A little help with wheel skirts?

[Christ]

Originally Posted by instarx

It will work great in Photoshop or whatever, but in real life the wheel and tire extend too far outside of plane of the body panels, especially as the panel curves inward at the bottom.

I'm not sure if that's b/c the van is sitting on an angle right now or not... the suspension in the rear is a solid axle with shocks/leaf springs, so it articulates quite a bit to compensate for angles, which makes the tires stick out from the sides.

But even if I have to compensate by bowing out the panel, that will be fine. It's called "custom fabrication" for a reason, right?

[Christ]

I managed to shave Cara's ass... but even that took a long time. I'm just not up on the Gimp/PhotoChop techniques. Still can't make the rear bumper cover here look like a roll pan and keep the body lines.

[dcb]

Looks like you are getting the idea , gimp just takes time/practice. I cut and paste a lot then use the smudge tool to blend all the little polygons edges. Still havent got the hang of iwarp yet though.

FYI, for the square corner, I just drew a white line (holding the shift key and clicking when the next line segment looked in the right place) where I thought the crease should go then smudged it a bit (the finger looking thing).

[MetroMPG]

Have to admit I don't know what a roll pan is.

[Christ]

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

Have to admit I don't know what a roll pan is.

See the spot where the bumper should be under the tail gate? It was replaced with a roll pan, then shaved (seams welded to make it smooth).

I want to do that with Cara, although primarily for aesthetics, It'll get rid of the parachute effect that the rear bumper has.

I'd like to do it so that I can permanently attach the wheel skirts to it, so it makes a single bolt-on unit, which I believe will be cleaner looking. As it seems, though, I'll probably just make some quick sheet metal covers and then modify it again later.

[MechEngVT]

I'm not so sure it'll be that easy to do a roll pan on a caravan. I'm pretty sure there's bumper structure under that cover that might interfere with a completely smooth/rounded roll pan. You could pop the bumper cover off and have a look, and even if it wasn't fully rounded a shorter cover with less parachute (or maybe a shallow-angle diffuser up to the rear axle?) could wrap-around into wheel/side skirt. I'm thinking vertical to slight rearward taper like behind the Prius' rear wheels.

Really chopping the underhang off the rear bumper to eliminate the parachute and maybe lowering it in the rear could reduce wake size. It would make a shallow diffuser easier and more effective as well. I'm almost certain there are airbag leveling kits for this era van that would retain load-carrying ability even with a 2" or so rear drop.

[dcb]

also worth noting that a round trailing edge is usually worse drag wise than sharp corners afaik

Also not sure why squaring up the rear columns with some bondo and white paint would be "major", but this isnt

[Christ]

I'm not 'bagging the van... not even close to an option, because of the price/output equation. (They're too expensive for what you get/end up with.)

As far as the rear bumper structure, according to Dodge, the van is actually a FWD truck... which means that it doesn't technically need a rear bumper - that notwithstanding, there's still a hidden hitch that goes behind the roll pan, which will allow me to make it smooth and still retain some measure of impact safety in the rear.

[dcb]

yah, but the discussion has kinda left the realm of efficiency.

[Christ]

It wasn't really an efficiency discussion to begin with, I guess... it was more like me asking someone to help with a photochop.

As far as squaring up the rear columns, you just don't use bondo for that type of work. If you have to build it, bondo is not the correct material for the job. More likely would be to make a shaping section of foam, then fiberglass over it, and best option would be to actually bump hammer the whole section of sheet metal into the form that you need, then refine it with a peening hammer and dolly, then use some filler to "straighten" the lines. That's what I call major body work.

EDIT: None of this would be necessary, were I installing a Kamm extension. I still may, since I can make one quite simply, and it won't be anything wasted if the project takes a turn elsewhere.

What I'm actually considering doing here is not even close to any of that - it's cutting a few pieces of metal and riveting them together so that they match the original body lines.

The major body work doesn't come into play until I figure out if the final product will actually even have those rear pillars. It would be kind of pointless to play with them if they weren't going to be there, eh?