Corvettes do away with the problem by making the lower piece out of rubber so it bends over bumps. There made in a center and two end sections. When it gets worn, you just take out a few screws and replace that section.

The way I did a Countach was mounted a steel roller wheel on each side of the car to the frame so that the wheel itself hung down just a fraction of an inch below the spoiler. WHen you hit something like a speedbump or dip, the wheel just lifted and rolled the car over it with no damage. Cost was about $10 for 2 rollers and bolts.

Hmmm what if one had a busted up, beyond repair (heheh is there such a thing ?) aero nose ? Could that material be used to reinforce, or simply form a seperate chin spoiler ??

I am not talking about the ski-time type spoiler, i am talking about taking say a top side portion of the nose material.

A combination of the garden lining stuff ( for rigidity) with the aero nose material rivited on ?

It could then be smooted over and or molded into the nose.

[This message has been edited by exoticse (edited 02-20-2006).]

After using the aluminum 4"x4"x4' piece....I've learned that using that type of material is perhaps the "best" IMO. Why?

1. Cost. I think I paid $7-8 bucks for a four feet piece.
2. Aluminum is---bendable. By making cuts into the material you can then wrap or shape the material into shape,
3. If you've hit a curb or something in the road, you can either bend it back into shape or buy another piece for $8 bucks.

Using fiberglass is nice but, it isn't cheap to replace. I haven't used it on my front bumpers but, if I should break the current fiberglass piece, I'll replace the part using aluminum. So far, due to remodifing the part, I've been pretty lucky when parking my car close to curbs.

[This message has been edited by madcurl (edited 02-20-2006).]

Creative stuff !

(Singing)

"There has got to be a better way ",....

(Who sang that darned song anyway ??)

Miss Tress007 already kissing the earth.

I am determined to solve this dilemma.

Get a machine to mold urethane.... .

I'm not totally sure how well this would work for a really low peice like a chin spoiler. But i asked a guy that does fiberglassing professionally for Team Gates (SPL) and he's been using robe to strengthen his boxes maybe it could work for this application and other fiberglass items

a quote from him
"any fabricator with experience,will tell you,the more contours and edges you have in fiberglass,the stronger it will be...corners,bends ,edges make very strong points in fiberglass... "

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Lothurin
84 Fiero 2m4 ( no name yet)
90 Beretta GTZ (black dragon)
96 Chevy Corsica (green pile)

Ater repairing this sort of thing several times....we installed a contour following skidplate of 3/16" steel plate. That really helped, but was not a cure all. As Custom2m4 suggests, we bought a urethane front exactly like the above fiberglass one. It is incredably flexable, which saves it's bacon on many occasions. But, it is still succeptable to scrapes or bottoming out, and that is what causes the fiberglass versions to crack. The urethane usually just flexes instead of cracking....but it leaves a little bit of itself behind every time.

This air dam was designed with two protective features in mind. One is the multiple ridges, bows, corners, etc which lend internal stiffness to the piece.....as just suggested by Lothurin.

The other protective feature is the "deck" or "lip" was purposefully made 1/2" deep to provide plenty of room for a full sized skid plate of major porportions, if so desired. It can be directly connected to frame structure, instead of just to the fiberglass above.

I'm a big believer in form follows function, and it's beautiful.

Look at the April issue of Car & Driver at the Salen S7 article and you will see what I mean. Or look here http://www.rsportscars.com/foto/06/saleens7tt05_06.jpg or here http://www.rsportscars.com/foto/06/saleens7tt05_05.jpg and you will see. A full width skidplate, with the leading edge visible and a part of the design element. They even took it one step further and added the little side wings for side rub protection. Makes a whole lot of sense, and believe me, it was done for the very same reasons this thread exists.

David Breeze

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Pantera Rebody Kits

[This message has been edited by opm2000 (edited 04-09-2006).]

Lothurin, It doesn't matter how strong your fiberglass lip is, when it rubs, it rubbs hard. It doesn't want to flex, but with 2000 pounds on it scraping the cement, it tends to snap. If you made it stronger, it might just snap out portions instead of cracking and leaving you something to work with.

opm2000 knows what hes talking about

"Kissing the Earth" with a G-ride. It could be worse, hehe.

http://www.lambo-power.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=4829

Bump for fresh ideas ??

