I don’t know what this thing is called – I’m sure it has some official sounding name… It’s the upper extension piece on the rear wing where it mates to the door chrome and convertible top tack strip – it’s kind of a filler panel but it curves in two different directions and has a rolled edge.
New rear wings for roadsters do not come with this piece, and this is one of those panels where the factory welders went BERSERK attaching it – there is a spot about every 1/4″ for the full length! So re-using the old one is tough and it’s full of lead, so we just went ahead and fabricated a new one, plus the upper section of the door rubber channel – have a look!
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- Here’s how things were left a couple weeks ago when we attached the NOS rear wing – we taped this area so the etch primer wouldn’t need to be stripped off.
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- Here’s our new piece being formed and fitted. Sorry about the finger…
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- Once we’re ready to weld, we hit the area with some weld-thru primer.
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- The piece needed to be plug-welded – using the spot welder here would have been risky because there are 3 layers and the first two were uneven, and the bottom layer had some heavy pitting on the original panel that we cleaned and coated with red oxide, but would run the risk of blown out spots…
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- Here is the little face panel and the new rubber channel extension piece – both small, but time consuming – small pieces are often the trickiest…
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- We put alot of weld material into the corners so they could be sculpted without the risk of grind-through – and that has worked out well. This side now looks as good or even better thah the other – WITHOUT lead!
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- Here’s the area after etch-priming. The lower seam would originally have been leaded, but because this isso close as-is, I just rcommend a good quality modern filler now.
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- This piece curved inward and upward at the same time. The original was a little imperfect with a slight bump in it, but we traced it exactly and made the new one just like it.
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- To the restorer unfamiliar with E-Types, this looks like a very poor fit. However, we need clearance above and behind the door for the chrome finisher. We have a car in the shop for some other work that is painted but without the chrome on yet. The body shop did a great job of block sanding these two surfaces to match exactly. Looks great, but when the other shop goes to put the chrome finisher on, there is going to be BIG trouble…
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- All wrapped up – NOW the rear wing installation is complete!
