easily as steel.