Monty is the MAN....

Monty came over and lent me a hand yesterday. He arrived not only eager to get the belly pan in place, but carrying an excellent lunch of pit beef sandwiches and boardwalk fries. We ate and went at it.

I had made two belly skins out of 5052 aluminium. Our first attempt at the street side did not go so well, so after a week of mulling it over we wanted to get the curb side right.

Instead of using force we coersed the sheet into place. We used clecoes to hold it in place as we worked it from the wheel well, back to the rear.

Once all the clecos were in place, I began replacing them with solid rivets. We just took the clecos out one at a time and worked from back to front.

The solid rivets have a gold coating on them that will come off easily.

I found a variety of sizes is important. Most often I was going through two layers of metal and the #4 was perfect for that. Most of the shell attachment required a #5 for I was going through the shell, the belly pan, and the "c" channel. There were a few occations that a #6 was used such as through all the layers and then the stud and into the steel angle that connects the frame, floor, belly pan, "c" channel and shell.