I guess that some people might wonder why I'm making this buck the hard way, rather than just use a 289 shell, but to be honest one of the reasons was that it was cheaper for me to do it this way, but more importantly I really enjoy modifying things, I guess it's the customiser in me. I used to own a high end bodyshop restoring Porsches & Rolls Royces, prior to selling it & retiring, but I always tried to have an unusual project lurking in the corner for me to play with.
Allen, I've read through your thread numerous times & there's some really helpfull, information that I can use. The only problem that I'm now faced with is whether to paint this car or leave it in bare aluminium. Having seen your car I'm really taken with painting it green, but the strange thing is I don't really like greens as a rule, but your car just looks soooo right. Heck, I'm really confused over how to finish this, but I guess I've a lot of time to think about it
A friend of mine sent me a template of a 289 grille apperture, so I thought I'd just knock up a quick card template just to see how far out the grille is on the 427 compared to the 289. Surprisingly, it's not far out at all. I know that the bonnet line is lower on the 427 but I was expecting the grilles to be miles different. It looks as if I can get away with just cutting the bottom off the grille, whilst taking out the lower grille & valance & just make a new front valance for it, which should be straight forward enough as there's not many curves to replicate.
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I'm not going to have the lower grille the same as on the FIA's, instead it will be like this with a rolled edge on CSX 2130
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At the moment I'm doing this outdoors as my workshop's full of cars. The weather was good, so I thought I'd make a start on the grille. Using the template I was able to determine the shape of the 289 grille apperture. I formed a piece of mild steel to shape & fitted it using grips. Some holes were also drilled so that the piece could be screwed into place later. This will enable me to remove it easily once finished
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After double checking with the template, and being happy with that, I then made the swage that runs under the top flange & tack welded it to the top piece
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The new panel was then removed & the lower valance of the car was cut off
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The new panel was then ground smooth & given a coat of etch primer for protection & screwed into place
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Once the whole of the front grille & lower valance are tacked together, I'll gel coat the inside of the panels & then lay the fibreglass over that. Once it's all cured, I can then unscrew the steel panel, take it off, and I'm then left with a fibreglass replica of the steel panel bonded to the main shell of the car. By laying it up on the inside of the panel, it should come out pretty smooth & hopefully won't take too much work to get it looking as if it came like that originally. Next it's onto making the lower valance & grille opening
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Please feel free to ask any questions & I'll try to help
cheers...Nige