Alpina wheel arch flares got the final price ...

[Guest Anonymous]

I just got back from Ontario Fibreglass in Markham, Ontario and had the actual estimate done by the owner himself Stan Penko. BTW he has fibreglass fenders for Datsun 510, now he is making for another customer molds for the Lotus Seven replica.

Construction of the flares is 2 layer resin gelcoated in black or grey.

He said it will take two to three weeks for everything to be done, but he needs the money upfront and I don't have that kind of money to spare.

okay here is the breakdown.

the cost of making the mold for 4 wheel arches is CDN$800. and it cost CDN$75.00 to make each flare x 4 = CDN$300.00. Now the minimum is 10 sets so divide the cost of the mold into 10 = CDN$80.00 and add the cost to make the set equals a total of CDN$ 380.00 which is equivalent to USD$300.00 (1 CAD = 0.787902 USD). If there are more than 10 '02 guys who want a set of the flares, then the price would be cheaper as the cost of the mold is divided into more sets.

I am not making any money on this and I am not asking for anything in return. In fact I forgot to add my gas and toll money (i take the 407 toll hwy). Just donate any amount you wish(maybe a few beers....a 24 would be nice), but please don't as I will end up with the mold so no need to compensate me.

I am doing this for the good of other '02 enthusiasts who want to have a rare part that is very hard to find nowadays.

If I don't get minimum of 10 sets for this project, I will just put this flares on my car which will be going to the paint shop for a respray.

Sorry but I am not rich so I cannot afford to shoulder the cost of making the mold that is why I am asking you guys if you are really serious about getting a set.

If you are seriously interested send me an email. I accept payments by PayPal. BTW you can trust me on this and I won't stiff you and run away with your money. I am an eBay power seller and have more than 570 good feedbacks under my belt. I go by "dapbmw" eBay.

Dave

[Guest Anonymous]

800 candian = about $630 USD I think.

I have a few years in the composite industry doing a lot of high dollar repair work to composite surfaces including cars and airplanes. Most of the repair we do requires us to build molds from good parts first, and then use those molds to do the repair or make new parts.

$630 usd for 4 big molds isnt a bad price at all. Try to post more details though... is he building the male plug or is he just pulling the molds of something you guys already have? What kind of resins is he going to use? What kind of fiberglass?

I think you will be getting a good deal either way, sounds like the guys got experience so I assume quality would follow. I think if he's done this before and the product turns out good then you'll be getting a really good deal, way better deal then any place I've worked at could give you.

But I will say this, make sure his previous work is good before you shell out cash. There are a lot of hacks out there in this industry that can easily make a living by doing work for less discriminating customers. Try to get him to show you some past molds he's made. Take a really close look at the finish surface on the mold. Any little pinholes or inperfections that he's had to fill in are going to transfer over to the final product, and will have to be filled and painted over by you. It will be easy to tell, because the molds surface material is one color, but any fill work he's had to do after the mold was made will be a different color or different shade... and as a general rule fill work is bad because it shows the mold wasnt made perfect from the start. Also look at the edges to see how sharp and strait of a mold he's making, again ANYTHING you see in the molds is going to be directly transfered to the final product and will likely have to be fixed by the customers.

Also you said it would be a 2 layer layup with a gelcoat. Ask what kind of gelcoat he's using, and what kind of fiberglass. This is suspect for me though, as I would expect to see atleast a 4 layer layup, the first layer down would be a very light weight fiberglass for the finish quality, then after that a min of 3 layers of different direction weaves to get torsional strength. Unless he's using a multidirectional cloth (which would be very bad), then he needs atleast 3 layers of directional cloth in there to get the part ridged in all directions and strong enough to be used as a car part. Doesnt matter how thick of fiberglass he's using, if he's using directional then it simply wont be very strong in some directions (especially for a curved piece) if he only uses 2 layers.

I'm not questioning his ability, as there is a lot of unknown skill out there. You are paying a very low price, so I just wanted to give you a heads up. After all no point in saving money here when you have to turn around and spend lots of time and money to get it to match up to your car and look decent. Just for comparison for a shop that I have worked at to do the same type of job, assuming we had 4 good finders to pull molds from, would cost roughly $2-300 per mold, so about $1000 for the molds then atleast another $3-400 for a set of parts. In addition we would keep the molds. But you would be getting a part that would simply bolt up and be a perfect fit, with a finish that you could leave as is and have last almost forever or paint over.