From what i have seen lately there has been a whole lot of breaking going on !

maybe if you stopped running into things....

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[This message has been edited by MiZer (edited 07-26-2006).]

quote Originally posted by MiZer: maybe if you stopped running into things....

Not me, hehehe, others.

so where's the best place (quality, price delivery) for a close mouthed front spoiler?
where would you get one from?

quote Originally posted by MiZer: maybe if you stopped running into things....

Only reason why I put my chin spoiler (aka, pebble pusher) on was so that it would get torn up before my bumper. So far it has saved it many of times lol. I have 2 other ones if it gets to mest up

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http://www.cardomain.com/ride/2215614/3
My build thread:
[URL=https://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum1/HTML/059538.html [/URL]

Another one bites the dust.



It is repairable however. Just a pain i am sure.

[This message has been edited by exoticse (edited 08-13-2006).]

I'm going to put mine on soon... can't wait to break it

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quote Originally posted by exoticse: Another one bites the dust. It is repairable however. Just a pain i am sure.

Is this the second time???

I am not a fan of the fiberglass chin spoilers for this reason.

I don't know if they can be made stronger or not, but I believe in the bend before break philosophy. Once you go Urethane you'll never go back to fiberglass.

i finally got around to trying the skateboard type tap idea. i used some nylon or plastic stuff that's about 3'5" in diameter round and about an inch thick (think like a hockey puck) i cut it into two half moon shapes and mounted them on the bottom about at the edges of the opening (i have the open mouth scoop) with the rounded side of the half moon shape facing the ground.

it seems to help. i'd already gotten into the habit of not pulling all the way into curbed parking spaces, it wouldn't help that anyway. but for rounded curbs pulling into driveways, speedbumps, and unexpected rises in the road it dose ok. haven't added any new chips since i did it (never painted it anyway, but now it dosen't seem like it would be as much of a wasted effort).

the downside so far is that they sit even lower and seem to hit everthing, but the shape they have and the material they're made of let them slide easier where my spoiler would catch and chip or grind away. i'm also afraid that if i hit something hard enough i might tear one off and damage the spoiler anyway. the added hardware to mount them shows on top, but since it's unfinished anyway i can work on that if i ever get to wanting better cosmetics.

the last problem is noticing brake dive now. sometimes if i'm braking hard enough and hit even a small bump i hear them hit, sometimes pretty hard. it's still stock height, but i started with a base coupe which still has the stock springs, and is angled down in front because of 255/50-16 tires in the rear. the new lowering plan is to switch to ws6 springs in front with lowering ball joints. i brought some eibachs for the front but have heard they sometimes lower more than the .8" they adverise once they settle in. i also plan to even out the tire sizes a bit front to rear next time i get tires.

[This message has been edited by Philphine (edited 08-14-2006).]

The idea in Lambo Lounge is the best in my opinion. Spddy has the steel casters mounted under the front of his car so that they will hit the ground and raise the front of the car before the fiberglass hits. Easy to do an inexpensive. You just have to find a good solid spot to mount the casters. I don't know if I would trust the skateboard wheels like the list at LL.

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4th Annual California Coast Run
October 27-29, 2006
San Simeon, California

I'll do ya'll a favor. Rumor has it that my Chem Lab Prof. is the man who created our beloved dent resistant body panels, and he is very well known in the auto-plastics/polymers industry, so he is bound to know something about this, so I will ask him, and my lab partner has a Fiero too.

[This message has been edited by Wht&BluGT (edited 08-17-2006).]

quote Originally posted by Wht&BluGT: I'll do ya'll a favor. Rumor has it that my Chem Lab Prof. is the man who created our beloved dent resistant body panels, and he is very well known in the auto-plastics/polymers industry, so he is bound to know something about this, so I will ask him, and my lab partner has a Fiero too.

Wow if you could pull that off you would be the man !

I see him bright and early Wednesday, and he is always looking to talk plastics with people.

Sorry, he is harder to get a hold of outside of class then I expected, he doesn't post office hours, but everytime I wear my 5th or 7th Annual Swap Meet shirts someone always says I should go and talk to him.

