GR4 Conversion

Here's a shot of the rear end with the flare mounted....

I'm getting fat, old and tired but what fires me up is when my son comes in the garage and asks if he can help me. I'm hoping he steals my wifes minivan at 15 for a joyride instead of my Pantera. Gotta get another hotrod for my other boy or else they'll fight over the one car.

Special thanks goes out to Sam Civello for his help with my conversion.
W

Whos flares do you use? How do they fit? Did you measure how much wider they are front and rear over the stock fender?

Lookin' hot, Will! Love the flares.

great bunch of Pantera guys

Will,

Looking good, what color will you paint it?

My '74 is at about the same point as your last photo, flares mounted up and exhaust area infilled... unfortunately its been at that stage for the past 18 months.

Julian

quote:

Whos flares do you use? How do they fit? Did you measure how much wider they are front and rear over the stock fender?

I used Hall flares but they are all made by Bob Byers. The flares extend 2 3/4" in front and 4" in rear. Takes alot of balls (or lack of brains) to take a zipsaw to a perfectly good $50k car. My neighbour walked into the garage while I was cutting and said "you're f@$ked", then walked away.
Do they fit? Hell no. They are glass and can be manipulated with some physical persuasion. Good thing I'm in top shape and svealt like a cheeta. BAWAHAHAHAHA!
Paint colour? Not sure, but it will be dark. Not black. Black is the meanest colour for a Pantera but I can't live with the maintenance again.With my last black Pantera, I had to carry a rag around in my back pocket to wipe off fingerprints and I started to feel like Chachi (sp) from Happy Days.
I was going to fill in the rear exhaust holes but decided to replace the entire rear panel with a new piece.
Should be ready for paint by the end of December.
Will

I grabbed a few shots whenever someone took the cutter away from me ...
Wayne showing some metal who's boss -

Custom 4" backspace, I'm watching for Will to start selling these on e-bay -

And no, Will wasn't just standing around barking orders and taking pictures, he was in there chopping up his car like the rest of us. It's gonna look great when it's done, but there has to be a lot of vision and guts behind making the first cut.

Love the photos! Seems like you got the rear flares to fit really good. The tire clearance looks damn near perfect I would say. Can't wait to see your car painted.

The new headlights are gonna look great when the car's done

quote:

Takes alot of balls (or lack of brains) to take a zipsaw to a perfectly good $50k car.

Agreed, I agonized, measured then re-measured, looked at it some more, before getting the cut off wheel out. My measuring wasn't helped by the fact the car was stripped down with no suspension to use as a reference point. The flares don't go where you'd first think just looking at the two wheel well edges. But once the cutter hit the first fender it was all go from there.

Did you just screw the flares on or bond them? I'm using a product from Lord Fusor Adhesives that Bill Gaino (LPB) put me onto. Mine will be blended to the body.

Julian

I'm going to bond them with 3M panel adhesive. No smoothing in. You'll see the flair lip just as in the GT5's.
Will

Like this....

Nice. Got more pictures of that car?

Now isn't it a problem painting the car with the flares bonded on? There isn't a natural place for the paint to end? It needs to bridge the gap?

Hey LPB?

Great job, Will.

Man, I must have caught the same bug from you: I can't stop taking my cat apart, either!

Keep us posted!

quote:

Originally posted by PanteraDoug:
Nice. Got more pictures of that car?

Now isn't it a problem painting the car with the flares bonded on? There isn't a natural place for the paint to end? It needs to bridge the gap?

Hey LPB?

Just like the red car, there will be no gap. I would expect the glue would squeeze out of the gap, get hard, be trimmed, sanded, primed and painted. Better rough it up good to start with, both sides. First you need to make sure that you have no tire rub to cause a re-crack. I have never put on flares like those. It would be easier to blend them in with the qtr, but that's a different look. I belive I would do one first before I jump all the way in. I see then attached like that all the time so there must be a procedure. WILL, Your flares don't have that little flat edge like the red car. I have attached lower side skirts with tiny headed rivets in countersunk holes, and then filled over the rivet heads.Looks like Your gonna have your work cut out for you finishing the edge where it meets the qtr.

But if you fill the ridge, even radius it to the !/4, won't the paint in that radius have the tendency to crack?

I've seen a lot of the plastic bumper covers on the new cars have the paint peel right in those ridges because the paint isn't flexible enough. Particularly the clear coat.

I don't know? I think that red car is kind of the "before" picture and I wanna see what the current or the "after" picture looks like. I think it is gonna crack and you are going to have paint the entire car to fix it and to match the color.

Looks great Will! Can't wait to see it finished!

Check out this car at PI. Same flare as the red car, a little different than Wills. http://tinyurl.com/yhslhox Who runs their body shop? They sure were well bonded to the bare metal, and must be to not crack. Notice how wide an area was ground down on the car, and how more bonding material appears to be pushed up from underneath, this would make it attached even stronger, as it needs to be.

Same car, belongs to Robervegas. PI fixed it after wreck. No gap here, must bonded to ground metal, trim the ooze, sand and prime to perfection. You could squish a little polyester putty in there to fill minor imperfections. The bonding resin gets as hard as the fiberglass flare.

I don't want to sound like I'm putting these flares and systems down, because I am not.
Considering the fact that the stock steel fenders need to be cut to do this at this point I won't consider it either simply because there is no going back.

