Saturday, December 12, 2009

Avoiding the rust

It's pouring down outside so it's time to get back on the Monza; I thought I'd give the electrics a miss and instead put in the wheelarch liners.

Achim got these for me from Lokari in Germany, they're the chaps Bernd Bannier used to buy his from when he supplied them, but now he's stopped selling them we just go direct. I've got a set of these in the silver Manta in the UK and I'm slowly adding them to all the cars.


I've had the liners sitting in the arches for a while (they hold themselves in without screws, they fit that well) to allow them to mould themselves better to the car's shape;
they come slightly folded so they need to relax back to the original shape if they're going to fit properly.

The instructions are in German, which is fine if you're Achim or Louis, but crap for the rest of us. I read them slowly and got the general idea, then threw the instructions away. Here's how I did it...

First I put them in the arch and got them aligned as best I could. They fit really well as I've said, so it's not that hard to do. The instructions suggest securing the liner to the arch lip using some S clamps they supply, but they look awful and the liner fits nicely behind the arch lip anyway.

Next I got a 3mm drill and drilled a hole through the dimples on the liner that mark where you put the screws. On the Monza right side liner there were four dimples.

- One dimple was aimed directly up into the footw
ell
- One up into the area next to the heater blower

- One into the chassis rail
- One into the area next to the rear-inboard air clean
er bracket

The good news was that the only one you could se
e from the engine bay was the one next to the aircleaner bracket, and I decided to put the securing screw in from the engine bay side and use a sheet metal nut to hold it to the liner.

The only other points that the liner looked like it needed securing was at the wheelarch lip, with one at the lower front corner and one at the rear. When Andy did the liners on the Manta he used 3/16" (4.6mm) pop rivets and I think that's the best way with the Monza. Until the liner goes in for the final time (i.e. the car is finished) I'm using a couple of temporary screws so I don't end up drilling pop rivets out all the time.

Just one hole at the front and one at the rear of the arch should hold it

OK, with the 3mm pilot holes drilled I had a look for some screws that would fit and found some nice black screws I got from Halfords in the UK that had a big head on them to better hold the plastic with. They needed 3.5mm holes so I just opened them out with a 3.5mm drill, with a 4mm drill used on the screw hole that was to come in from the engine bay.

Next was a quick break with the paint can (no p
oint in having rusty holes!) and then a tart up with the Dinitrol 4941 black underbody sealer to seal up the parts that were looking a little dodgy.

Tarting up the underseal...

Once that lot was dry it was just a simple case of refitting and attaching to the holes I'd already made.

Finished liner install - front side. I think the holes are for the (optional) self levelling suspension pump

There are a couple of places I need to trim the liner. I guess the liner is correct but our car has 200,000 miles on it and I'm sure things have moved in that time. Should be pretty simple to clean it up with a dremel tool.

The liner fits a little close to the spring at the back. It's actually because the liner's not exactly square on the strut tower but the rest of it fits against the wheelarch so I suspect it's because these were designed for the Rekord instead of the Monza and the two have different strut angles.

Lower front edge - too close to the oil cooler pipes

That'll do me for today. Tomorrow is the driver's side but that comes with a bit of a twist, I need to find a new home for the charcoal cannister before I fit the arch.

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