Naturally the fitment was terrible and I spent a lot longer than at first hoped. My original plan of whipping the old plastic cover out and slotting this one in soon went out the window. But hey this is why we do it no?
Basically on test fitting the cover sat towards the left too snugly, leaving a large gap all down the right side (this was a bad thing). The cover had been supplied with screws and an amount of sticky backed rubber tape. My first thought being that perhaps the tape ran the side length of the metal rocker covers, the only problem with this plan being that it was a bit too wide to do this successfully, the second problem being that it simply wasn't long enough to do both sides. So that idea in the bin.
I compared like for like holding the old cover up against the new. After some study it looked as though the original cover actually sits quite tight to the left, although it isn't noticeable due to rubber seals along each edge.
Well shit or bust time then and I removed the rubber strips, which obviously is a one way only deal. I attached them to my now fingerprint covered replacement part with a good dose of that old favourite, superglue.
After unsticking my fingers for the millionth time. I started to get the knack of glue to rubber ratio and allowed for the capillary action of the glue (holding the work piece upright and allowing gravity to work) managed to get the strip into a reasonable placement.
I then took some of my 'too short' sticky backed rubber and chopped it lengthwise, attaching it to the bottom of the cover against the newly attached rubber strips.
Test fitting showed that it was 'acceptable' and a sigh of happiness was to be heard.
The simple task of screwing the cover on was the next pain.
Where the holes are a bit 'out' but have been drilled at a large diameter meant that I was limited with making them bigger myself, for fear of them being a bit too big. This meant that loose placement of screws was required. It was still a bit of a faff as keeping the screws true and happy meant a bit of fiddling around. You don't really want them going in at an angle as the rocker covers themselves are made of soft aluminium and can quite easily cross thread. The idea is improvement, not destruction!
I still have a screw to attach, although this is due to not having the correct key. Will come back to this as it isn't actually seen.
So finally my simple five minutes took a good two hours, although the parts supplied are good and sound. I would suggest that the drill holds could be a shade lower from the top perhaps by .5mm.
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| Passenger side |
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| Drivers side |
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| The offending article! |
I am the silent admirer of your blog but now i need to put something here because i think it is really stunning what youve done to Ms. Skyline so far.
ReplyDeleteShe already looked great in my opinion and now she is looking prettier all the time. I bet she enjoys the special treatment:) Thanks for sharing!
Wendy