Project Elva: Fiberglass Repairs Are Messy but Not Terribly Difficult

Our Elva Mk6's body was badly damaged. We figured we'd better make some repairs before we got too far along on this project. If we didn't, there was a chance the body might completely break in half during the fitting process.

Fiberglass repair (learn more about fiberglass work her…

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Looks good with the headlights covers out! 

This is relevant to my interests.

At least the aluminum patches are a bit easier to reverse than if they glassed the area in correctly.

Just looking at that makes me itch. When I cut the body off the frame on my TVR Grantura (they bonded them together) I itched for a week!

I tried to do fiberglass repair on my mothers 1970 Maverick in 1975 or so.  It did not turn out nice.  And I itched for a week.

Scott

In reply to wspohn :

I did a TVR Griffith back in the late eighties. It has a very similar body to a Grantura.

In reply to noddaz :

Some people itch more than others. I am lucky I don't itch as bad as others. Maybe becuase I have been working with this stuff for nearly 50 years.

Tim Suddard said:

In reply to noddaz :

*SNIP* Maybe becuase I have been working with this stuff for nearly 50 years.

You do make it look easy!

Scott

Tim Suddard said:

In reply to wspohn :

I did a TVR Griffith back in the late eighties. It has a very similar body to a Grantura.

Was it a Griffith 200? IIRC the old Grantura body style ended when they started calling them the 400.

I raced my Grantura (MGB engine, crossflow head, Webers) back in the 80s, but always had a nagging fear of the rear stub axles breaking even though I had tested them. There were multiple instances of that happening in a hard corner, at which point the rear wheel exits stage left  (or right, as the case may be) along with the rear brake drum, and if you don't have a racing balance bar set up you would also have no brakes.

The adhesion coming out of the corners was great - pretty much on par with my LSD equipped MGA race car, but with an open diff.  Got that car under 1800 lbs wet.  It is now racing in Europe.