[Guest Anonymous]

I need to know what the general process involves. Thanks for your efforts and any body-work info you can provide. I am thinking about these for my Inka- but that car has a near perfect paint job. It is excruciating to think about malling my car. Anyway- whatever you know( or anyone else knows about these flares and mounting process ) is greatly appreciated.

[Guest Anonymous]

When I went to see my paint guy last summer and I showed him the flares (he installed turbo wheel arch flares for my buddy Rich so he knows what do already). He told me that they will be blended with the steel body (front fender/rear panel) part of the car, riveted on the body, bondoed/puttied/sanded/painted.

The original stock wheel arches will be removed and about 1-3 inches (depending on how lowered is your car and how wide are your wheels, as in the Alpina converted '02 cars they used 6 or 6.5 x 13 Alpina wheels with an offset of et12 in the front and et6 in the back so the rear wheel does stick out of the stock wheel arches) will be taken off the rear panel following the shape of the wheel arch and the inner and outer fender/panel on the rear will be welded as the rear panel has an inner and outer part.

So basically it follows the same procedure when doing a turbo wheel arch conversion on an '02. I'm pretty sure someone has posted this procedure on the faq already.

I would recommend that you measure everything to be sure but the 1-3 inches would be the range?

I have two sets of Alpina's one 6x13 et 12 front, 6.5 et 6 rear, and the 6 x 15 front and 7 x 15 rear et 12 and my car sits about 1 1/2 inch lower so all of these things I will have to factor in when I start cutting my wheel arches.

My '02 bodywise is also good no rust so it pains me to cut those rust free wheel arches, anyway they can be sold/donated to another '02 guy who needs it so in a way they will not go to waste and it will fund part of your purchase too.

[Guest Anonymous]

(nt)

[Guest Anonymous]

GW,

I spent an hour at Ontario Fibreglass just looking and admiring various body panels he makes and the molds for some street and race cars. He specializes in Corvettes too and he has been doing this for more than 25 years.

He also showed me the body panels he made for Markus Glarner (he recommended this guy to me) for the M1, CSL, E30 M3, PTG Racing E36 M3 (they replaced the original carbon fiber panels with fibreglass).

They looked very nice and I did not see any pinholes.

BTW he gave me a discount as I told him I was a friend and former employee (I worked there for a year and a half) of Markus. He said he usually charges the industry rate of CDN$75/hr but he will charge me less as Markus has been his customer for more than 15 years.

The panels which the mold will be made of are original Alpina and are brand new (NOS) never installed and they are of two layer multidirectional fibreglass and it is thin about 1/16" or 2-3mm. Stan told me that he will do the same type of construction with the copies.

You said that multidirectional is better and this is what he is using as I saw the big long rolls of this material. He has a very large spray booth to apply gelcoat?

I don't know what you meant by male plug, but I am assuming that the male plug goes over the panel/s to be copied?

[Guest Anonymous]

one more thing i did look at some molds and they don't have fill-in meaning there were no imperfections or pinholes as most of his molds were all bright yellow in color and i did not see and patches or fill-in.

[Guest Anonymous]

it was in my earlier post.....they were to welded together of course some filling up with sheet metal or brazing?

sorry i am not a body guy...but i saw the '02 of my buddy before he put the turbo wheel arches and they were shaped like the wheel arch (half round) but with out the edges/lip

[Guest Anonymous]

I just finished installing my turbo flares which should be a similar install. Using a plasma cutter (you could do this with a sawsall), I traced right along the top portion of the wheel arch, cutting through both layers. Then, I took my air nibbler and increased the cut on the outside layer by another 1.5-2". I took a dead blow hammer and reformed the inner layer so that it mates with the outer layer and tacked them together. I had to segment the inner layer to get it to conform to the tighter radius. Once I persuaded the inner layer over to the outter layer I tack welded them together and cut off the overlap. Finished off by welding the seam and grinding to make look reasonably pretty.

[Guest Anonymous]

Dave: This was the same outfit that repaired my

fiberglass air-dam. He did a fine job. Does he

still have his mad-dog watching the front-office?

The first time I walked into his shop, that thing

charged at me and I nearly sh*t in my pants. He tells

me the dog is harmless, but the foam drooling from his mouth made me think otherwise....

