edit: yes! i own page 9 in a great thread

Anyhow, two sets of steel side braces were welded up. The tabs fit onto the stock Fiero chassis mounts, and they are slotted so you can tweak the fit, if needed.

A gussett plate was tacked onto the rear-end steel bracing, and the side braces were bolted to the chassis, clamped to the gussett, and glassed in.

Yep, that powder coating sure does things.

David Breeze

The Fiero rear decklid was cut to make removing the subframe easier. A bit of hammer & chisel action with a stout putty knife seperated the subframe. The subframe is bonded to the Pantera clamshell, so you get a completely sealed trunk, and a latch mechanism.

This is the subframe in place. A bit is trimmed from the edges all around, and the entire thing is roughed up with 40 grit sandpaper for later bonding. Eventually, the subframe is set in place and the clamshell closed down on it. Then builders foam is shot into the channels, bonding it to the clamshell. After opening the clamshell, the foam gets cleaned up and the whole assemble gets glassed onto the clamshell.

I don't trust the Fiero electric trunk opener, so I bought a nice set of shaved door solenoids and a cheap trunk solenoid. Don't do that. :> I wound up using the Fiero trunk solenoid, but instead of relying on the latch for electrical ground, I ran a ground wire for it, also. Works great. Then I welded a loop onto the lockset connector shaft, and attached a mechanical backup opening system. That is, I got a standard chake control and connected it, so you can reach into the engine bay from the back window opening, and pull the choke control, and release the trunk. Probably should do that for my daily driver Fiero :>

Above is a cheap, weak solenoid. Not enough snort.

Choke cable attachment.

Mechanical realease system in place. Since both the wires for the latch solenoid and the mechanical system wer to be run thru the foam & fiberglass attaching the subframe to the clamshell, I ran them thru an oversized wire loom, and wrapped it with electrical tape. Once everything is finished, I can still service both systems with no problems.

David Breeze

http://www.dakotadigital.com/index.cfm/page/ptype=product/product_id=58/category_id=217/home_id=59/mode=prod/prd58.htm

Using actuators on the clamshell would also be interesting. For now I've ordered a couple of gas lift struts which I'll try first. Cost is much lower, and the obvious "electrical failure" situation is avoided. Looking at the Autoloc documentation on installing linear actuators, it looks like they could be installed in the same location as the gas struts. If that is the case, then a quick release pin located near the rear window pivot point might do for the failure mode.

An additional layer of Coremat and woven fiberglass cloth was applied to the backside of the clamshell to resist deflection. Learn as you go. I'll include these layers in every rear clip that I make, while it's being layed up in the mold.

The Fiero trunk liner skeleton was trimed a bit more and sanded for attachment with fiberglass tapes. I filled the channels with expanding foam, but I'm not sure you'd need to do that.

After the atachment layup, everything worked fine. The clamshell closes and the latch clicks shut. Both the manual and electrical releases work fine. Later, I'll install a couple of poppers to slightly raise the lid when the release is hit. The outer edges of the liner will also get glassed in later. For now I'm leaving them open incase additional wiring is run, or whatever.

Lousy pic, but this is a lip for the clamshell to rest on. For the front half of the clamshell, I applied duct tape to the inside edge of the clamshell, and metal furnace tape to the outside edge of the rear clip itself. Then I closed the clamshell and applied a 3" tape where you see the lip. 1" was under the clamshell and 2" glassed to the inside face of the rear clip. After curing, the tape worked as a release, and a lip was formed. I've trimmed it back to about a 1/2" lip.

For the rest of the clamshell lip, I used a lip that I had made previously. After the rear clip had been modified to fit the choptop chassis, I turned the clip over and used duct tape as above to preform a lip for later use. I knew about where the clamshell cut line would be, and made a 4" wide lip to cover te general area. Now you see a portion of that lip, cut to fit and ready for sanding for bonding. Notice the drill bit is just below a hole in the lip. Before removing the lip from the ductape I drilled a few pilot holes to be used later for precisely locating the lip to the body contours. Works great.

And here is that lip, held by clamps in place while the resin sets. After removing the clamps, and additional fiberglass tape will be installed to further attach the preformed lip to the rear clip.

You can also see one of the wheel flares, held in place with clamps. I've trimmed the flares to the mold trim lines and am very pleased how little final sanding was needed to get a nice close fit. The wheel flares and front airdam are fitted, so a bit of preparation sanding and I'll be attaching them.

I've also been working on the front clip. Back around Thanksgiving, Blackrams and I essentially installed the front clip in one weekend. This included the few cuts needed to move the headlights, and fabricating the mounting steel. It went very well.

Here you see the front trunk lid liner, in place, and your looking at the topside, which gets the lid skin bonded to it. The idea here is to install the hinges and latch to the liner, get that working, and then attach the skin to it. That allows you to trim to a nice close body panel gap.

You'll notice a slot I've cut from the portion near the latch, on the driver's side. Took me forever to figure out what was going on here. The prototype car used the liner with out the slot cut. This was sone by bending down the 1/4" lip along the top edge of the trunk. No big problem. But in cutting out this slot, I've found an alternative method of installing the liner. The existing mold can easily be modified to reshape the liner to where you get the clearance and don't have to cut the slot, or bend down near as much of the lip.

You'll also notice the relocaated windshield wiper posts. I solved the wiper delima be moving them over 5 1/2" so they are positioned in the Pantera vents, as on a real Pantera. Blackrams and I have worked out a couple of different methods of getting functioning wipers, and that info is way back in this thread, somewhere. For this, I simply cut the decking loose that the wiper posts mount to, and scooted the whole works over 5 1/2", and welded it back in place. This meant that the short arm of the wiper linkage, the one that attaches to the motor, had to be shortened 5 1/2" also. Didn't work at first, untill I welded that short arm back with a gooseneck shape, instead of a straight line. Works great.

And here is the bottom side of the liner, or the side you will see when you raise the front trunk lid. This liner is an exact replica of the real Pantera liner, and it's a work of art. It has a curving profile that fits into the trunk lid opening and presets the contour for the trunk lid skin. The channels that you see give it super rigidity so you don't need to use a steel structure. With this liner in place, I reached under thru various openings to check clearances. It's amazing how well this liner and front clip fit the Fiero chassis You'll notice a bit of alligatoring on this one, from back when I was going thru the learning curve of gelcoat application.

Waiting on a fresh batch of resin and some more hardware to come in.

David Breeze