Hey all, im halfway through fitting my bodykit and im looking at the skirts and wondering how to attatch them.....I was going to use screws in the wheel arches and underside or the car but where the cutout is for the door, how do I attatch it around those areas? The skirts are fibreglass and have a bit of warpage in them so they will need to be secured firmly.
depends what skirts,my stillen skirts i used sikaflex on the ledges,black painted pop rivets in the wheel arches(alot neater than tek screws ),screws underneath
how did you clamp the skirts in place while the sikaflex cured? or didn't yours have to twist much to fit
i had the same problem as you from warped skirts , what i did was use screws to hold it in for 24hrs while sikaflex dried then removed the screws and filled the small holes they left, then painted the whole skirt, it worked for me. .
Sweet, thats a good idea........so simple and I never even thaught of it! Thanks for your help guys......now back to the shed!
Use some spring clamps to hold it in place at the front and rear wheel arches, dont worry too much about the twisting or bad fit as yet...... Mark the body with a texta where the skirt sits against the body, remove the skirt and use 180grit sand paper to "buff' up the area where the skirt and body meet .... (sanding it now will be heaps easier than after the skirt is fitted, and it gives a clean and roughened up surface for the glue to affix to ) Fitting the skirt.... Use a flap disc fitted to a 4" grinder to 'trim' any unwanted excess fibreglass off ( flap discs are a multi layered sanding disc )....... The better the fit the better the end result.... it may take a dozen odd fittings and 'sandings' to get a sweet fit. Once your happy with the fit get 2 small drill bits, one should be 1.5 or 2mm( smaller than the screws diameter ) and the other should be slightly larger than the self tapping screw you'll use. Drill a hole into the skirt and through the sill where you need the skirt to "pull in" to the body. Once you have the first hole change over to the larger drill bit and enlarge the hole in the skirt ONLY so the self tapper passes through it without 'grabing' the fibreglass Screw in the self taping screw... repeat the process & dont forget to keep changing the drill bits over for each of the holes along the length of the skirt ( I have 4 screwholes in each skirt ) REMEMBER....... THE BETTER THE FIT NOW, THE EASIER IT WILL BE LATER ON....... SO TAKE YOUR TIME AND MAKE IT FIT UP RIGHT ! Once you have the skirt screwed in place and are 100% HAPPY with the fit....... Wipe down the sills on the car with general purpose thinners and also wipe down the inside of the skirt where the urathane will be applied. If the surfaces are not clean then any glue you use will have a far less chance of securing the skirt onto the sill. next.... Use URATHANE to glue it in place ( Sikaflex isnt as good as urathane ..... thats why its heaps cheaper) Place several 'large dobs' of urathane on the inner side of the skirt, specifically around the screw holes..... then run a bead of urathene along the top edge where the skirt sits against the body and down the front and rear ends of the skirt where it will sit against the front guard and rear wheel arch. NOTE: Urthane is can get messy.... it will transfer from one surface to another easilly.... mask up any areas you feel may become messy from the urthane( ie; along the door jam) re- fit the screws into your pre drilled holes and torque em down till your happy with the fit. Use a plastic applicator to "screed" the excess urthane off to a better finish (I've found that plastic ice-cream lids cut down to 2" squares work really well ). The 'screeding off' works well when you have masked off the area too. Walk away from the project for 48 hours ( cant do shyte till the urathane dries ) The bottom edge note: This is best left "free floating" for now..... let the main visual area be what you are concerntrating on the most. The bottom edge can easilly be glued in place afterwards. 48 hours later...... The urathane should be dry and should 'feel' quite hard, depending on the temperature at you place it may take a week to cure or less than a day..... Remove the screws, run the larger drill bit you enlarged the holes in the fibreglass with into the screw holes but DONT DRILL THROUGH THE PANEL, this is just to clean out the screw holes..... then squeeze in some urathane into the screw holes, this will seal up the holes in the panel. Walk away for the time it takes for the 2nd lot of urathane to dry..... Trim excess urthane off using a razorblade, sand the areas around the screw holes with some 36 grit sand paper. Apply bog over screw holes. sand bog back with 36 grit paper untill its almost flat then use 180grit paper to finish off. Prime...... sand backwith 180, re-prime and sand back with 400 grit, paint it. Add large dollops of urthane to that bottm edge, 5 or 6 should do nicely. DONT seal up the bottom edge fully, water and other road grime will get in there regardless so leave it open so it can be hosed out occasionally and 'breathe' well to dry out.... it WILL help with RUST prevention in the long term. (I had a commodore here that had the skirts fully sealed on, the water had gotten in and had filled up to a point that every time the brakes were applied you could hear the water rush from one end of the skirts to the other. When the skirts eventually came off the entire outer sills had rusted away and much of the inner sill was badly corroded as were some sections of the floorpan, A pillar, & B pillar ) Other tips: many fibrelass parts are done with 'gell coat', this coat will need a heavy sand back before painting, use 125grit paper to roughen up the surface, once primed use 180grit paper for sanding. any 'gaps' can be back filled with urthane and again trimmed to suit once dried. Fine gaps (along the door's sill to skirt area ) can be filled using 'OneStep' primer and a small artists brush..... just keep adding the OneStep primer to fill the gap. Cavities in the fibreglass's gell coat.... again the OneStep primer and artists brush is the go. Large cavities can be filled with bog if need be. Remember...... TAKE YOUR TIME...... DO IT RIGHT..... And if you do so then no-one will even be able to see the join. Kingy
Great write up Kingy, will come in handy when I get around to fitting my skirts. Any ideas on how to lengthen door filler panels by 20mm
Yeah thats an awesome writeup, any chance of mods moving it to the tech section????????:zlove: :zlove: Would come in very handy!
I'm sure many ppl have used it with success over the years, I too have in the past been forced to use it due to the fact that its not available localy so I had to travel in order to get urthane. ( Wurth rep now calls in for an order !! ) In the last 15+ years that I've played with the two products, urthane is far supperior to the sikaflex product, stronger adheasion, faster cure time, not as prone to airate, doesnt "string up", more pliable when 'moulding', more user friendly........ I still use sikaflex to this day however its use is limited to minor sealing only and I would never again use it for a strength reliant adheasive. Its great for resealing body joints, and minor adheasive work like glueing rubbers back onto old doors, but as a structral glue........ there can be only one..... Urthane Kingy
Thanks... Living in a small rural town means that I'm reliant on doing 99% of the modifications I want myself.... a simple case of steep learning curves with a few failures along the way but glittered with mostly awesome results .... dumb luck v's skill at times too !! My road to "fitting skirts" started off with being given a shattered front fibreglass clip and thinking.... that would look good on the Zed !!!! That road is amost finished with a full body kit now fitted, a heavilly modded front clip, a brazillian back, and a full respray in a far newer color from the ford range ( phantom Purple ... dark variant .... minus 30% of the red pearl) I've got wood :zlove: As for your "shortness" problems, the Gonz would be the better man to answer it. I know how I'd do it and I'll post that up later if Gonzo doesnt drop in.... Kingy
