How much rigidity do the rear inner arches provide for the bodyshell? I ask out of curiosity before I begin fashioning a repair for them. Am I correct in understanding that access is required to the fuel filler necks from within each rear arch?
Your thoughts, expertise and time-served opinions please.
Very little, I would have thought. When I removed mine, it transpired that they were only held on with one layer of glass mat. In fact, the strip of mat peeled of very easily and allowed the arch to come away fairly cleanly. I don't think the mat had even been wetted through with resin fully as it was still flexible when it was removed.
Hi Gary, hope your up and running now? and are you jumping in on the NYB?
inner rear arches. This was a removable panel at the front of the arch to allow access to the fuel filler down pipes. Mine where long gone and so I decided to fabricate my own. in on sheet of GRP. this is easily made by getting a piece of conti board (melamine faced chip board) or plastic sheet. I made a right angled mould with conti board, laminated it up with GRP and let go off. I then "popped" this off. Then I cross-cut one side of this angle on a band saw, one cut every 25mm ish. this allows you to bond this angle easily to the inside faces of the wheel arch...so now you have two angled faces that you can bond a flat sheet of GRP (laminated up on your conti board mould) too. Does that make sense?
Now I fitted this all the way round the arch after fitting the down pipes. I decided I wanted a water tight seal around this area so the tanks where well protected.
I used steel down pipes from Austin Montego's which also had a very neat breather pipe fitted. And then connected each end with proper rubber tube (which at the time was bloody expensive hence the mainly steel down pipes!)
