Lightening does strike twice

I was having to fix the car because while it was with Keith at the Seven Workshop undergoing its MOT, Service and a fix to the ‘A’ frame bolts, the car received a knock - inflicted on it by a driver that did not have the decency to admit his mistake and just drove off. The wing ended up with a gash, split gelcoat and cracks.

Having had the same problem with the Ginetta G4 about 10 years before (and never being happy with the repair) I discussed it with Keith and decided that the best option was to replace the whole wing rather than look to get it re-sprayed.

He arranged for a new wing to be sent to me (once Caterham Cars had one in stock) for me to check the colour match. The mid-1980’s is 30 years ago and that’s 30 years of sunlight and of fading and I was worried that the colour would be off.

However, I was very happy when it arrived as it was very close.

Start and preparation

My instructions were from the Haynes manual 1-0-1. Remove bolts to take off the wing, replacing the wing is the reversal.

I started by jacking up the car with the trolley jack under the suspension mount (with a rubber block on jack) and added two axel stands under the back axel to support it just in case.

Next I took the wheel off and noted there were 10 bolts - five each side to remove – and they didn’t look in bad condition although one was a bit rusty – I checked again 12345 up and 54321 down - yes 10 bolts and a couple of bits of electric cable to undo.

I gave everything a dose of WD-40 and let them soak for a bit while I got the rest of the tools out.

I’ve got lost in wiring before, so I both photographed and noted down the colours of the electrics in two batches (lights and indicator first and then the reversing light).

The first batch of wires was: Red goes into Red; Black goes into Black - which separates into two wires; one Green wire goes into the Blue clip and that exists on the Green and Yellow wire; and finally the other Green wire goes into a bit of a mishmash and exits as a Green.

For the smaller set for the reversing lights two earth wires just terminate on the Earth screwed on the fitting bolt and the Yellow wire goes into the Blue connector that exits into two Green wires.

I disconnected them all with confidence.

The bolts, as suspected, were not the same size as you went round the wing and to get to the top 2 left hand side bolts I had to strip out the carpet from the inside the boot.

The wing came off quite easily after I took the bolts off until it was held on the top two.

Most of the fittings seem to be intact (if a bit loose) although one bolt seat was a bit loose and the boot side had grown a large hole but it had big washers either side if it to grip it.

I made a note to clean the area underneath the wing too.

Once off the car I put the wing on the bench and took off the rear lights and reversing light, which was removed from wing quite easily as the screws were not seized.

The next step was removing the 13 rivets holding the stone guard in place. I had to re-drill holes in the new wing for them too – I suspected that was going to be the most difficult thing - anyway 13 is lucky for some.

The job started to get harder immediately as the rivets didn't really want to come out. I had to grind off the back, then drill out the front, then drill again from the back on some.

The drill bit became stuck at one point too.

Once free of the wing most of the rivets were still in the stone guard so I then had to use pliers to cut the head off and squeeze them out of the holes.

Eventually they were all out and the stone guard was clear. I noticed it immediately straightened out a bit where I had been expecting it to remain curved.

I had made a conscious decision to keep the old stone guard to make sure that the replacement wing on the car didn't look new - and it saved a bit of work as I would have had to have changed both of them anyway to make them match.

It took about two and a half hours to get down to the component parts and then half an hour to take the rivets out of the stone guard. I stopped at that point and tidied the tools up ahead of part two.

Part 2 - Re-assembly

The next day I started to measure up the new wing against the car and immediately noticed that there was a large bolt in the way, which is the location bar for suspension. The old wing had a cut-out to go around it. I also noticed that the holes for the bolts in the new wing are not all in the same place as the holes in the old wing - which was going to be a problem. Finally the profile of the new wing seemed to be a slightly different curvature than the old wing.

Drilling the holes in the new wing

Now there was no going back at this point so I just had to get on with it. Having drilled a number of holes in the wing (and expected more to be required) I thought the wing would fit.

Now, still working on the bench I thought I should fit the stone guard and lights. However the stone guard was very difficult to bend around the curvature of the wing which flexed on the bench. I drilled two holes but then sensibly thought it might be better to fit the wing and then continue to drill holes because the wing when attached to the car would be stable.

One hour later I’d only managed to put on the two extra bolts on the back curve of the wing by drilling two new holes.

One bolt on the front set has pulled out of its fitting (as usual) but that's not bad in the grand scheme of things.

I tried to undo the bolt for the suspension but it would not release – it looked like the car weight was on it - so rather than dismantle the suspension I accepted that I also had to cut out a grove in the wing to get it fitted.

That took less time than I had imagined so after a bit of effort the wing was back on.

To rivet on the stone guard back on I attached it with bolts to take the pressure and the first rivets I put in seemed to take, although they were a bit shallow. I decided to see how it went, but found that the fiberglass seemed thicker in places and therefore I needed deeper rivets. (These I ordered on-line that night.)

In the meantime I decided to re-assemble the rear lights etc. and consulted my photo and the notes I had made.

Drilling into the new wing was a bit scary – and it seemed to make a lot of mess. I had remembered to put the wheel back on to level the car up and measured the other side a few time before drilling.

Having reassembled everything the lights worked but the indicators seem to be flashing on their own - from the front near-side and rear offside at the same time when I connect the wires. Also the reversing lights don't seem to work and neither did the brake lights.

As it was getting close to 5 o'clock by this time I decided to pack up for the day and dig out the wiring diagram from the build manual.

About six hours had passed that day.

Part three: Re-doing the electrics and finishing the stone guard

Looking at the instructions from the build manual with the colours for the left side right side units for the break and indicator I tried to match them up and also cleaned the connections.

I connected the rear lights (red to red) and it seemed to work. Exploring the indicator fault it turned out that the three working indicators flashing incorrectly was due to the fact that the hazard light switch was pressed in. Not sure why or how that happened but I only spotted it as I took the cover off completely to see what was going on.

Now for the missing indicator. Striping a bit more wire it was obvious that it was corroded internally so it was not carrying much current - therefore just jamming in the fitting didn't work anymore. So I extended both fittings for the indicators with new wire and soldered on terminals - but the indicators still failed to work. I checked the resistance and I checked the bulb and the bulb was blown so I replaced it. I found a new bulb courtesy of the old 1970s Prime Garages kit (maybe c1980) so I think it will last for a little while I'll buy new one.

So all systems go: indicators, brake lights and rear lights all working as normal – I even made up a rubber grommet for the hole the wires go through. I could not remember if I’d ever seen the reversing lights work – so I don't know if they ever did function correctly.

I gave up on the reversing lights and as everything else seems to work - the bulbs are okay but neither were coming on so it lead me to believe it could be the reversing light switch on the gearbox so I'll leave that for another day.

Now to fully attach the stone guard – the first hole fixing using the 10 mm rivet seems to work fine tough to get on but it hold nicely.

However some 10 mm rivets still would not bite, especially as the fiberglass seems to be a little thicker - however using stainless steel button head screws (which are virtually indistinguishable so you can't tell them apart) I decided to put a few of those in. In retrospect I wish I’d used those everywhere - it would've been more secure - but let's see what happens when it's on the road.

So time to finish off – all I needed to do was to glue the carpets back on the boot and tidy up the tools etc. I finished and had tidied away everything by about 12:00 therefore the morning was 3.5 more hours. 

The Result

Looking at the two wings again, this time with the new one attached convinced me that I’d taken the right decision.

Not convinced enough to do the other rear wing, but it matches and using the old stone guard makes it blend in.

I’d spent just shy of 10 hours doing it, which I thought was OK in the circumstances. I’d be able to do the next one quicker.