[Guest Anonymous]

2 layers of multi directional glass will be fine. I'm used to dealing with high stress areas in airplane skins and such, and in this respect multi directional is not acceptable. For high strength stuff you need to use single or bi directional cloth, and you also need to do a more complecated lay up and pay attention to the direction the glass is going on. But for simple car finders the multidirectional cloth should be ok.

Basically if you've seen his work before and it all looks good and fits right then that should be enough. The resins and type of glass he's using along with the mold types is important stuff, but if he's already got it down then no worries about asking him. I was curious though because it sounded like you were getting it done really cheap, and I wasnt sure of this guys background. Given what you said about him though I think you will be happy with the product, sounds like the guy knows whats up.

[Guest Anonymous]

what I ment by male plug was what he's getting the molds from. You can either pull a mold off of an actual part like he's doing, or build and shape what the actual part will look like out of wood or foam and pull a mold from that. Obviously pulling molds from the original is the way to go. But, your finished product is only as good as your molds, and your molds are only as good as the master plugs they were pulled from. I assume he's going to fill in the finders you have now to make them very stiff, then paint and sand them to a really smooth perfect finish, then use that to pull molds from. This is the normal way to do this type of thing and should work well for what you guys want.

[Guest Anonymous]

I'd agree with your statements... I myself being in the composite industry for over 14 years now. If I was going to do the job I'd make the tools out of aluminum on our CNC and then press the pieces in our 300 ton presses. Using pre-pregs would make a far lighter and more durable part... but the cost would be at least 4 times that of a wet layup item. Figure $4K+ for tools and $500-$600 a set. But they'd be perfect!

I too would say the parts should be at least 4 layers...two layers of a heavy glass matt would not be very strong. I'd probably use .010 thick 7781 weave glass and use 10 layers to make it durable enough. Weight is not a big issue being they are small items... but you could use carbon weave to make it a bit lighter if you want.

Good luck on the project!

WH

[Guest Anonymous]

(nt)

[Guest Anonymous]

Hello guys,

I´ve been reading these posts about this whole process of making copies of the Alpina small arches extensions and spoiler with special interest.

Must say I work with fiberglass carbon/kevlar on a daily basis, making molds and parts for bykes and race cars( Mazda MX-5 miata, Lola T70, Chevron B19, Porsche 911 GT3-R... )

It´s a good deal if quality is good.

There are a lot of badly made fiber parts specially for race cars, I deal with it many times when doing repairs. Most times the process benefits profit instead of quality(if it breaks easly it will sell more!!!)

Regarding the layers, when you guys say multi direction you mean choped strand mat, right?? see link:

http://www.fibreglast.com/showproducts-category-Fiberglass+Mats%2C+Scrim%2C+and+Mat+Tapes-13.html

It should use 1-1/1oz/Yd chopped strand mat:

- 2 layers - for lightweight racing purposes

- 3 layers - for street use

- 3 layers fiber and a final layer of carbon fiber- for the best strenght! the arches have a +/-rounded edge shape wich in conjunction with carbon makes it VERY strong.

-4 of these layers could be very thick and then would be a bit more difficult to apply to the steel panel(the panel would have to be more beaten inside, and a bit more filler used(bad). sometimes the fiber won´t crack and rivets won´t pop out but the filler will crack, no biggie just a paint job. Less filler the better!

I also agree that the first layer should be a thin low weight layer for blistering preventing, I always use this when making new parts.(except on clear gelcoat carbon or kevlar ones)

Material isn´t very expensive so there is no reason to make thin parts ;-)

Now you can ask: “Beeing an 02er and working on fibers for about 7 years now, why the hell haven´t you made some 02 stuff already?!” Don´t know either, maybe it´s because the effort on making a big mold with less than perfect panel(models, male, whatever) doesn´t make sense. not easy to get hands on panels, usually fellows won´t risk putting their perfect hood and trunk lids on my hands!

My 02 friends here in Portugal ask me a lot and I always ask them back when are they bringing some good panels to make a mold :-)

If I were nearer you guys I would make the mold free of charge and not even ask for a minimum of sets for doing some for you guys, at a cheaper price just because I´m a 02er and would really like to have those flares on mine(damn those 7” rear wheels!)

Dapbmw, If you want you can send the flares and I will send you a free set with the original ones. you just pay shipping and get a new set of them.

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