Repairing front wheel wells

[1970EuropaGuy]

I'm cleaning up some bad fibreglass work done by the PO to stop cracks in the front fenders. At this point I'm grinding down to clean glass and adding a couple layers of new mesh to strengthen the area.

Am I correct in assuming that the butchering was done at some point due to wheel rub? Anyone have an original photo of this area?

[BDA]

I'm not entirely sure what you're looking for but I've attached some pictures of my car.

As for fixing that crack, you would cut out the crack, grind it thin on both sides and fill with mat and filler if necessary.

[1970EuropaGuy]

Thanks BDA. Your car looks similar to mine. For now I'm only going to patch from the back. I'm hoping to get a really good colour match on the paint this summer and do some touch up.

[BDA]

I have patched small cracks from the back only and then filled in the crack with filler and painted. It worked fine but that was on my race car. It may work for you but a proper fix would be glassed front and back.

edit: I forgot to mention that after cutting out the crack, you should make some "band aids" our of aluminum or similar sheet and pop rivet or use sheet metal screws to align the edges. After glassing the back side, you take the band aids off and glass the front. You probably knew this but I thought in case you didn't I would mention it.

[Grumblebuns]

What size front tires are or were on the car? I'm thinking that 185/60 or wider tires will cause rubbing or actual cracking of the inner wheel well area which if severe enough will crack the out side of the fender. It's happened to two of my S2s. You can check for tire to fender contact by turning the the front wheel to full lock and have somebody press down on the corner of the body and check for contact. The PO of my S2 was aware of the issue and cut out the inner fender lip where the tire was rubbing. Unfortunately running Toyo R888 185/6013 tires there is still some rubbing and the drivers side front fender now has a small crack and a big chip.

[1970EuropaGuy]

When I purchased the car it had old 155/70 tires. I presently have 175/70 on it.

I'm guess that at some point one the previous owners had wider tires that were rubbing.

[JR73]

As already mentioned, the lip looks to have been trimmed back for extra clearance on larger wheels/tyres.

The crack could well be due to contact from a larger wheel/tyre but could also be due to a lack of the metal closing plate that supports the front body - rear edge of the radiator compartment to front edge of chassis (i have seen a fair few Europas with cracks across the front arches due to flex from the closing plate not being fitted). - they also rot so it could have been caused when an original one failed...?

Are you chamfering the glass away from the crack so that the deepest point of the new material is effectively where the crack is/was?

[gideon]

Looking at that last picture it occurs to me that, as well as repairing the crack and checking the closing plate, you should rebuild the lip where it has been ground down to restore some tensile strength to the arch.  It looks as though the crack was caused by tension pulling the two sides of the wheel arch apart - and with the missing lip structure it didn't have enough strength to resist.  The important thing in repairing the lip then is to include plenty of long fibers oriented around the perimeter, or lip, of the wheel arch.  The long fibers will carry the load in tension. Chopped strand mat doesn't do a good job here, so woven cloth would be better.  You can get woven tapes that may be a bit easier to work with than wide cloth.

[1970EuropaGuy]

Thanks all for the great info. The closing plate is missing on my car. I'm assuming it's just a sheet of steel? What thickness?

At this point I'm only laying up glass mat on the inside, hopefully to stabilize the cracking which doesn't appear to be getting worse. I'll add a few extra layers to the lip.

[dakazman]

70, the thickness of the close outs don't need to be steel or very thick. The entire w/w is probably only 1/8 thick glass fiber.
  On the repair, place aluminum tape to the outside skin tape to protect the painted surface. Later you can cut into your inner repair to complete the repair at your leisure.
Dakazman

[JR73]

The closing plate has a slight kink across it width ways (from memory as its been a while since i was underneath!!) to allow it to change from the level the body is at to the bottom edge of the chassis and the front to rear edges (sides) are folded 90 degrees to give a little more rigidity.

You could get away with putting a flat sheet in place as a temporary measure if you are using the car regularly...?!

[gideon]

There's a drawing of the closing plate here.

http://www.lotus-europa.com/manuals/misc/Closing%20Plate%20Europa%20S2.pdf

[1970EuropaGuy]

Great information. Time to get back to work!

[dakazman]

Oops, that close out. I thought you meant the close out to the door pin area.
Dakazman

[gideon]

The drawing that I linked to appears to show the thickness of the closing plate as 3/8 inch.  Can that be right?   My car is also missing the closing plate, so I can't check, but 3/8" seems far too heavy.  Not very Lotus-like.

This diagram of the TC closing plate indicates 17 or 18 gauge.   Big difference.

http://www.lotus-europa.com/manuals/files/tc_closing_plate/closing_plate.pdf