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I found an old roof lining panel in our store room that was designed to finish off the underside of the roof. It's shape was close enough to trim and bond-in - filling the gap admirably. In the piccy below, you can see the three re-bonded cut lines of the near side of the roof, the new, red, centre part of the roof and the beginnings of the new front door window radius in the bottom centre of the pic.
I measured and marked the first few cut-lines using only instinct and judgement - this is not a scientific process - it's very much a suck-it- and-see procedure. It is importand however, to duplicate the cuts and marks symetrically on each side.
Lightweight glassbibre panels often rely on angles and returns on the edges to keep them rigid and strong. Making a few simple cuts along the returns renders them amazingly floppy and flexible. The picture below shows just the first few cuts and already you can see a significant change in the curvature of the panel.
And so, onto the big one. Re-shaping the tail section. Back in the day, I can recall lowering the roof on a couple of customer's cars. The results were certainly an improvement on the original hump-back shape but the budget wasn't enough to go the whole-hod and do the job properly. This time it's different. To achieve a smooth shape transition from the back of the tail to the mid bulkhead means many loooong cuts and many subtle tweeks. The first job was to remove the engine deck and any internal bulkheads that were in the way of the planned cuts. It was important to 'dress-down' all the high points on the underside of the tail to achieve an even thickness of GRP in all areas to be modified otherwise the panels would not bend and re-shape evenly.
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