Del Sol, Underbelly Pan

[euromodder]

Originally Posted by Otto

2. Control arms move up and down, and make drag hanging in the breeze. Since Coroplast is flexible, would it work to tie panels of it to the control arms, that move up and down with the control arms? Such panels could be fixed at their forward (upwind) positions, and their trailing edges be tied to the control arms. Perhaps elastic ties could be used, to stretch a bit as the control arm/Coro fairing move up and down.

Why not use overlapping panels, with the front panel being fixed at the front, and flexibly mounted below the control arms and at the rear by inverted T-shaped supports running through lengthwise slits in the coroplast ?

[Otto]

Originally Posted by euromodder

Why not use overlapping panels, with the front panel being fixed at the front, and flexibly mounted below the control arms and at the rear by inverted T-shaped supports running through lengthwise slits in the coroplast ?

That's basically what I had in mind, overlapping panels that move up and down with the control arm. Think: Big fish scales or bird feathers, overlapping like roof shingles. Thin coro. oughta flex pretty good.

T-shaped supports might not be needed if you slip some skinny wood dowel rods of correct size into the coro. flutes, where needed.

On the coro, if too close to a hot spot from exhaust, etc. put some aluminum foil tape on, which both reflects heat and dissipates it, alu. being an excellent heat conductor. ~$3/roll at hardware store

UV not a problem whatever, under the car. Coro. is, after all, designed for outdoor realtor and political signs.

Again, the reason I like white is cuz you can easily see and trace leaks or seeps. Instead of just some dark wet spot in the dim recesses of the engine bay, you can see green coolant stain, red brake fluid, brown oil, etc.. Wipe off with sponge, so next time you look you know if it's a new stain or not. Also helps when you drop some washer or nut Lord knows where down there.

[jedi_sol]

Guess what i found in my back warehouse? Foil tape! Why the hell do we have this?

Dowels in the coro flutes is a great idea, i wouldve never thought of it.

Damn i thought i was finished with the under/car work.

[Otto]

Originally Posted by jedi_sol

Guess what i found in my back warehouse? Foil tape! Why the hell do we have this?

Dowels in the coro flutes is a great idea, i wouldve never thought of it.

Damn i thought i was finished with the under/car work.

Nice neat foil tape on edges of Coro would look real purdy, and keep tiny little spiders from hiding in the flutes, too. I plan to use the stuff to edge a NACA duct made with a carpet knife, to cool the oil pan on my old Porsche.

[jedi_sol]

The piece on the left, i guess, has been catching the wind and snapped the zip tie. Which explains the annoying scraping noise for the past week


Stopped by home depot and bought a piece of aluminum sheet metal. Attached it to the front piece so now the air should flow smoothly in that section. And since its aluminum, heat from the exhaust pipe shouldn't be a problem.



Now Im tempted to cover the entire exhaust with aluminum sheet metal

Also lined the edges near the exhaust with foil tape.

[Punchanello]

I realize the last post on this thread was like a year ago, but I was wondering if there was follow-up info on how the aluminum sheets held up covering the exhaust pipe. I'm considering doing a belly pan on my Del Slow using aluminum flashing. And I'm a bit concerned about covering over the pipes and how that might effect the car And pipes in the long run.
Was there an increase in internal heat? Did or would the heat of the pipes be conducted across all the metal keeping things cooler? Should space be left around the cat. converter? Any feedback is appreciated.

Thanks,
Punch

[sjr]

I LIKE THE BLACK so there

[jedi_sol]

Originally Posted by Punchanello

I realize the last post on this thread was like a year ago, but I was wondering if there was follow-up info on how the aluminum sheets held up covering the exhaust pipe. I'm considering doing a belly pan on my Del Slow using aluminum flashing. And I'm a bit concerned about covering over the pipes and how that might effect the car And pipes in the long run.
Was there an increase in internal heat? Did or would the heat of the pipes be conducted across all the metal keeping things cooler? Should space be left around the cat. converter? Any feedback is appreciated.

Thanks,
Punch

I'm actually only using one sheet of aluminum to cover that ONE section of exhaust piping to connect the front and rear section of corplast, and it is holding up very well in terms of heat. Otherwise, I have about 3-4 inches of clearance between the coroplast and exhaust pipes and have not had any issues of heat melting the corplast either.

Aluminum is an excellent conductor of heat, but one of the concerns people have with underbelly trays if you were to have an exhaust leak, there is no where for the exhaust fumes to go but into the passenger cabin area. I didn't want to take that risk, therefore I left the bulk of the exhaust pipes uncovered and only lined front, sides, and rear of under the car with coroplast.

[Punchanello]

Thanks for giving me a more complete picture of how far you went with your belly pan. I'm still working on getting my Del Sol's engine and mechanics back into as good a shape as I can and then I'll begin working on the underbelly.

I know this is kinda off topic but your grill block was done out of Coroplast as well right? How did you attach it?

[jedi_sol]

Originally Posted by Punchanello

I know this is kinda off topic but your grill block was done out of Coroplast as well right? How did you attach it?

Version 1.0 was attached using clear packing tape.


Version 2.0 was attached using L-brackets from home depot and some bolts and nuts.

Version 3.0 (current), is a made out of of coroplast/fiberglass and shaped to fit the grille opening a lot better. Then used bondo to fill up the gaps and clean up the edges. It's still attached using L-Brackets/bolts/nuts.




I didn't put enough layers of fiberglass so it is warping on its own, but its been too cold this winter to continue working on it. Hopefully i'll get around to fixing it in the spring time.

As far as mounting points for the L-Brackets, i screwed them into that horizontal bar that runs along the middle of the grille opening.