I have just had life lessens that tend to prove to me that there is always just one little drawback to something.

Well here to me it is obvious that the flares are sticking out so far that they definitely are put out there in harms way. I'm not convinced either that the difference in the materials being bonded together, steel and fiberglass, have a similar coefficient of expansion here and that a two stage paint will have the durability to survive say ten years of NY cold winters and hot summers without cracking along the obvious expansion of the bonding joint.

Anyway, kudos to all of you guys. The cars look fantastic. I hope they last forever for you with little problem.

As long as the bond holds, there should be no crack, your right to worry though, nothing lasts forever. I have these Honda young kids come to the shop with their low air dams busted all the time. I fix, replace, it is inevitable, they gonna hit something. I like the look too, but I can't cut my button car either. One thing I would do Will,since these flares don't appear to have the square edge, is to at least block the very edge flat where it meets the body, so that the flare starts of 90 degrees from the qurtr panel. You don't want it tapered thin to the place where it meets the body. You can fill any air pockets that appear in the edge of the 'glass after you flatten it, but before you bond it. It will be thicker than the tapered edge, and stronger. Note the above pics. Pay careful attention when you make the bond, clean, dust free, 60-80 grit scratches, warm temp. Let it ooze out and trim before it fully sets, let it firm up yet still a little flexy. Make yourself a very small sanding block, maybe the size of a box of matches. Your gonna need it when you start sanding up to the edge of the squared flare.

Wow.Sounds like a commitment to a lifestyle with a formula for failure. Too many complex parameters for me to deal with.

Then you have to deal with uncertainty of replacement wheel and tires in addition. Too much risk to me just to be cool.

Cant wait to see it when its done Will. You certainly wont regret it.

Blaine

Wil,

Looking good ...good choice ... the time and effort it takes to install the steel flairs correctly ..you could install 3 sets of the fiberglass ones.

Ron

Adhesive science has come a long way in the last number of years. Most new cars use panel adhesives now. If you bond 2 pieces of 20ga metal together, you will tear the steel before the bond releases.
When the flare is mounted with the adhesive, I'll use nuts and bolts to fasten until the bond sets. The flare lip with be trimmed and sanded before installation. When the excess bond gets squeezed out from the lip, I'll simply run my finger over the lip, just as you do with caulking to remove the excess and give it a clean smooth finish. I don't plan on doing any sanding around the lip after it sets. Then I'll remove the nuts and bolts and fill the holes.
Will

quote:

Wow.Sounds like a commitment to a lifestyle with a formula for failure. Too many complex parameters for me to deal with.

Not many complex parameters to mounting fibreglass flares and ordering wheels.
Installing metal flares is difficult.
Will

Looks mean, Will. Let's see it with the wheels on!

Hey Doug, my original GT5 has fiberglass flares mounted to steel. Not sure how it was done back then, but I never had a crack in all these years. And these flares have taken a beating. Pretty tough too.

can we see some pics of cars with the fiberglass flairs blended like Joules5 was talking about?

Not a Pantera, but still a Ford.. This car I built some years ago got fiberglassfenders attached to the steel. It worked just fine. After I cut away the fenders in a similar way to what 4NHOTROD have done, I extended the rear inner fenders out til the fenderopening, and welded them making for one sturdy place to attach the flare. In front I made a bead of about 1/3" in the fender to stiffen it, and I used epoxy to "glue" the flares in place. Roughed up the paint and fiberglass, and screved it together so it would sit where it was supposed to do while curing. Bonded over the holes when it was cured, and the flares survived with no cracks a good "bit" of spirited driving on some twisty roads around where I live.

Looks awesome Will
You got more guts than I do, that's for sure!
Doug M
P.S. You will love the Evans headlights. What a difference.

quote:

can we see some pics of cars with the fiberglass flairs blended like Joules5 was talking about?

Here's a photo of my GT5, this is factory finish on early GT5 cars.

quote:

Originally posted by David B:
Looks mean, Will. Let's see it with the wheels on!

Hey Doug, my original GT5 has fiberglass flares mounted to steel. Not sure how it was done back then, but I never had a crack in all these years. And these flares have taken a beating. Pretty tough too.

They must be pretty thick. I'm sure that the factory knew what they were doing. They really hang out there exposed to just about everything.

If the original fenders didn't have to get cut up I'd be much more comfortable with this conversion.

Don't get me wrong. I thing the cars look great. I guess I'd be better off buying a GT5 already done so I don't have to be so wimpy about the entire process?

I sure it's gonna come out great Will. Carry on.

Hey Joules,

I think your GT5 is an '81 and #9178, right? Mine is an '82 and #9203. You say the earlier cars were smoothed? I always thought it was the later cars (and the GT5S)that were smoothed. No?

David,

I am reliably informed that #9178 (and a few other early GT5) came from the factory the way it is today with the fiberglass flares blended to the fenders and not showing any discrete 'add on' line.

On the subject of cracking, I have had a few cracks in the front flares, but not at the join, simply because the suspension is set so low the tire has hit the flare a couple times.

The GT5S cars have all steel fenders, so are 'blended' by nature of the steel being a stamped panel.

Julian

Will, Your car is going to look amazing! I thought you would go for the factory Gp4 look and leave the rivets?


Ron