This is really pretty easy. The tabs are already welded in place, and the holes in the plexiglass panels are already drilled. Unfortunately, the holes in the panels don’t line up with the tabs very well. Pretty close, though. If you position the panels carefully before drilling holes in the tabs, you won’t have any trouble.
I used flanged head allen bolts. Gives a nice stream lined look.
Keep in mind that if you try to simply bolt the plastic to the metal, it will crack. Not while driving, just as it sits there. In the past – with smaller panels – I’v used nylon washers to insulate the plastic. You can’t tighten these down very much, or the plastic will crack. Be easy. Tighten them until the plastic starts to distort a little, then back off. I used nylock nuts. They won’t rattle loose even with very little torque on them.
Once again, fasteners and nylon washer are available from McMaster-Carr.
The front bottom fastener presents a small problem for me. I have the race chassis, with a full roll cage. The down leg sits directly behind the mounting tab. I bent the tab out, and welded a jam nut to the back of it. A Rivenut would probably work, too.
Here’s where the custom part comes in. You can see this area is wide open. Yes, it’s supposed to be an open car. But it just doesn’t look good. Especially on the driver’s side. You have an open view of the pedals and stuff, and it just doesn’t look very clean.
FM sells a fill in panel made of matching smoked plexiglass. But I didn’t want to spend the 85 bux for that. So I made this one from aluminum sheet. It would probably look better if I extended it to the forward diagonal. That would create a pocket to catch air and create drag. Of course, all fabricated parts like this start with a CAD drawing – Cardboard Aided Design. 🙂
