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*Barge Board Installation Warning*

11K views 21 replies 12 participants last post by  Slide00 
#1 ·
*** INSTALLATION WARNING ***

While this doesn't seem to be a common issue with installation, I found on my car an early MY12 that the main body wiring harness routed along the LHS (Driver side on US cars) rocker panel is mounted flush to the lower body. In the region under the door location this is where the Rivnuts are intended to mount. Fortunately I used a collar spot on my drill bit and only slightly snagged the plastic under tray of the harness. This effects 5 hole positions starting in the 6th spot forward of the rear wheel. My solution is to use VHB 3M tape with Rivnuts at the ends. FYI my RHS went on ok, only issue is need to drill into foam block L & RHS in positions 2 and 3 forward of rear wheel. I enclose a pic of harness on LHS, I did further investigation with a fiber optic viewer.

Pic view is from rear wheel well looking forward, foam on left, cooling pipies above, wiring harness, left of yellow band is a Rivnut (postion 4) and other shiny object forward of that and just to left of harness is Rivnut (position 5), you can see as body pinches in next Rivnut (postion 6) would go right through the harness. and create $$$ of damage!
 

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#4 ·
When I installed the bargeboards two years ago, I used the front two holes and just VHA tape for the rest of the length. Last night I had to uninstall the boards and they were still stuck in tight. So I don't think drilling and nuts are necessary.
 
#6 ·
VERY Cool! I love the winglets. I've had a similar design in my head but this blows it away! Tell us more on the fab.
 
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#9 ·
I'm glad y'all like it. I was getting some raised eyebrows from the females round here. Hate to hijack this thread but I don't need to start another one.
I made the front splitter and barge boards from a sheet of 1/4" ABS. Normally I like to work in UHMW but this time I needed some freedom(time) to manipulate the hot plastic.
Ideas came mostly from the Centenario and some canard pics I got offline
First make patterns out of single wall brown. I like it because it's a little thicker than a cereal box and bends well. Regular cardboard doesn't work for me because it won't bend right.
Many trips to the car for fitting and then finally cutting. Turbo kerosene heaters work great for the bends of plastics. The great thing about plastics is that they can be heated and bent many times until you achieve the desired look. After all those sit ups and 24 Stellas, I sanded the edges to 600 grit and painted the
Quartz Silver on to give it the "pizazz "
No vibrating or whistling other than the onlookers! Ha Ha!
Stay tuned for my next how to....
Makin' a diffuser for $35!!
 
#10 ·
For a while I've been thinking about different ways barge boards could be mounted. I obviously wanted to make sure they would be secure but I wasn't too keen on drilling any holes into my car. I also kept coming back to Julian73's warning (above) about drilling during installation and what he found. So, I had to come up with some other means of adding additional support.

I'm pretty familiar with using 3M VHB tape, having used it on many other projects. And, I saw that others have used it successfully during their barge board installs. However, I really didn't want to rely solely on the VHB tape and just the two front (A-Panel) mounting points. I basically wanted a little more security without drilling. So, I decided to use 3M VHB tape with a few other "bolt up bits" I made.

To start, I went with longer (M6-1.0 x25mm) bolts up front at my vented A-Panels to make sure there was enough thread for a good bite. I also added a third bolt into my vented A-Panels so that even if the other two loosen, it can't pull out of the slots. (Off the top of my head I don't remember if the OEM A-panels have a provision for that or not. )

I also made aluminum "mid brackets" that simply mount to the lower pan with longer (M8-1.25 x 25mm) bolts. These brackets now support the barge boards from underneath. Although they could not be mounted at the exact midway point, they still provide quite a bit of support while still being easily removed if the pan has to be dropped.

I liked the look of the rear of the barge board being more flush with the edge of the body. However, by moving the rear tapered section outward, the last mounting hole in the barge board would no longer line up with the body hole. And, since I didn't want to rely on just the 3M VHB tape in the rear either, I made up another simple bracket to space the edge of the barge board out. This bracket enabled me to utilize the 5mm bolt hole location in the body that holds the small bracket for the fender liner scrivets. (I used a longer 5mm bolt with rubber spacers to mount the bracket). However, I had to figure out how to mount the barge board to the bracket without having a thick nut or bolt threads sticking up and causing interference with the car body. So, I used 10-24 stainless steel round base weld nuts from MCMaster-Carr with a pan head machine screw to bolt them together. This meant that the top of the barge board only had a very thin flange where the top of the weld nut is mounted. (The flange is about the same thickness as the 3M VHB tape)

When I applied the 3M VHB tape, I wiped everything with a degreaser, then rubbing alcohol followed by 3M adhesion promoter. I also used 2x2 boards wrapped in towels with 2 bottle jacks that I put under the barge boards overnight to put slight upward pressure and prevent any VHB tape droop.

In the end, I didn't have to drill any holes in my car and I now have the front, mid and rear sections supported by bolts/brackets plus the 3M VHB tape. The additional support cannot be seen unless you crawl under the car and I'm pretty sure the barge boards are not going anywhere, even if the VHB tape fails.

(The car is still apart and on the lift....I'll post better pics in the future..)
 

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#13 ·
I realize how I mounted mine is probably overkill and that the VHB tape is probably more than sufficient as they have used it to install glazing in skyscrapers and trailer sides for years. (And, I know that you track your cars without issue --nice video by the way!). But, I still felt that it would be better to install them with some added security. What I don't know is if the tape was designed to work in an upside down application and failure of the support at highway speeds could be catastrophic. So for the amount of time/work it took, it gives me some extra piece of mind.
 
#14 ·
Well after 1000 miles and riding in a couple heavy rains, my barge boards drooped in the middle. The 3M tape just let go. I guess it wasn't cleaned properly or it could be the lack of surface area. Since it bolts up front and in the back, I made a simple bracket in the middle that just tucked in under one of the panels.
The passengers side doesn't have a lot of tape contact, so I'm going to redo them both and get my pattern better.

The front splitter is held by bolts all the way across and is really strong
The sides would be perfect with some screws shot up through them but I just don't have the
Kahunas to drill up in there!

I am selling the front splitter and the barges as "patterns" for $200+shipping

There will be no hardware or tape provided
If you would like them please pm me for info or additional pics
I take PayPal too
 
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