Inner arch repair

[edd]

I am asking for advice on my front inner arch and it may help other members. So far three choices appear. Repair lip. Non tooling fund complete arch and tooling fund arch. At present paddocks do a complete arch for £80 plus vat when compared to the tooling fund is half price almost. Does this panel fit or am I buying more work
Your help apriciated
Edd

[zeus]

Hi Edd,

I will be doing this soon too so glad to see the thread running. I shall follow closely.
By repair lip, do you mean with a self made piece or do you mean the repair arch that rimmers quote? I would be quite interested in knowing how much of the arch this covers.

David

[edd]

Hi david i,m still researching it but wil add anything i find out on here , or if anyone can help. It seems a shame these tooling fund panels are so expensive ,when something is over double the price tripple in some cases its does make me wonder how non tooling fund products still make a profit ok they are not perfect but i think someone is missing a trick . I have just purchased two wings for far cheaper from a local supplier. If they made the tooling fund panels nearer the non tooling panels they would shift more and make a greater margin. Ask alan Sugar (sorry Sir Alan )
Little rant over
Edd

[Guest]

You would've thought as club members tooling fund parts would be cheaper to us.........but at least they fit (so I'm told)

Jason

[edd]

You would've thought as club members tooling fund parts would be cheaper to us.........but at least they fit (so I'm told)

Jason

They fit so well its really hard not to spend a fortune , anyway i have just oredered a pair of arches from paddocks for £80 plus vat each , if you order online you save £11 postage as mentioned by paddocks ,nice of them to let me know , i opted for £5 next day. I will be a while fitting as removing my engine soon (slight change of plan ) i dont care how long it takes i love it .

I will try a temp fit to report back asap to help members on the fit , i,m a good guinea pig
Cheers Edd

[73stagman]

Have a look at these pictures. I was not replacing the full outer wing because at the time this side was not available as a new panel and I could only find rusty ones for sale on Ebay. I had not much choice but to make the outer wing up from an arch repair, a front front lower panel and a front rear lower panel..you get the idea Im sure!

As this was the second side I realised that the fit was not great on these non SOCTFL panels but like you guys my budget dictated the panels that were available.
I pushed the new arch into place inside the wheel arch before I cut anything out. Basically it is a very tight fit but it will go in I just marked the edge of the repair panel then cut out the outer wing to the shape of the repair panel that was to fit there. Then I cut away the inner wing and then tacked in the inner repair section where it fitted.

You will see the first one where I cut away the inner wing and left the splash panel in place because there was no rot in that and in any case the repair patch for the inner arch does not include that bit anyway. That splash panel was very rigid and so left me the line for fitting the arch repair... so I thought.

In the second two pictures you can see how far out the repair panel is.

I managed to weld the inner arch repair from inside the inner wing void (not under the wheel arch). I then tacked the two forward the outer repair panels in place and finished by using a dolly and hammer to close the gap between the inner arch repair and that splash panel whilst trial fitting the lower repair patch. (You probably know this but just in case.....If you close the gap in one spot and then tack it the next part of the gap can be closed quite easily. you then tack again and close the next part of the gap until there is a row of tacks and a closed gap! Then run a seam weld across the tacks) Then I fully welded the outer patches.

84.jpg87.jpg88.jpg92.jpg


You can see in the last picture that the lip of the inner arch and the lip of the outer wing did not really come together well. I trimmed off the outer edge of the arch then welded it from underneath the arch with my head in where the wheel goes! I dont have any more pictures from under here apart from this one which is horribly out of focus but you can see the repair panel fitted ok around the front part of the arch. You can also see the repair panels I had to make for the lower front apron! All the remaining underseal was removed later!

111.jpg

[sparky]

For what it's worth I have replaced all 4 inner arches, not an easy job.
if you can afford it get the soc parts I would spend the extra
they fit first time an do save hours of twisting,cutting and swearing !!!!!

Phil

[edd]

Thanks for that neil , its going to be a real challenge not just fitting the arch but fitting the wing , sill , splash panel , door , rear arch , rear inner arch and a floor pan .
So yes somewhere in the rubish bin is a near complete triumph stag in dust as i have replaced so much !
It wil be great when its on the road and i get to personally thank so many helpfull people !
Edd