Wow...Awesome! I am getting featured even years after selling my beloved GT! Damn I loved that ride, anyway I became one of the most skilled drivers after putting that lip on when it comes the driveways and crappy inclines! :P I rarely scraped my spoiler, and the one time I did crack it was when I pulled into a grass area and couldn't notice the "drop" in a small section of grass. Needless to say, when I rebuilt it we did reinforce the corners with metal straps, along with a flexible expoxy and fiberglass. Worked for the rest of the time I owned the car, well I never bottomed out with it then either.

And I still say this was the best looking spoiler to put on the front of a GT fascia ever!





And the current rides I own:





'96 BMW 328is (M3 exhaust/M3 rims/M3 exteriors/UUC SS)
'86 BMW 325E 5-spd stock
'87GT *show winning* SOLD

[This message has been edited by SLAMMED87GT (edited 09-01-2006).]

Still pondering this and various materials.

Maybe a trip to Home Depot will land me a few new ideas.

Bump

quote Originally posted by doublec4: I'm going to put mine on soon... can't wait to break it

To a good laught thx

Anyone have a busted up one (closed mouth preferably, but not exclusively) that they are tired of repairing and are willing to donate it to a project i am attempting.

(Shhhh,...it's a secret.)

Ok I have been readng this for a while and seen some good and totally bad ideas. The obvious one has yet to surface. Kevlar is more flexible than fibreglass matt or cloth. We used to make a lot of Kevlar panels at one point for the Audi factory rally team. They were in fact too good. One day after the car had glanced a tree the front end got really messed up. WIth fibreglass panels they used to remove the panel with an axe and continue. Well you need a diamond bladed axe to cut Kevlar. Needless to say they didn't continue that day.

Yes it will still crack but it will stay in 1 piece and be easier to repair.

The guy who wants to talk to the plastics teacher - I can't see any point. All he will tell you is they panel should be made out of urethane. No one here is going to invest $50,000 on a mould to have them injection moulded to sell a bare few of them.

quote Originally posted by AusFiero: OkThe guy who wants to talk to the plastics teacher - I can't see any point. All he will tell you is they panel should be made out of urethane. No one here is going to invest $50,000 on a mould to have them injection moulded to sell a bare few of them.

Agreed. Urethane=rich guy/company. Fiberglass=poor guy/homebrewer.

My idea is something very simple and doesn't involve any exotic materials, but rather something unique and probably not thought of (except by madcurl hehehe).

I am just needing the basic shape and dimensions to get started. I could probably just do it off the nose itself, but much easier and more accurate to have the actual chin spoiler.

another alternative is to use a production front nose from different car? (like the Plasma)

[This message has been edited by madcurl (edited 01-23-2007).]

quote Originally posted by Kohburn: after breaking the one on my last GT 3 times - i stopped using fiberglass and epoxy and switched to kevlar and evercoat flexible body putty.. it never broke again

This looks like the best answer. Can we get more information here?

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FierOmar

A better material even than Kevlar is Diolene, (I think you guys over there call it Diolen). It's a polyethylene fibre with properties kind of midway between woven glass and Twaron, (Kevlar). It's normally used sandwiched between layers of glass , though you can use it as a backing material for already constructed 'glass items. Very thin fabric, like Twaron/Kevlar you need special shears to cut it, very easy to mould though, adapts really well.. It has lots of 'give', so if a glass part is damaged the Diolene will hold it together, allowing a much faster repair of the outer surface. Used a lot in boats, canoes and surfboards, because like Twaron as Aus said it's very hard to penetrate. Also used in some stab/ballistic vests to back up Twaron, due to it's lighter weight more layers can be used.

It's what I'll be using to reinforce mine after all the million and one jobs higher up the queue.

Exotise --- You posted this blog. Do you know where or what the chin spoiler is from? What kind of product out of the hardware store?
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FieroMojo (Lansing, MI) came up with an interesting idea. Steve told me but i forget what he used to craft this one. Some type of plastic something he got from the hardware store.





Steve more details??

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I would likke to have the look of the slammed 87GT but without the choptop.

I forget what it is called, but you can find it in the garden section and it comes in a rolled cylinder.

Fiero Mojo can chime in to give u the exact name, but i have seen it personally. If i remember it was only about $10 -20 bucks a roll.

I'm going on season 2 with my chin spoiler and still no breaks (*knock on wood*)

I've only had to repaint it a few times from stone chips..

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