Front wing alignment.

[roger murray-evans]

I've just visited my panel repair man working on my TR2.

(This is my perfect, rust free, straight Californian restored (not!) car

I bought last year.

He's repaired/replaced the bottom 15" of the RH front wing

exactly as per the original, ie the bottom channel that screws

to the inner sill is a welded on, but seperate, section to the main panel.

Fitted to the car, it seems that the wing, very very slightly,

kicks out at the bottom along the line where it screws to

the inner sill.Is this 'normal'?

We'd rather like to get it right now before doing the other side!

 

Any thoughts please?

 

Roger Murray-Evans

 

[Charlie D]

Roger,

I can’t answer your specific question, but I’ll just let you know that I’ve recently been putting my panels back on the front of the car and had the devil of the job trying to get things to align.

Everything looked fine until I went to fit the bonnet and discovered that with it parallel at the back to the scuttle top, the sides sloped to the left. (The gap between the bonnet sides and the wing edge was tapered.)

So I had to readjust the front wings and front apron. Then I discovered that the starting handle hole was too far to the left to line up with the engine. NOTHING seemed to line up.

My personal advice would be to fit the bonnet first, making sure that it is parallel to the scuttle top, and then align (try to align) everything from there.

I would guess that someone like Stuart has done a front-end build up a dozen or more times. Maybe he can advise on the correct sequence to use.

Charlie

[stuart]

When panel fitting on sidescreen cars be prepared to be very brutal as quite often nothing fits and if your using panels from another car then just take it as read that they will not fit at all first as last. Large pieces of wood, Tyre levers, jacks and big hammers accompany a panel fitting session every time.

Not sure if this picture helps.

Stuart.

[roger murray-evans]

Hi Stuart,

Thanks for the picture but my PC monitor brightness is naturally dark and I can't see the detail too well(must sort!).What I'm getting at is does the bottom of the front wing naturally taper outwards going

forwards.My car has it's original inner sills, the (new) bottom of the front wing, although it's parallel

with the sill 'appears' to widen going forward of the end of the sill?

I've just had a look at TR images on Google and it would seem generally that there should not be

a suggestion of any run out, so I'm going get my 'man' to tweak it accordingly.

If it's wrong then I'll be in with majority.

Many thanks

 

Roger M-E

 

[Tonyloz]

Just make sure it all fits together without any undue force before you get it painted!

[stuart]

Hi Stuart,

Thanks for the picture but my PC monitor brightness is naturally dark and I can't see the detail too well(must sort!).What I'm getting at is does the bottom of the front wing naturally taper outwards going

forwards.My car has it's original inner sills, the (new) bottom of the front wing, although it's parallel

with the sill 'appears' to widen going forward of the end of the sill?

I've just had a look at TR images on Google and it would seem generally that there should not be

a suggestion of any run out, so I'm going get my 'man' to tweak it accordingly.

If it's wrong then I'll be in with majority.

Many thanks

 

Roger M-E

 

The return underneath often has to be custom made to suit the car and sometimes is slightly tapered, essentially you want the wing to run straight into the door in the case of a longdoor car and straight into the sill in the case of a short door as thats the bit that matters.

Stuart.

[Charlie D]

Roger,

I looked at dozens of pictures when I was trying to get things right and I got the impression that many (but not all) front wings pointed INWARDS slightly, forwards of where they were attached to the inner sill.

I had a feeling that they should not have been pointing in OR out at all, it was just that because they are actually un-supported at that point, and fairly flimsy, that they would end up one way or the other over a period of time.


I was rather glad that Stuart said : “…be prepared to be very brutal…” as I thought I was being a bit heavy handed when I did it.

I ended up using a piece of 4x4 pressed up against the garage wall and then a bottle jack pressing on the inner wing in order to get the two inner wings and the apron moved over enough. Luckily the metal moved and not the wall!

Charlie.

[foster461]

i had to re-make that piece of the wing several times before i was happy with the fit and even then it is not perfect.

 

stan

[Fireman049]

.

 

 

Edited April 16, 2020 by Fireman049

[stuart]

What you will find with the forward lower edge is that the wired edge doesnt really support it enough and over the years it will crack at the point where the return section that bolts to the sill meets the wire. I make and fit an extra triangular piece there to provide additional support and extend the wire further back too.

Stuart.

[roger murray-evans]

Thankyou everyone!

Seems it's a known can of worms.

I'm going to get my panel man to do the mod as per Stuart's

suggestion at the same time as lining it up with the bottom of the long door.

He'd already voiced his thoughts on tapering the bottom return edge

if need be, I was just a little reluctant to give the nod.It's at the wrong

stage of assembly to cock it up now!

 

Once again, many thanks to all for your valuable input.

 

Roger M-E