chassis repair sections

[pete b]

does anyone have a view on repair sections supplied by express steel pannels or the mk one club

 

[Keith Halstead]

We used these from Mk1 OC last year during my resto - we had to cut them down the centre as they were wider than the originals but they are made of good quality steel & look good up against the original sections.

For inner wings, wheel arches & sills I recommend Express over the Mk1 OC as they fit & look more correct.

 

[tommy]

Generally the expressed stuff is better and if you are paying a bodyshop fit them, the additional cost of labour, to make the mk1 owners club panels fit properly, would be more than the additional cost of the expressed panels.
Tommy

 

[Simon G]

I agree with Tommy that the Expressed stuff is generally better but that still doesn't mean it's all going to fit precisely! I am still in the middle of trying to fit my Expressed Steel top plates and they've been really hard work. I found that the wing rail just wasn't shaped correctly. It was far too straight which meant that when the wing was clamped into place, the centre of the wing came slightly below the line of the bonnet. The answer was to cut the flange and realign it slightly higher.

 

[Keith Halstead]

Akso remember the leadtime on Expressed is quite long- I ordered some parts in October & am still waiting.

 

[Simon G]

I've found that if you're persistent Keith, they will cave in and get them done a bit quicker. They originally told me it would be a 4 month wait for my inner wing tops but after I moaned a bit, saying what a good customer I was etc etc they got them done in half the time!

 

[mk2cortinamatt]

I have mixed views on expressed panels, some of their panels are awesome, others would do the job but dont look that original and require work as the above posts mention

Front jacking points are good from expressed but the pressings are not crisp enough and i had to stand on one to make it the right width lol

The chassis section that runs from the front chassis on the inner wings to the long one under the floor is about 10mm to shallow so you end up having a gap where it should meet the fron chassis leg and too short to be inline with the long chassis
I made my own one in the end couldnt live with it being wrong

The chassis repair panels for the ends of the long one horizontal under the floor are spot on

A posts for my mk2, perfect, slight triming needed

Hope this helps and havent confused maters!

Ive not seen any mk1 oc panels so cant compair but just giving my opionion on expressed stuff

Got my inner arches in a week from them! they are awesome!

Matt

 

[Simon G]

Matt - I found that the front jacking points were almost spot on as was the front chassis extension which meets up with the crossmember, although in my case the inner wheelarches were not that great! I understand all the panels are finished by hand so you could probably buy two identical sections from Expressed in different batches and they could both be slightly different.

 

[tommy]

In my experience, when I have been sent an expressed panel that was wrong in a big way, I sent it back and got a better one.
Mk1 owners club panels are only fit for m.o.t. style repairs, in my opinion, as it takes a lot to make them fit and even more to make them look reasonable.
Tommy

 

[pete b]

thanks for the info