vauxhallviva.com

Hi
Its now dawned on me that ns wings and arches are impossible to get hold of.
So has anyone used a fibreglass wing to carry out a repair. My front wing has gone on the bottom section on the rear of the arch around cill height. I was thinking of cutting a section of a fibre glass wing and attaching it to the good section. Do you guys think this would appear better than fitting complete fibre glass wing? Ave heard that fibre wings stick out like a sore thumb and this method may be better.

rob

Hi, if you were to try this method I would take a mould of the fibre wing to get a couple of the required repair sections. Then if the job goes pear shaped,you haven't hacked up a fibre wing for nothing. Working with grp does take more effort and you only get out what you put in. A half baked job will always look bad ,but that's true for steel panels as well as grp. Personally ,if I couldn't weld new steel in I'd go for a complete fibre wing. I've never seen your method used,but we don't learn anything new by not trying. Best of luck whichever way you go.
Dave.

Dave
Good point on making a mould. Am going to start on other areas and keep i eye out for steel wing. If nothing turns up while doing the other bits then i give the fibreglass a go.

Hard to comment really without pictures. Obviously the bit apart from the arch itself would be dead easy to make in steel, all you need to do is match the curve to the sill profile and stick a flat bit on the end to weld to the inner sill. The arch is more complex, but might be possible to repair. When doing complex pieces like that I've found that lots of small repairs work much better that trying to do one big one. Post a couple of clear photos up so we can see what it's like.

Hi Droopsnoot
Theirs some pictures here in Say hello index
viewtopic.php?f=34&t=19377

It's a bit hard to tell from that photograph of the wing just how bad it is, but if the other side is OK you (or someone, if you're not practised in the dark arts) could probably copy it and have a light skim of filler to make the wing profile more pretty. The back of a sill won't be any use there, have a look at the front of the rear arch as opposed to the rear of the front arch, and the profile is completely different.

Be prepared that when you cut off the bottom of that wing, you'll also have the bottom of the A-pillar to repair and - depending on how far up it has rusted - some of that is a double-skinned section.

Trouble with wings is that is the place where they generally go because all the c**p gets thrown up from the wheels into that area, and if you have the splash guards fitted they had a habit of rotting away and then hiding the stuff that's doing the damage. I have no guards on mine, just so I can keep an eye on it.

Some front floor sections are available in Australia as Holden Torana remanufactured parts, or I've got an email address for someone with a complete HC floor panel, but it's not worth it for the section you've shown there, it's relatively easy to make. Also the rear inner arch sections are not too bad, depending on how far the edge of the floor is affected as well as the arch, the only trouble is the missing section is where the lower mounts for the rear seat belts used to be, so if you want rear seat belts you'll have to make doubly sure the work is good around there.

Rear seat belts never enter my mind. Its a 78 viva would it been fitted with rear belts. Can't find any mounting points in rear roof pillars or in the centre of floor.

Rob

The lower mounts were where your holes in the arch are, there's usually a captive nut in the top of the C-pillar and a couple in the transmission tunnel. It would only have had the belts as an option, but I think the mounts should be there. They were certainly in my Sportshatch, which is a 76 registered car.