Bonnet latches, cycle wings and grill

Bonnet latches

Also straightforward, I found that the centerlines for the rivets on the two halves of the mechanism should be 53 mm apart for a good solid clasp (found by trial and error prior to attaching to the body).

marking up for the latches. More holes in the bodywork

No access to the rear for the bottom half, so no way to add spreader washers, hopefully the fact that it has three rivets will spread the load a little.

GRP cycle wings

Bonded the big head bolts to the underside of the grip cycle wings. I shortened them as much as I could beforehand (when bolted on with nyloc nuts there are no threads showing, so hopefully they will be secure). The steps were:

• Enlarge holes in brackets
• cover brackets with saran wrap/cling film to stop the bolts sticking to them
• insert big heads in holes, apply JB Weld (epoxy) and fit cycle wings, measuring from the front of each wing to the first bracket to ensure they were the same (200mm in my case)
• Wait overnight for the epoxy to really set up then wrestle off the cycle wings. Although not as flexible as the carbon effect jobbies, there is still enough flexibility (with the enlarged holes and shortened bolts) to remove them (pulling the rear bracket forward a little bit also helps). I found it easiest to get the fronts out first, followed by the rears.

Big heads after bonding

not much thread poking through after shortening

• I then added a couple of layers of fiberglass mat and resin, and ran a die down the threads to clean them before the resin was completely hardened.
• After an hour or so I was able to mount them on the brackets.

Refitting the wheels was a bit of a struggle, as the grp wings seem to be a bit narrower than the carbon effect ones and the sides come down a bit further, so it was quite a tight fit. I had to bend the brackets out slightly so they didn't rub.

Grill (or is it grille?)

tie downs made from bent electrical wire, bonded in place

While I was working with the glassfibre, I bonded in some tie downs I made from electrical wire into the nose, so I could have an invisible fitting to the grill.



It really gives a very neat finish compared to the factory approach of drilling holes in the nose and threading tie-wraps through. The grill was secured with four tie-wraps from the inside.

The finished grill