Well, I lost my bay in the local body shop, so the first thing some will notice is I’m back in my old shop where, quite frankly, I’m much more at home with all my tools. I did learn a lot about the many challenges still ahead with the IFG body while being mentored by the pros though.
The last thing the owner did for me was re-bend the leading edge of the one-piece wrap-around upper fascia support from a separate piece of angle iron. He convinced me he could make it fit much tighter to the fibreglass than my original “sliced and diced” piece, and he was right. The only thing I needed to do was chop out the old and weld in the new:
Then, after several careful mock-ups, I welded the “legs” of the support to the bolt-on flange plates at the ends of the stock frame rails:
The last metal fabrication step was to secure the leading edge of the support at the right height with a couple of simple “Z” brackets. So I reinstalled the fibreglass nose, tweaked the angle iron to within a hair of the fibreglass, and bridged the gap with some 1” wide x 1/8” thick steel bar:
Here’s what the view from the cockpit looks like… notice how the newly replaced metal support fits the underside of the upper fascia like a glove:
The front rebar (metal bumper bar) has proven to be at just the right height to add supports for the upper and lower front fascia once I split the fibreglass in two pieces:
With the forward mounts of the upper and lower fascia sorted out, I next focussed on how I would reattach the lower fascia where it wraps around to the sides of the car. I could have made upper and lower flanges at the cut line to reconnect the fender to the fascia, but that would’ve led me back to square one: a minor fender bender would stress both pieces. I decided instead to mount the two pieces separately, attaching the lower fascia to the chassis via its own pair of triangulated metal structures, like this:
I started by slicing and dicing some more 1” angle and forming it into the shapes I wanted for the left and right sides:
I had conveniently left a strip of the floor from the old headlight pod bucket when I chopped the rest of it out. That floor piece served as one of the attachment points for my new lower fascia support:
I attached the front leg of the support to the backside of the metal bumper bar:
Then to triangulate the rear corner, I fabbed up another piece of flat steel bracing the first piece to the stock upper frame rail, like so:
I test fitted the fibreglass fascia back onto the chassis and checked it for fit, then repeated the process for the other side:
There’s more to follow, but the general idea should be coming clear at this point. I’ll bond some metal tabs to the lower fascia to rest on the top of, and be fastened to the curved leg. Then, I’ll be able to cut the lower fascia off and still have it supported in place by the new metal work.