Update by Tim Suddard to the
Elva Mk VI project car
Dec 23, 2020
Once we got the body straightened out, we noticed that our Elva’s engine cover–which is actually the whole back third of the body–did not fit correctly. It was much wider than the rest of the body.
We had also noticed that the rockers and sides of the body had been pushed out. After looking over things a bit more carefully and studying some original photos, we quickly realized the entire rear of the car had been crudely widened, presumably to fit larger tires and wheels.
This also explained the aluminum V-shaped pieces we found in the rear quarters. Removing these aluminum pieces and moving the widened rocker panels of the car back to the stock location transformed the look of the body.
Of course, we then had to make permanent repairs. We first realigned the body back to its original specs using tie wraps and small pieces of metal. From there, we again cut various patches of glass cloth and glassed the entire tail section back together.
We’re happy with how these repairs turned out, and the before and after photos are rather dramatic.
I expect that you know this, but an easy way to intriduce localized stiffening ribs is to simply fibreglass over lengths of polpropylene rope on the underside of the area to be stiffened to prevent stress cracking and reduce panel drumming etc.
Racing a TVR and restoring a Jensen CV8 makes one intimately acquainted with fibrrglassing
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