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New body sections/quality

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bcbennett

bcbennett

Senior Member
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Hello,

I finally figured out why my hood won't latch completely. Apparently, my car was involved in a minor accident in its life. Now, normally, I am quite adept at spotting this, but the engine compartment is pristine and unmolested, so I am guessing a slight dent once presented itself at the rear of the driver's front fender that caused a fender repair and a hood straightening that is giving me latch trouble.

OK. Here's my question. If I decide to replace my hood and or fender with body panels from the Big Three, does anyone have opinions about the quality of these new body panels vs. the originals? The quality and the weight of the metal is what I'm interested in.

Thanks in advance.
 
I'm reasonably sure that the "Big Three" all are selling "Heritage" panels, which are essentially continuations of original production parts on the original, refurbished or (as may have been needed) new tooling. Since complete TR6 bodies are (or were?) available from the same (mostly original) tooling, the fit should be about as good as it gets (unlike --sadly -- the fit of most TR2/3/4 replacement panels).
 
Hi,

Virtually all replacement panels, no matter how good and including OEM panels straight from the original maker, will require some fussing and fitting to get them right. Some of this is due to shipping damage or tweaking, which nearly always occurs. Another factor is that the body was quite likely originally built on a jig of some sort, and repairs won't be done in exactly the same way or even in the same assembly sequence.

In fact, it sounds like your car's panels are actually in pretty good shape, if you were unable to spot any problems on close inspection and the engine compartment is as pristine as you say.

You might be far better off taking the car and its existing body panels to a good, old fashioned body shop (that actually knows how to work on car bodies that sit on separate frames... not those new-fangled uni-bodies on all cars today.) It could be as simple as adding or removing some of the shims that sit under all the body mounting points, to realign a few things. Look for some old guy who's been working on cars since the 1950s and he'll know how to handle it!

Personally I'd always try adjustments and repairs to existing panels, long before resorting to replacement parts. The only time I'd buy replacement panels is when there is just way too much rust to repair, panels have been stretched, crumpled and torn by accident damage, or when old repairs were done so poorly they can't be fixed. Replacement panels nearly always need just about as much fitting and adjusting, anyway.

/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cheers.gif
 
My 3 cents on this is that you must first check the diagonals of the hood opening for square.No hood will ever fit a diamonded opening.If its within 3 or 4 mm of true your OK.If not.....your not.
MD(mad dog)
 
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