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HomeBodyMounting
       
With body being made out of multiple panels, we needed them to be easy removable for maintenance of replacement n case of accident. Therefore the mounting needed to be done with bolts rather then bonding method or welded onto the frame with embedded metal pieces into the panels.

With the exception of the windshield frame/surround / and A pillar which is bonded onto the windshield frame A pillar sub frame with poly urethane. All remaining panels are bolted directly to the chassis. In order to do that the chassis was made in a way that strategically located mounting tabs and weld in nuts into the chassis tubes are virtually leaning against the panels. There small gaps left to either fill in with fiberglass filler to compensate for variations in panel thicknesses or just to have a smooth surface to mate against a tube when then was cushioned with rubber as anti-vibration or make it water tight.

With the panels being bolted directly onto the chassis, the added benefit was that all of the chassis tubes where able to be pushed as far out as possible thus providing biggest possible space for creature comfort plus making as much space as possible to the systems.


Panel to chassis mounting


Picture to the left shows off typical panel to tube mounting with welded in rod that is drilled through and tapped to receive a mounting bolt illustrated by the thick blue line.
The brown line is a body panel, flat on outside and surface variation towards the tube.
white void is area filled in with filler making part of the body panel
The black line is the rubber or foam membrane that prevents squeaking and makes water tight

Gray is a bolt with oversized washer against the fiberglass  preventing possible cracks in the panel.


Similar process is applied to panels that are bolted to a tab rather then a tube but over a smaller area of the body panel




 





Panel to Panel mounting


Panel to panel mounting are bit different of how they are mounted or bolted together.
Main reason  for doing so is that there is no chassis that the panels or joints between the panels that could be bolted to.
The panels have fiber glassed in metal standoffs on each panel directly facing each other. Those stand offs are also welded into a sheet metal which painted to prevent rusting. One side is over drilled so that bolt would thigtly fit into the hole and other stand off is threaded. So by having 2 or more of this type of stand offs that are bolted together provides ridgity to the mounting from vibrating or moving around. From picture above the yellow line is the gel coat or paint that's on the panel.  In blue is the sheet metal and stand offs that are fiber glassed in and represented by the brown area.

One of the mounts is between rocker and quarter panels. The panel joints are of triangular shape and having 3 bolts. This way the panels can not bowl or twist and thus not making the contour of the body to change.

Second place where this type of joint is used is with lower diffuser. However in this case the diffuser is bolted to the chassis. Then lower part of quarter panels are then bolted with 2 bolts on each side to the diffuser. In this situation, with diffuser being mounted to the chassis prevents moving sideways and having 2 bolts on the sides prevents the diffuser and in a way quarter panels from sagin beging the rear wheel



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Panel bonding  (windshield frame)
There is only one body part that is bonded to a frame and that's the windshield frame it self. As the windshield frame and A pillars are one unit and  made to me removable by removing few bolts that are used to fasten it to the main chassis. It is possible to have the windshield frame and body panel bonded to each other.

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Panel frame reinforcement
With some larger panels like engine lid, front trunk, doors and roof there is a metal frame that is bonded into the body component doors specifically or sandwiched between 2 fiberglass panels. The metal frame adds mounting points for bolts and also provides re-inforcment to the large fiberglass panel.


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