5/5/2004: Rocker Panel Rebuild
Back in February, I started looking into the problem of repairing the
structural area under the doors of the car, which is where most of the rust
on my car is concentrated.
This area has an inner (structural) box section and an outer body panel. My
car needs repair to the inner panels (the extent of which isn’t clear yet,
because I can’t see all of them) and replacement of the outer rocker panels.
The inner panel just has to be strong, not pretty, so I’m not so concerned
about getting a proper reproduction panel there. I’m sure a competent shop
can fabricate patches for it.
The outer panel, on the other hand, is rounded and quite visible on the
finished car. I was hoping to find decent reproductions of this part that
I could give to a shop to install. Until I had the replacements in my hands
though, it didn’t make sense to cut up the ones on the car, since they would
be needed as patterns if I had to have custom panels made.
I first talked to Chris Obert, and found out that he only had one left in
stock, and his supplier had stopped making them. I ordered it anyway, just
in case another showed up. It arrived and turned out to be a terrible fit-
it was a good six inches too short and the curved shape was incorrect
relative to what was originally on the car.
I had no luck elsewhere either.. the only place I could find that did in
fact have these panels available was Biondi
Lamierati, in Italy. By the time I added up the costs to order and
ship them to the US, plus the potential hassles of dealing with a small shop
in another country, I figured it just wasn’t worth it.
I looked into a few places around here which could do the repair and panel
fabrication work, and ended up talking to Jon at Enfield Auto Restoration.
It’s quite a place. They specialize in restoration and custom coachwork,
mostly high-end antique cars like Rolls Royces. When I went to visit, they
had a whole bunch of really beautiful old cars I know very little about.
The place oozes craftsmanship.
This is a shop that can make a relatively simple FIAT rocker panel in their
sleep, but I know they’ll do it right and it will look correct when it’s
done. Since this is literally the foundation of the car, I want this job
done right, even if it ends up being relatively expensive. Hopefully I can
do most of the other bodywork myself to offset the expense.
I sent the car over to Enfield last week, and discussed it with Jon this
morning. The current plan is to open up one side and see how it looks, and
then to repair the inner box section as appropriate and fabricate a new
rocker panel from 18ga steel in sections, using the other side as a pattern.
The sections will be butt-welded together to give a finished panel. I will
try to get some photographs next time I go there to show the repair progress.
In the meantime, I’ve received the suspension parts back from the
sandblasters’ and am painting them and the subframe so that I can get it
reassembled. I’ll cover this in more detail in future articles- right now I
just need to find the time to finish painting these parts.
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