The Panel Shop Blog

A “new” piece of equipment arrived at the shop recently. Mark found a punch press for sale from a local shop. Having a machine capable of punching holes in sheet metal at “The Panel Shop” can offer limitless possibilities, and the first order of business is to set it up for making louvers. Mark and Steve have a hand operated press that made these louvers before, but having this machine makes it a much easier task.

The shape and the length of the louver is formed by a custom die and punch fabricated to fit this new machine.

An example of what “The Panel Shop” can do is this hood for an E-type lightweight Jaguar bonnet.

Speaking of Jaguar sheet metal, The Panel Shop also has rear boot lid and wing sections in aluminum for an E-type.

A Flat Floor Series I Jaguar E-Type was delivered to the shop several weeks ago. From all external appearances, it looked like a nice car, but on closer inspection, there were some problems.

The floors were replaced by a previous shop, but were brazed in place, and not very well at that. Brazing is a process where metal is heated and joined by a filler rod made of a material with a lower melting temperature like brass. Think of soldering but instead of using lead/tin, brass is the filler material. The problem with this method is it fuses metal together with the filler material instead of melting the joining base material. Welding creates a much stronger bond, and when done right, makes for a more permanent repair. Since the E-type has a unitized body, the stronger welds will also preserve the structural integrity of the car. The Panel Shop is installing new floors by welding them in place, and removing the old work.

New cross members were also fabricated and welded in place to further restore strength in the floor of this car.

We had two very rare cars side by side at the Panel Shop. This Cisitalia convertible is undergoing some major panel replacements. The tail section has been repaired, fabricated, and completed.

The rockers and front fenders are next. When this is completed, Steve will move onto the nose of the car where a lot collision damage will have to be addressed.

Its neighbor is a Bugattt, which at first glance may look slab sided, but has subtle curves that converge in towards the very recognizable Bugatti tail.

The panels attach to the car very differently compared to the Cisitalia as these cars use a lot of wood to construct the inner structure.

A 1947 Rolls Royce Silver Wraith is in the shop for some major metal and wood work.

A lot of the ash frame members have rotted away, and previous repairs tried to patch some of the rot. The problem was the rotted wood required some of the aluminum panels to be removed to properly fix the wood support, and the previous repair didn’t want to go that far into the substructure.

Cutting out this piece to expose the door’s support structure allows for a better repair and not a patch of wood that should really be replaced.

The Silver Wraith has a large running board that ties into the front fender section, and has already been roughly fabricated. This will be attached when the rocker section is repaired, and the front fender is hung.

Repairs were also made to the front fenders, grafting aluminum to the original fender where there was corrosion.

An interesting and challenging project came to the Panel Shop. A company making Pre-War French Automobile inspired hot rods asked the Panel Shop to make a set of steel trim pieces for a pair of fiberglass fenders. Even though the complex shape they were making for this car could be made in Fiberglass, the trim pieces still needed to be in steel so they could be chromed.

There was some pretty complex metal forming to make these pieces, but Mark was up to the challenge.

Even though these fenders were made out of fiberglass they didn’t necessarily match side to side, so each trim piece had to made to match each fender. I can’t wait to see how they look when they get chromed!

The Lusso doors were in pretty good shape, but because the door skins are aluminum and the door frame is steel, electrolytic corrosion tends to take place wherever there is moisture. Water tends to collect at the bottom of the doors and this where bubbling will occur on new paint job a few years down the road. Scaglietti or Pininfarina sometimes used primer, and often times used nothing between these surfaces, but after over 40 years, it’s time to address these surfaces.

The Panel Shop cut the bottom edge of the door out and fabricated a new piece of aluminum to weld into place.

The old piece is showing signs of corrosion which would have eventually rotted through. With new epoxy sealers on the steel and aluminum surfaces, the owner will have a paint job that will not bubble at the bottom of the doors.

There was a very twisted piece of sheet metal laying on the work bench. There was such a severe twist to the panel, it almost looked like a mistake…

…but when Mark fitted the rocker panel to a Ferrari Lusso, it soon became clear how it fit perfectly to the car.

With the panel fitted to the car, the twist and curve of the sheet metal it not as evident, but making this panel fit to the body, and recreating the correct profile takes a good eye and the right knowledge to make this panel right!

A 1970 Chevron B16 Spyder, or should I say, The ONLY B16 Chevron Spyder was at the shop getting some body panels repaired.

This one off race car was driven by Brian Redman in 1970, and we were honored to have it at the shop.

We repaired some damage to the side pods.

Here it is ready for paint.

We had to fix some poor previous repairs done to the nose of this Aston Martin DB5

We have jigs to properly remake the correct profiles for DB5s, DBS’ and V8 cars.

Even with correct jigs to align the work, it still take a good eye to make these hand made cars look correct.

A “C Type” Jaguar was at the shop to correct a poorly fitting intake plenum.

The alignment of the intake plenum never really lined up with the body as the bo