S2 questions

[Broadside]

Hi there,
I joined some 12 months ago when I bought my S2 project, and it's sat in the corner of the workshop ever since. However, a brief lull in pressure of work means I've dragged it out and lifted the body off to to try and get things moving!!
I think I will have many questions but my first is - the guy I bought it off has gone to great trouble to make an aluminium strip curved to fit and follow the contour under the front chin, he says it is held on with self tappers and may need fibreglassing in. There is one fitted around the rear lip too below the bumper (on the rear underside) He tells me its to do with how the mould was originally joined but has since been re-made without the join?? and that it's optional to fit?
Does that make any sense to anyone? If it's not needed I'd rather not fit it to be honest.....
Thanks
Graham

[Kendo]

Graham, could you post some pictures? It sounds odd.

[BDA]

I'm not sure I understand exactly what your talking about. A picture would help a lot.

But from what it sounds like, he put an aluminum strip along where the top and bottom halves of the body join together. I have no idea why you would need that. Those seems are on all Europas. At first, I thought you were describing a front air dam sort of thing and then I wondered if the rear was supposed to be some sort of diffuser. But after reading the rest of your post, it doesn't seem like that's what it is.

Is it supposed to be mechanical - making sure the two body sections don't split apart? Is it supposed to hide or cover up those seams?

I can understand not liking that seam and trying to do away with it but I would have thought cutting the lip off and glassing the whole thing smooth would be the solution to that.

Does the picture I've attached show the seam you're talking aabout?

[jbcollier]

+1 on photos.  On the front it could be a splitter.

[JR73]

Like BDA has said, if the seams have been removed already then it would be best to just fibreglass across the joint line to make it look smooth. - pretty sure you could glass across the joint from the inside of the shell which would save you trying to work upside down or having to flip the body over.

I wouldn’t fibreglass the aluminium strips in place, it will add nothing to the strength and cause you more hassle than they are worth.

+2 on the pics, just to be sure we are talking about the same thing?!

[Broadside]

Thanks all, you are all spot on, after a quick message to the previous owner it turns out he was just replicating the seam with an ali strip. The seam had been previously removed and glassed over. He was going for originality (in looks)
As you say its more trouble than its worth so the front one wont be fitted and the rear will be removed!
Thanks for replies :-)